“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”
Carefully, so not to startle him, her fingers ran down his arms where rough patches of scales broke up his mostly human form. She traced the lines of his back where wing met muscle. Touched the very tips of the horns protruding from his skull. Kissed the tip of his nose.
All this time, Midas’ hands never left her waist, but Elowen felt his hands pressing harder as she explored the upper planes of his chest.
She smiled softly. “You are so careful with me.”
“I must be,” he said immediately. “You are too breakable.”
“Are you afraid of hurting me?”
“Yes.”
Her thumb met his bottom lip, and she watched as she traced it before meeting his eyes again. “I’m not.”
“Not breakable?” he asked.
“Notafraid.”
Midas did not know what to do with that, and so a silence bloomed between them, but it was warm.
Elowen leaned forward again, but this time, she didn’t kiss him. Instead, she buried her face in his neck and held him. He wrapped his arms around her with uncharacteristic gentleness, his hands sliding up and down her spine in steady lines.
He could feel the raised skin beneath her dress, of the marks the humans put on her. Anger flared in his chest, but he held her tighter and nuzzled into her hair with his human nose.
They stayed there like that, pressed heart-to-heart, while fire danced across the walls.
Twenty-Five
Midas had knownfire in every form. It was in his veins, in his throat, in his heart. He had felt it in his belly before a hunt, in his chest before battle, in his wings as he soared above cruel human villages.
But nothing in the world had prepared him for the fire that curled low in his spine as Elowen’s fingers moved over his skin. She traced his back, pausing where each scale up his spine met his flesh. She studied it with her fingers, memorizing every groove and ridge.
She touched him as if he were sacred. Her hands were so small and delicate compared to him, and Midas often felt himself quietly drifting to sleep under her tender touches.
What cruelty it was, to put him under such a spell with nothing but a touch. It was unnatural for him to be so…soft; and yet he was for her.
Elowen heard the heavy rain from where they were lounging. It pounded against the cave mouth, and the wind howled as it snaked through the tunnels. A heavy gustreached them, but she simply hummed, content with the way none of it chilled her.
“You’re so warm,” she whispered against the top of Midas’ head. He was resting with it against her chest, his hands splayed against her back, and their legs tangled together. His tail flicked at her voice.
He grumbled back to her, pleased, and whispered against her sternum. “I will always keep you warm.”
She watched his tail move in a circular motion. She had learned that it was not just a part of his body, but it was a form of expression, too. It twitched when he was irritated, it swayed when he was relaxed, and it curled protectively around her like another arm whenever it could, like instinct more than conscious thought.
He sighed into her chest once more, then lifted his head to look at her. Something inside of him compelled him to kiss her, and so he pressed his lips to the underside of her chin. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling. He didn’t have the human words for it, but he knew thatshemade him feel it. His fingers left the underside of her and flipped them so he was the one now on his back.
She made a soft sound of surprise at the movement, but settled quickly on top of him, looking at him as if he had hung the stars in the sky for her. He caressed her cheek with the backside of his hand. Her lips found his palm.
What they were sharing was not passion the way the humans defined it. It was everything he didn’t know he was craving after all those years of loneliness.
But Elowen had given it to him. She had always given him nothing but the best, most beautiful parts of her.
Her lips found the line of his jaw, the corner of hismouth, and then settled over his. Midas kissed her with open eyes. He watched the way hers fluttered shut. He watched the flush rise to her cheeks. He felt her relax, bit by bit, as if laying down burdens he never knew she carried, trusting him to carry them for her.
When she pulled back, breathless and blinking, her smile was so gentle he thought he might die from it.
“You are beauty,” he said to her.
