I was made up of fine-spun glass, a single topple ready to shatter me from the inside out.
When we got to my room, I paused, not wanting to go in, to see Valens’s things scattered so casually in with mine.
It was too domestic, too close.
I hesitated, biting my bottom lip as I stared at the still-closed door.
“Why don’t you go see Galyna? She’s off duty.”
“I need to give her my sword, huh?”
Olivia shook her head. “No, not right this minute. She’s your friend and sister first. I think she’d like to know you’re okay more than she cares about the marks on your back. She’s been texting me all afternoon, and she’s a woman of few words.”
My eyebrows rose with surprise. Galyna, texting? Hah. Olivia was right; she must have been worried.
“It can’t hurt,” I hedged, not wanting to get my hopes up. I knew I’d see disappointment in her eyes when I told her.
It couldn’t touch the pain I felt when Valens had left, so maybe now, in the numb aftermath, was the perfect time to get it over with?
I gave Oli a parting hug and sincere thanks for spending the afternoon taking care of me, then knocked on Galyna’s door.
She didn’t leave me waiting, yanking it open a few heartbeats later.
“Elodie!” She snatched me into a bone-crushing hug, and I returned it with every scrap of strength I had.
Somehow, even with my ribs creaking under the force of her love, being back with my partner made me feel a smidge less breakable.
“Come, sit, tell me everything.” She gestured to a chair, then realized it was covered in clothes, and hastily cleared it off, chucking the whole lot on the second bed with disgust. “Damn baby maidens. They don’t know shit about keeping a place clean.”
I chortled as I dropped down into the newly empty chair. “I think that’s just Dakota.”
“No, it’s all of them. It took me two years to get you housebroken.”
“Now you’re starting from scratch.”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” She sank to a seat on the edge of her own perfectly made bed with the four crisp corners and perfectly squared pillows. “How are you?”
Galyna had a way of seeing into my soul, had from day one. She’d only honed it over time, and now it was sharper than any butcher’s blade.
“I don’t know, honestly. I feel… so much.”
Bereft. Floating. Numb. Sad. The tiniest squelch of hopeful still stuffed down in a dark corner.
“That’s probably normal after a heat.” She flipped her braid over her shoulder, crossing her arms. “Did he treat you okay?”
“Yeah, he was lovely.”Right until the end, when things fell off a cliff.
“Good. He should be so lucky as to spend time with a woman as wonderful as you.” She sniffed, lifting her chin another inch in the air. “So, you were worried about permanent consequences. Did things… change? Have you made a decision?”
As nervous as I’d been before to tell her, now that I was there, alone in the room with her, talking like partners, the answer came to me easily.
I stood from the chair on wobbly knees, turning my back as I lifted my shirt over my head to stand in just my sports bra. There was plenty of marked skin for her to see, and she knew it hadn’t been there before.
“Congratulations.” The word was a reverent whisper. I pulled my shirt back on before turning around, taking the last second to steady myself for whatever her reaction might be.
Damn it, there were tears in her eyes.
I was ready for any reactionbutthat. Galyna didn’t cry. She cussed, she bellowed, she raged with the best of them—but cry?
