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ELYRIA
When Elyria’s eyes opened again, it was morning. The sacred silence of night had been banished by sunlight streaming in through the window above her, illuminating the room.
Just like when she’d awoken last night, and the day before, and, she suspected, every time she’d awoken since coming to Elderglade—whether she remembered it or not—Cedric was draped around her. His arms were wrapped around her midsection, his chest pressed close against her back, his long torso curving around her.
She wriggled against him, and he released a sleepy groan into her hair.
“Good morning,” she said cheerily, pivoting on the bed to face him. The rest of her night had been blissfully nightmare-free, and it turned out that a pleasure-induced sleep really did do wonders for the soul, because Elyria felt better than she had in ages.
Well, she could calculate exactly how long it had been since she’d felt this good, down to the day—down to the hour, in fact—but after banishing Malakar from her dreams, she didn’t particularly want to venture down that thought path again so soon.
Granted, she wasn’t a total idiot. She knew she would have to think about it all again eventually. Sooner than eventually, really. There was still so much she was trying to piece together about Malakar’s plan, all that she’d heard while in captivity. She needed to figure out what his followers might be doing, needed to understand where she and Cedric and everyone else should go from here.
But first things first.
Elyria sat up and scooted back until she could lean against the bed’s woven headboard, a thin blanket pinned under her arms, covering her. “What time did Elder Larkess say the council was convening?”
Cedric threw a forearm over his eyes. “I—uh . . . I don’t recall.” He yawned. “Give me a minute, would you?”
Elyria inhaled sharply—a mocking gasp. “Why, Sir Sleepyhead, whatever could have you so exhausted? Have your nights been fraught of late for some reason or another?”
He moved his arm enough so that he could crack open a bleary eye, just to immediately narrow it at her. She grinned at him.
Stars above, this felt good. Felt so normal. Something in the back of Elyria’s head had her questioning these swings of her mood—ones that she realized were relatively wild, even for her. From the confusion that came with waking up in this place, to the horror of remembering what had happened right before she did, to the desperate closeness she needed from Cedric, to the pain and anger that arose from yesterday’s discussions of her wings and Malakar, respectively, and now, to this contentment . . . Cognitively, she did recognize she was all over the place. And it wasn’t that she didn’t think that to be something that warranted exploration at some point, but she simply didn’t want that point to be now.
Not when she had woken feeling more rested and whole than she had in months. Not when she could feel Cedric’s love and devotion flowing down their bond, even as he grumbled about how at least he’d had the consideration not to actively try to wake her up yesterday.
So, no, Elyria didn’t want to think about silly things like logic or reason at the moment.
Her eyes trailed down his resting body—bare-chested, a pair of linen pants slung around his hips and tented in a way that was honestly rather impressive given what happened in the middle of the night.
“I can feel you staring, Trouble,” he murmured into her mind, his eyes still closed, the slow, even rise of his chest indicating he was just on the cusp of falling back asleep.
“Good,” she replied, and then began tracing the line her gaze had drawn down his body with the tip of her finger.
Cedric’s skin pebbled under her touch, and the bulge in his pants twitched. Elyria’s grin widened. But just as she hooked a finger under the waistband of his pants, his hand closed around her wrist, halting it.
When she turned her head to look at his face again, his gold-ringed eyes were wide open.
“What?” she asked, dipping her chin with faux shyness. “Don’t you want my help with that?”
He released a shaky laugh and propped himself up on his elbows. “Want isn’t the right word to use. You know I want it. But we don’t have time for it at present.”
“I can be fast.” She winked at him. “And I’m pretty confident in my assessment that you can be too.”
“Elle.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You were five seconds from going back to sleep, but now you’re suddenly concerned about running late?”
He sat up with a sigh, lifting her hand to plant a quick kiss to her palm before releasing it, then leaning forward to plant an even quicker one on her lips. “I wasn’t falling asleep.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“It just took me a minute to gather my bearings and remember that we are, in fact, due to meet the others soon.” He pointed up to the windows in the ceiling, which showed that the sun was already high in the sky. “And lateness aside, you know very well that I do not want to be anything even close to ‘quick’ with you when it comes to that.”
“But last night—”
“Last night was an exception. A . . . lullaby. You needed comfort, and as if I wasn’t going to be the one to comfort you? Please.”
