She only barely protests, yet I feel the loss of her around me as I dry her skin.
Then I hold her tighter and sling a towel over my hips before taking us from the room.
“I can walk,” she says up to me.
I shake my head. “You’ve already done so much today. I like carrying you—you’re very small.”
She doesn’t protest. When I set her on the bed, she looks around. “Do you have something I could wear to sleep?”
A part of me is sad that she won’t sleep next to me, skin toskin. But I open my drawer and pull out a long brown shirt. She smiles and takes it from me then brings it to her nose and inhales deeply.
I opt to sleep without clothes and dry off quickly before sitting next to her.
“I missed the way you smell, too,” I murmur and draw my mouth close to her mating mark, licking the now-healed scars.
She shivers.
Then she slips the garment on and lays down.
I pull the covers around us and watch as she tucks her hands under her cheek. She looks so tired.
Twice, the gods gave me you, I say through the bond.You will never be taken again.
This ache inside of me is almost healed, but not quite. It is one thing to have her back here in my arms, but another to not know what looms on the horizon.
I know the sound she makes when she comes around me, the way she laughs, and her fiery glances. Her power is the song that leads me forward, and her scars are a map of my world.
Yet… there is so much to her that remains a mystery.
“Tell me a story,” I say aloud.
Her form stills under my heavy hand. “About what?”
I drag my fingertips over her arms. “Anything. Whatever you tell me is a treasure, and I am a greedy drake, hungry for more gold.”
I feel her laugh through the points of contact in our bodies. She rolls over and looks up at me.
“After Mikal was born, and my mother passed, we were brought before the king. He meant to kill us both.”
Fear still pierces my heart for an event long past. I hold her closer. The rational parts of my brain know that all is well, and the story ends in a positive way, but still, this was not what I expected.
“My mother appeared, as a woman cloaked in light, and she stayed the king’s hand. He… feared her.”
“As he should. You are a terrifying creature, and your mother must have been nothing less.”
She smiles. “Mikal cried the whole time there, but after we left, he was calm. Contented. Like he only needed to know his mother once, and that was enough for him.”
My finger trails up her arm, over her clothed shoulder, and to her cheek.
“A mother’s love is a powerful thing.”
Estela blinks. “After that, he was the easiest child to raise. He hardly cried, and he was tidy. He made me feel loved and strong, even though it was my working hard to provide for both of us.”
She pauses for a few moments.
“I told him I would always take care of him. I am… inadequate in many ways.”
I realize that this isn’t quite a story, but these words seem to press on my beloved’s heart. In the end, it doesn’t matter.
