"Never too tired to make love to you."
This time when we joined, it was with a care that felt almost ceremonial, and maybe it was. She found the rhythm that suited her, and I followed, adjusting, listening. She was my goddess, and I worshiped her with my hands, my lips, my tongue.
She touched my jaw with her fingertips, and I kissed her palm. We moved slower still, not to prolong anything but to make room for everything we wanted to say to each other with tender touches and soft whispers.
At some point, I realized I was murmuring promises, and I intended to keep all of them. I didn't dress them up, and I didn't promise what I couldn't deliver. I told her I would stand where she stood, and when she had to go where I could not follow, I would wait with a light for her to find her way home. I told her I would sharpen her blades and dull her nightmares. I told her that whatever the seven were meant to be, my part in it included bearing witness to the woman at the center of the storm, loving her, and lending my strength to hers.
"Alar," she said, and it was relief, warning, and an invitation all at once.
"I know." I pressed my forehead to hers and let the last of my restraint go. We climbed together, breath to breath, until the world thinned and widened and then folded, clean and inevitable.
After, she clung to me, her arms holding me tight. "It feels different here," she said after a long stretch of quiet. "At home, I kept thinking about who might be listening on the other side of the wall. Here I only think about who might be watching." She glanced out the window. "Dragons have excellent night vision."
"Then we'll give them a show," I said.
She chuckled, thumping my shoulder.
"Will you drink the tea tonight?" I asked.
"Nyxath said I should." She tipped her face to look at me. "Don't leave before I wake up?"
"Are you sure? You don't have to wake up as early as I do."
"I'm sure. My biggest fear is not being able to pull my consciousness back into my own body. I don't want to be trapped sharing the body of one of the animals that I meld my mind with during those dreams."
"I'll never let them have you." I brushed her hair back, loving the way the auroras painted the golden strands. "This belongs to me." I squeezed her bottom and kissed her at the same time. "All of you. I'll wrestle you back from whoever tries to take you away from me."
Her laugh was quiet and happy, and for a handful of heartbeats, I could pretend we were just two ordinary cadets stealing hours from curfew and talking nonsense because it kept the shadows away.
Kailin rolled onto her back and tugged me with her, maneuvering me so my head rested on her stomach. I listened to the steady drum beneath my ear, delighting in my private music. She combed through my hair with absent fingers, and I could have fallen asleep like that, but she nudged me.
"I need to drink it now," she said, ever practical. "Will you get it for me?"
I got out of bed, Kailin's appreciative eyes following me around the room as I found the sachet of leaves, dropped someinto a mug, and poured cold water over them. It wasn't as effective as steeping in hot water, but then I didn't want Kailin to drink the fully potent tea anyway.
She sat on the bed cross-legged and magnificently nude. When I brought the cup, she took it with both hands and took a sip. "Still awful."
"Hero of Elucia, undone by tea," I teased.
She rolled her eyes, then drank. Flinching. When she was done, she set the cup down on the desk. "Come back to bed."
I drew her down and tucked myself around her, one arm under her neck, the other over her waist, palm splayed against her stomach where I'd listened minutes ago. Her breathing slowed, smoothed.
"Alar?"
"Yes?"
"I'm glad to be back."
15
KAILIN
"Between earth and sky, a rider learns that survival depends on knowing when to yield and when to resist."
—Commander Moira Langston,
Storm Wing, Dragon Force
