“You would have molded her into what you thought she needed to become, and it would be a lie she’d have hated you for. The girl needed to find herself first before returning to her birthplace.”
“She’s sixteen. She knows nothing of what we intend for her. She wants to be an engineer.”
“Of course she does.” Aaralyn set down the message and spread her fingers over the paper, the words on its face shining bright like stars. “What better thing to build than the world?”
Nine
BLAINE
Cap pulled low over his face, Blaine looked both ways down the street before unlocking the side gate and slipping past the iron fence that surrounded the E’ridian embassy in Amari.
He’d been given a key to the entrance by the current ambassador, who had held the post for the past few years. Blaine had heard from Brielle that the ambassador had been recently recalled, and he didn’t know who was the replacement.
The embassy was the size of two city blocks, one-third of that space committed to the hangar. Blaine’s destination was the third floor of the main building, where the long room dedicated to telegraph machines was located. He didn’t care for the hangar. His father had been murdered there, after all, and Blaine didn’t want to walk where he’d died.
Blaine dodged around the illumination from gas lamps on his way to the side door where deliveries were handled for the embassy. The guards patrolling the grounds were some of the few people Blaine ever came into contact with, and they knew to let him pass. Mind magic ensured they’d forget he’d ever been there, and that precaution still left a sour taste in his mouth. Lore had been adamant about it, and theComhairle nan Cinnidheanhad reluctantly allowed for the interference.
Better the clans as a whole knew nothing about what he did to their people for their own safety. Blaine knew plausible deniability was important when it came to subterfuge.
Pulling the key out of his pocket, Blaine unlocked the side door he’d come upon and entered the embassy. He pulled a gaslight from his satchel and turned it on, letting it guide his way to the telegraph room.
The embassy staff slept elsewhere, in a cluster of buildings located several streets over in a more residential section of the city. The Promenade on both sides of the river had become commercial and civic areas over time, save for the land held by some of the oldest bloodlines. That meant no one should have been around other than the guards, so it was a shock to find the telegraph room occupied at this hour.
Even more shocking was who greeted him.
“Hello, Blaine,” Honovi said from his spot at a work desk close to the door.
The gaslight nearly fell from Blaine’s hand before he remembered to tighten his grip. He stared in shock at where his husband sat, not comprehending the sight for a few long moments. Then he shook his head, taking an uncertain step into the room.
“Honovi? What—how are you here?” Blaine asked, speaking E’ridian for the first time in months and months.
“I told you I’d find a way to come west and be with you.”
Blaine drank in the sight of his husband, taking in the kilt and the fitted jacket with its plaid hanging off his shoulders, the torc around his throat that hadn’t ever been removed. Blaine keenly felt the absence of his own mark of their marriage, had missed it since the moment Honovi had taken it off to keep it safe in their home.
Honovi stood, the small gas lamp on the desk throwing shadows across his face. “I knew I couldn’t visit you at that school or send a message. The previous ambassador said you came once every two weeks or so to send your reports, but she said the day always changed. I’ve stayed late every night this week waiting for you.”
He looked—exactly how Blaine had left him standing on that dock in Glencoe’s airfield a year ago. He looked like home, and Blaine didn’t waste any time standing in the doorway. He closed the distance between them in a handful of strides, practically throwing himself at his husband. Honovi met him halfway, kissing him with a ferocity that spoke of counting every night they’d been apart and hating the absence of each other in their separate beds.
“What are you doing here?” Blaine asked between breathless kisses.
“I’m the new ambassador to Ashion,” Honovi replied, the words mumbled against Blaine’s lips.
“You’re ajarl.”
“I can be both.”
“Honovi—”
His husband growled something wordless before pushing Blaine backward and up against the nearest wall. A heavy hand pressed against his chest, keeping him in place as Honovi kissed his way down Blaine’s throat for a few glorious seconds before falling to his knees. Blaine dropped the gaslight and didn’t care where it landed, too busy reaching for Honovi’s braid to grip it instead.
He’d dreamed about his husband’s touch—about his mouth—but those half-remembered moments that fled in the light of day paled to reality. Blaine’s head smacked against the wall when Honovi got his trousers undone and shoved down his hips, warm lips sucking at the tip of his cock. He slapped his hand over his mouth, biting down on the meat of his palm there as Honovi swallowed him down like a starving man.
Blaine wasn’t going to last, not after a year of falling asleep in an empty bed, not with Honovi’s mouth working him over with a sureness that almost hurt. Honovi drew Blaine’s orgasm out of him in minutes, leaving him panting and wrung out and barely able to string two words together.
He still had enough sense of mind to pull on Honovi’s braid and drag his husband to his feet. Blaine tugged him into a messy kiss, tasting himself on Honovi’s tongue. Honovi pressed up against him, bracketing him in, and Blaine didn’t want to be anywhere else but where he stood right then.
“I missed you,” Honovi said, dragging his nose over Blaine’s cheek to kiss his temple.
