His mouth tipped into a grin. “Lonely?”
“I like noise,” I said. “I like tiny feet running down the hall. I like the way a house feels when a joke is told, and there is so much laughter it echoes off the walls.”
He leaned his face against my leg and peered up at my face with his head tipped as if he were listening to his favorite poem. “If you want twelve children, Brynn,” he said, “I’ll give you twelve.”
“I am not saying we should try to outdo her,” I laughed. “But I am not afraid of a crowded table.”
He looked toward the gardens, where the new trees stood, their leaves bright even in the evening. “We make our own numbers, then,” he said. “Seven sounds good.”
I laughed before I could help it. “All right. Seven.”
“We will be tired.”
“We are tired now,” I said. “It will be a different kind of tired.”
His hand came up to my cheek, and he brushed a strand of hair back as I leaned into his palm.
“Happy birthday, my love,” he whispered.
He went to the door that led back into our rooms and returned with a small box the color of rich honey. He set it on the table between the plates.
“You didn’t need to get me anything,” I said, which was true. I had everything I could ever hope for. Especially now.
“You deserve all the gifts in Lunaria,” he declared.
My heart pinched, and I opened the box.
A bracelet lay on a piece of folded linen, gold, thin, but sturdy. The clasp had been hammered to look like two small wolves sleeping back-to-back. Along the inside, where only I would feel it, were words etched so finely I had to lift it to the lantern.
May your plate always be full.
My chest hurt for a moment as I had to fight back tears. I slid the bracelet onto my wrist, and the weight of it felt like a promise that Kaelric would always be there to make sure I wasn’t the starved girl he met in the Dregs.
“It is the kindest thing anyone has ever wished me,” I said. My voice came out smaller than I meant it to. “Thank you.”
He took my hand and turned it so the words pressed against my skin. “Not just food,” he said. “Friendship, work that makes you proud, a bed that always warms you, and children’s laughter to fill our house. I wish you all of it.”
I nodded, because speaking would make a mess of me right now. I leaned into him, and he kissed me with the kind of care that comes when a man knows something new is growing inside you. His mouth was warm; his breath tasted like the sharp tang of wine. He slid his arms around me, and the world got small.
He lifted me to carry me into our bedroom. His hands held my hips, firm, and I wound my arms around his neck and pulled him close.
He moaned, and I felt it in his throat. He kissed down the line of my jaw and across the small hollow where my pulse lived, slow and sure.
He set me on our bed as his hands found the tie at my shoulder and undid it. Mine slid under his shirt and felt the heat of him. We did not hurry. We explored each other’s bodies like they were sacred.
I didn’t think about the morning. I thought about his mouth and the way he said my name without having to speak it. Ithought about the bracelet warm against my skin and the words cut into the inside where no one but me would ever feel them. I thought about a table with seven bowls and a child stealing from mine with both hands.
When the world went soft, I let it. When it came back, I stayed where I was, chest against his chest, my hands splayed over his ribs. His pulse beat steadily under my palm. The lanterns outside had burned lower. The garden looked like a map of shadows and small brave lights.
“Seven,” he said in the dark, half asleep, as if his mouth wanted to hold the number even while his mind went elsewhere.
“Seven,” I said back, and smiled where he could not see it.
He pulled me closer. His breath moved against my hair.
Outside, a late rain began. It tapped the stone like a small, steady prayer.
May your plate always be full.
I closed my eyes and slept with that wish pressed against my skin. I wished it for every person in Lunaria, Hildreth, Aerlyn, and beyond.
That night, I dreamed that we had a little girl. We named her Valkaryn.
I awoke with a smile on my lips.
The End
