“Yes,” I moaned.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he growled.
I stared across his neat desk, which we were steadily making a mess of. Out the window overlooking Vyaan, it was a chilled but beautiful day. The first snowfall might come today, and I wanted to watch it out on the balcony with Kaldur, warm in his arms.
“I’m yours,” I whispered, my heart squeezing with the words.
“I know, my love,” he murmured, his front coming down on top of me so I could feel the length of him, though he was mindful of the pressure because of the baby. His lips pressed a sweet kiss to my temple, completely at odds with the hard, claiming strokes between my thighs. “Always. So. Fucking. Good.”
“Going to come,” I breathed, feeling the familiar tightening in my abdomen.
The prick of Kaldur’s fangs came, the familiar dizzying pull of his feeding as his venom flowed into me. I cried out, the orgasm ripping through me immediately. I heard his bellow, muffled against my skin, his hips jerking, his rhythm going choppy.
When it was over, I let out a tired, delighted laugh. He caughthis breath quickly, his recovery much more swift than mine, pressing a kiss to his bite on my neck.
“Mine,” he said quietly. The word drifted over my skin before it settled comfortably.
Tears welled in my gaze, but they weren’t unhappy tears.
“Yours,” I whispered.
The first snowfalldid come that night, and I was, in fact, bundled in Kaldur’s arms out on the balcony. Pure white, fluffy flakes were falling beyond the covered balcony, and Kaldur was watching me quietly as I sketched the scene. Or tried to. I would never quite capture its quiet serenity or the way I felt in that singular moment: protected, warm, and encouraged.
Kaldur had been absent since our afternoon in his study, his attention having been pulled away toward the South Road. Specifically about thelyvins.He’d hired a team to draw the pack away, deeper into the forest, into another habitable locationnotnear a populated village.
The South Road was currently being built toward his brother’s territory of Salaire. Thaine. The brother he’d told me he was closest to, the brother he’d taken his scar for, the brother he said I would be meeting quite soon.
“I like watching you draw,” came his sweet, soft words. “Even the scratching of your pencil is soothing to me. Your movements are so certain. I don’t know how you do it. I could never be still as a child, and yet I could sit here forever watching you.”
I bit back my smile, turning a little to regard him. Our faces were close. I was sitting sideways across his lap, his arm bracing around my back as support, and he’d brought out two blankets. One to drape over my shoulders but allowed my hands to be free, and the other was carefully tucked around my lap. I was warm enough with the blankets, but coupled with Kaldur’s heat and itfelt like a summer day. The baby was moving again, Kaldur’s hand resting on the swell.
I looked back to my drawing, trying to see it from his perspective. I thought it was simple, if a little messy. I shaded in the moon a bit more, adding charcoal to the left side, rubbing at it with the pad of my fingertip to blend a harsh line.
“Another week and the moon winds will be here,” I commented.
Almost a month I’d been back in Vyaan. How fast it had gone by. This time last month I’d still been in Laras…and yet everything had changed.
Well, not everything. Luc was still being a little stubborn about accepting Kaldur’s assistance. But Kaldur assured me that whoever he had in correspondence with my brother would make him see reason.
Give him time,Kaldur had told me, just a few days ago, when I’d wanted to write a letter to Luc myself.If he’s anything like how I imagine, he needs time.
Luc didn’t trust it. I knew that. A stranger appearing out of nowhere and offering to give him his dream back? Everything he’d lost? At no cost, with no strings? Of course he would be wary.
If he didn’t accept after the moon winds, Kaldur told me he’d personally travel to Laras. Or have Azur speak with him if Ekor didn’t think it was a good idea for him to be gone.
I’d agreed in the end, knowing that Kaldur was right. I was learning that he had a very diplomatic and almost patient way of dealing with most issues, especially when it came to matters concerning Vyaan or the Kaalium. I understood now why he made such a good leader, why nearly all the nobles I’d ever come across seemed to respect his position there. He worked incredibly hard—sometimes too hard and at his own expense, like with thelyvinattack.
“I would like to have a gathering here on the moon winds,”Kaldur told me, capturing my attention again. “What do you think?”
He was asking me?
“Then you should,” I replied.
“You could invite Syndras,” he suggested. “I believe that Thaine will come. He wants to meet you. All my siblings do.”
That made another jolt of nerves go through me, even though I would be both equally excited and trepidatious of meeting them.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, no doubt sensing the way my body went a little tight. When I hesitated, he pressed with, “Tell me. I want to know, even if you think I won’t like it. I want us to be honest. In all things. Are you worried he won’t like you?”
