“Dry your tears and take heart.” Morwyn cupped Caelian’s cheeks, then bent close, pressing their foreheads together. “This is not goodbye for us.”
Caelian rolled her lips, nodding slowly. “We shall return as soon as we can.”
Morwyn stepped back, a serene smile warming her features. “The Myrkwild waits for both of you.”
“And Lira,” Caelian added on a hiccup. “She shall come back with us.”
Morwyn’s smile faltered. “I fear not. Lira is ready to choose her own destiny, and that path no longer passes through Wenfyre.”
“Oh.” A tiny line crinkled across Caelian’s brow, and Kjeld longed to smooth it away. “But Wenfyre is her home.”
“And Aeramere was yours.” Morwyn gestured in Kjeld’s direction. “Just as Brackroth was his. We are all free to choose where we belong.”
Morwyn was incredibly wise for her age, and her words were often subtle yet powerful. Because she was right. Caelian and Kjeld chose to be together in Wenfyre, in a place that felt like home to both of them. And he had every intention of ensuring they returned.
They bid farewell to Morwyn and Sylvan, knowing they would see them again in time, once all the matters in Aeramere, especially those regarding Queen Elowyn, were settled. Kjeld kept a firm grip on Caelian’s hand as they walked up the beach to where Odryss patiently waited, linking their fingers as though he could channel his own strength into her. He knew it would be difficult to go back, and the unknowns waiting for them in Aeramere would be a challenge, but he would not leave her to manage or suffer through any of it alone.
He stole a quick glance at her, noting the way she chewed on her bottom lip, how she toyed with the flowing hem of hersleeve as they walked. Her eyes were clouded with worry, and she looked to the east, where streaks of burnt orange and gold crowned the rising sun.
“What troubles you, dear wife?” he asked as they approached Odryss. The dragon stirred, stretching his long neck, his claws sinking into the sand as he awoke.
Caelian reached up, running her hand along the stormy gray scales of his chest.
“I’m not exactly sure. At least, I don’t know how to describe it.” She pressed the heel of her palm to her heart and rubbed lightly. “It’s as though a strange sense of foreboding has come over me and it will not lift or ease.”
Kjeld checked the satchels Odryss carried, ensuring the buckles were snug. His gaze slid to Caelian, and though her heartbeat was calm and steady, currents of anxiety rippled around her. “Are you nervous for the flight back?”
“No, not at all.” She shook her head, twisting her length of hair into a messy knot at the nape of her neck. “It’s something I can’t name. Or place, for that matter. But it’s eerily similar to dread, though the cause escapes me. I don’t know if I’m forgetting something or?—”
“You needn’t worry. Whatever it is, we shall face it together.” He flashed her a wink, then swatted the fully packed satchel. “Though I did remember to pack your shoes, just in case.”
Caelian beamed but her smile did not ease the shadow of worry in her eyes.
Kjeld climbed into the seat on Odryss’s back, then lifted her to join him. She straddled the seat as well, skirts peeling away to reveal gloriously smooth thighs, a damning contrast to his leather-clad legs. He had hoped that once Odryss took to the skies, maybe Caelian would settle. But even with the warmth of the sun at their backs and ribbons of misty clouds floating past them, her body refused to calm.
She fidgeted constantly, adjusting herself on his lap, fiddling with her gauzy sleeves, tapping the smooth horn of the seat with her nails.
After two hours of her restlessness, Kjeld’s eye began to twitch.
Caelian was in desperate need of a distraction, or at least something to deter the chaos of her mind, and he knew exactly what to do.
Shifting the reins to his left hand, Kjeld ran his palm up and down her spine in slow, calming strokes.
She shivered, but a moment later, her body softened slightly, the tension loosening its constraining hold on her. Folding her arms across the protruding horn, she leaned forward, humming softly to herself. While she was gradually beginning to relax, Kjeld responded in the opposite manner—the more she arched into his soothing touch, the more his cock began to thicken.
“Mm.” Caelian rolled her head from side to side, rocking her hips against his groin whenever his palm coasted to the small of her back. “That feels nice.”
It hadn’t been his intention to arouse himself, at least not directly, but each time his fingertips massaged the length of her spine, she made a breathy little noise that heated his blood. He locked his jaw as he worked her shoulders and neck, rubbing out the knots of tension, determined not to let his own growing desire get in the way of comforting his wife.
Which was why the moment her body went limp, he gently pulled her into the safety of his embrace. Her head was cradled in the space between his neck and shoulder, her soft snores tickling the underside of his scruff. He admired her while she napped, enjoying the way her lashes fanned out, casting the faintest of shadows across the tops of her cheeks. His gaze dipped to her belly, and he wondered what she might look like swollen with his child. Beautiful, he was certain. But thenhe started to imagine what their children would look like, how many they would have together, and what they would name them.
Kjeld couldn’t believe he’d ever been so foolish to think he didn’t want her. Caelian was everything he could have imagined and more. There were many days when he was a general in Brackroth under Drake’s command, where the idea of marriage never crossed his mind. He rarely had time to court a woman properly, which was likely why he usually found himself in the ramshackle bedroom of an inn, or in the slums outside of a no-name tavern with the evening’s most willing female wrapped around his cock.
Yet the moment he met Caelian, his perspective shifted.
For the first time, he wanted to be worthy of someone. He wanted her attention. Her praise. Her laughter. And once he realized he’d been an absolute ass in regards to her, that he’d wasted so much of his time trying to convince himself he didn’t love her, he never wanted to be parted from her again.
Kjeld brushed a lock of silver and pink hair back from her face.
