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Wear this. Meet me outside at 8 this evening.

Dawson

49

When she opened the door at eight, Aidric waited for her in the garden, wearing a tux.

She walked up to him with a smile and kissed him.

“A kiss at the beginning of our first date?” He smirked against her lips. “You’re making this too easy, Miss Winters.”

“If you do well, I might even go home with you tonight.”

“Challenge accepted.” In one fast swoop, he lifted her into his arms and coin traveled them to the rooftop of the estate, where he had set up blankets and Goldwine, surrounded by a sea of candles.

“Now you’re just showing off,” she said, mesmerized. “Or is this your way of trying to make me forget our last time on rooftops, narrowly escaping a group of assassins?”

He shrugged innocently. “We made it out alive.”

“Barely. We ended up in a river.”

“No rivers. As the lady commands.”

He sat down and motioned for her to take the seat next to him. When she did, she was speechless for a moment, staring at the sky. It seemed they were so close to the stars she could touch them.

“I don’t know why,” he said. “But looking at the stars always makes me feel less lonely.”

He pulled her into a kiss. Whenever she kissed Aidric Dawson, it didn’t matter where they were. Right underneath the stars. In a lavender field. In bed. In a dark cellar. In a library. It could be anywhere and nowhere because all there was in that moment was him and her.

She never thought she could be this happy again. Even in her best-case scenarios, she had only ever hoped to be able to live more easily. But now, even with the scar still on her arm, she was giddy, overflowing with joy.

They drank, laughed, and talked until late into the night as they lay under the stars.

“You did good,” she said. “This was a fantastic first date.”

That seemed to be all he needed to hear as he pushed himself on top of her. He took his time. His hands slowly explored her body. Kisses seared through her and burned hotter each time until she moaned his name pleadingly. His movements were slow and sensual, like he didn’t want it to end.

“I love you,” he said against her lips, his eyes focused on only her. As if nothing else in the world existed for him.

She kissed him. “I love you, too.”

When she came undone with him under the stars, she felt like she was flying. In a dream of her own.

“Well, we can cross the roof off our list of places we’ve had sex now,” she said after, when he wrapped her in his arms.

He laughed. “Luckily, there are still so many more spots to explore around the estate. It pays to have a lavish mansion.”

—

That night she woke up and found him missing from bed. She got up and walked down the hallway and heard water running in the bathroom. She was about to knock and ask if he was okay, but through the crack of the door, she saw him. He stood by the sink, his hands braced against the marble, his head hanging low. His eyes were closed, his breath heavy. She knew that stance. She had seen it during those first days in the lab when he had coin traveled them and nothing seemed to take away the pain. Not alcohol, not narcotics.

He hated talking about his pain so she went back to bed and pretended to be asleep. When he finally returned, his body slowly relaxed as he drifted off to sleep. But she was still wide-awake, thinking about possible potions. Obviously, it was the incantation on his chest, so perhaps some herbs from the different spheres? As the sun rose, she made the decision to secretly start her own research because he would disapprove. Every time she pressed the matter, he told her Obryn knew what to do. Normally she’d agree. He was the expert in Dark Magic, after all. But she was certain there was more to be done.

He was still sound asleep so she cast a diagnostics spell, focusing on obvious injuries first. As predicted, his body was peppered with them. Scar tissue covering old wounds. Bones that had never healed properly. Next was a simple Dark Magic diagnostics spell. Its results were unsurprising. His scars and the enthrallment were the most prominent pulses of Dark Magic, but there was a good amount of residue all over his body.

Yet none of it explained the extent of his pain. She tried another diagnostics, but it brought little clarity.

She went with a more obscure Dark Magic diagnostic spell she had recently read about and then she saw it. Time froze. The amount of Dark Magic pumping between the incantation and the scars was…she didn’t even know what the magic term for it would be. She stared at the results of her spell, and something in her broke. Shattered so deeply it hurt.