He stared up into the stormy sky, breathing in shallow, labored gasps. He gritted his teeth so hard, I feared he’d break his fangs. His muscles were so tense, it felt like I lay on a slab of granite. But he kept still.
Did he hear me? Did he know I was here? Did he realize he’d break every bone in my body if he thrashed again?
“Just breathe,” I whispered, stroking his cheeks. “Just like that.”
I drew in long, measured breaths, as if I could breathe for him. I wished I could take his pain away. I wished he could feel how much I wanted it.
My heart squeezed with compassion, and I wanted him to feel it too.
“Feel me, Timur. Please?” I glided my hands over his upper arms where the shadow fae had their tendrils.
His right bicep was entirely covered by hard, unyielding scales. Chances were he had no more tendrils at all. I touched his left arm. Soft skin and hard muscles were still here—live flesh, the same as every other fae had.
Pain had overwhelmed his senses, and I had nothing to give him to ease the agony, only the distraction of my own emotions.
“Feel me…” I lay down on him, pressing my right arm to his left.
Bending my arm, I kept caressing his skin, right where the tendrils should be…if he still had any.
Something whispered between my fingers, softly touching them. I jerked my head up. Tiny filaments of shadows curled above his skin on his left arm. They were short, no longer than my fingers, but my hope bloomed.
“Oh yes, there you are,” I whispered, moving my fingers among them gently, to coax them out. “Come, just a little bit longer.”
Just one slim cluster of wispy shadows emerged from his upper arm. It barely grew, flickering in and out of life as if it hadn’t been used for so long that it had forgotten how to exist.
“Come out, please…” I begged.
Lying flat against Timur again, I stretched my right arm along his left one, aligning my upperleilathaopening with this one tiny tendril. I could no longer see or touch it in this position. I didn’t know if it continued to grow or if it disappeared again.
“Feel me, Timur,” I whispered into his shoulder. “I’ve never asked you for much, but I’m begging you for this one thing. Please.”
Then, I felt the connection. It wasn’t a physical sensation, it rarely was. I just knew that my feelings were no longer my own. My fear, my despair, my helplessness spilled beyond my own being, uncontainable. But so did my compassion, my care, and my affection too.
I inhaled deeply, then released the breath in a sigh, relaxing my muscles and letting my body melt into his.
“Can you feel it?” I pressed my lips to the warm skin of his left shoulder.
Breathing in his scent, I focused on every shred of positive emotions I had in me. I’d done it so many times by now. I was used to feeling for the sake of others. It came easily to me now.
My fear and worry were strong and more personal than ever before, but I shifted them back into the furthest parts of my mind and my heart. If there was anything I’d learned in the Alveari Kingdom, it was that even in the darkest moments, there was something positive to focus on if one searched hard enough. Pressed to Timur’s large body, I didn’t even have to search too hard. It was all there, right here with me.
I loved his scent. It was the scent of sun-warmed sand, with a dash of ocean spray, freshness of a storm, and just a hint of flowery sweetness I couldn’t name but would recognize instantly out of a thousand other scents.
I enjoyed the sensation of his silky skin under my palm as I stroked his chest with my right hand.
I thought about the many times I had relaxed against his chest on our way to and from the fancy tents of our clients. Little did all those people know that after they had paid for my pleasure, my most favorite part was going home with Timur. The exquisite pleasure of sitting on his lap with his arms cradling me and his heart beating soothingly against my ear could never be sold or bought. It was just for us, Timur and me. Except that healways refused to share it with me. He had never connected to me before. Until now.
“Feel me, Timur,” I murmured again and again. “Can you feel how much I like this? Being this close to you? When I’m with you, I feel safe, even when you’re hurt and broken. Let me help you, and together we can get through anything, even in this most dangerous place in Alveari. I’ve never felt that way with any man before. I’ve never trusted anyone as completely as I trust you.”
His chest shuddered with a labored breath.
“Tell me…” he exhaled. “Tell me…about you.”
“Me?”
What was there to tell? I was an ordinary person with a very ordinary life, at least until I was stolen from it. But I didn’t brush off his request. I came from another world, a world that Timur had never seen. To him, nothing about my life was ordinary.
“I’m a kindergarten teacher,” I said. “I teach small kids, ages four to seven. Children of that age are so hungry for knowledge. Sometimes it feels like my head is going to explode with all their questions…”
