Wish and mercy, p.38
Wish and Mercy, page 38
part #1 of Nightwalker Series
“Yeah.”
She was quiet, leaving him to his thoughts as another cool, damp breeze met them. He watched his legs dangle over the cliff.
“I remember the night I decided to leave.” It had been frigid and bleak. Fitting. The smell of the snow had been cold and dirty when he was spotted in the orchard. “Rhett caught me before I got very far.” There had been a storm up north. Distant thunder had rumbled through the clouds. A streak had come close and shattered the black sky, lighting up his brother’s face. He remembered being stuck between fear and courage. “When he hit me, I told myself that was going to be the last fucking time.” His hand drifted to his neck, touching the cord to his hidden Hallenar pendant.
“He told me no one wanted me around. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, but after Tizzy and I had a bad fight that day, I couldn’t keep hearing it anymore. I didn’t feel like I had anyone left on my side, so I ran. I ran as fast as I could, and I swore to myself I would never cry over them. They weren’t worth it.”
“But you were sad. People cry when they’re sad.”
“They pushed me away. They don’t deserve tears, they deserve to be hated!”
“Maybe it’s true, but you’re not mad at them. You’re mad at yourself for still being sad.”
“I know.” He swallowed hard, holding in bitter tears welling up in his throat. “Feeling like this makes me pathetic.”
“Such is the way of emotions, Aleth, and you’ve got more than most. But you have to find other ways to get through them besides drinking, fighting, and fucking. You’re a mess.”
He groaned and laid back in the grass, having no argument. “She wants to go back.”
“Tizzy?”
“Yeah. To see them.”
“Do it.” Ilisha started to get to her feet. “If it’s in your heart, maybe give them one chance to earn you back. If it’s not in your heart, go anyway and make them miserable. They’re assholes, aren’t they? They deserve it.”
It seemed easier when she said it. Aleth rolled and stood with her.
“Thanks.”
“What are mothers for?” she said airily. “I have an idea. You’ve got your sword with you. Should we spar like old times and work off some of this anguish of yours?”
He folded his arms. “I’m a lot better now. Are you going to be able to keep up with me?”
The tree behind her twisted a branch down into her hand. It toughened and shed itself until it was tempered and sharp to match Mercy.
“Please, you say that like I’m old. I’m only eight hundred and seventy; I’m practically a spring chicken. Perhaps a summer chicken, but I still think I can give you a run for your money.”
She had been a good partner when he was younger, he remembered as she lunged forward to test him. It was a slow movement, and he parried it gently.
“Don’t play games,” Ilisha warned. “You’d better do your best.”
She slashed upward almost faster than he could track. He stepped back with just enough time to avoid a cut that would have opened his throat with a thin, vertical line.
“I can’t tell if your lack of consistency is a strategy or a weakness!” he said.
“It’s definitely not a weakness.” Ilisha was laughing. “How audacious of you to think I even have such a thing.”
Every time he fought her, it was like fighting different people. She’d taught him to be surprised by nothing and to never get comfortable with his opponent’s mannerisms. In battle, people could be unpredictable, and the way she fought proved it. She was graceful and showmanlike and very strong, but he was still faster. He always had been.
It didn’t take long for him to realize that this was not for the fun of it. He could feel the sweat cold against his skin as the wind circled and howled around them. Ilisha was grunting and shouting with every swing, giving everything she had, and he had no choice but to do the same. She started to tire, and he would have done the same, but something coursed through him and made him quicker and fiercer.
“Aleth!”
He paused, panting.
“Boy, I yield. Calm down!”
“Sorry.” He sheathed Mercy and rested his arms over his head, breathing deeply. Perhaps he had more anguish to work off than he thought.
“When you say you’re the best, even if it’s a little conceited, it’s no lie.” Her smile held nothing back. “How do you feel?”
He felt sheepish but decided to let the pink in his face speak for him. “Like I can breathe again.”
“Then run off. Find your sister. I know that’s your next move. The storm will be here soon, so you should be quick about it.”
“She’ll be with Lilu,” Aleth grumbled. “I have no idea where she’ll have taken Tizzy.”
With the faerie’s gentle magic, the tree accepted its limb back and healed beautifully. Ilisha took another deep, full breath of air, stretching her arms and feeling them tingle all the way into the forest around them and down below.
“They’re toward the Sheerspine River, by the Arrow.”
Not knowing where Tizzy was had been an excuse, one which he no longer had, so he bid Ilisha goodbye and moved down into the cavern and through the Wistwilds.
Tizzy had to deal with things in her own way, he knew that, but he wished they didn’t involve Lilu. He knew well enough the way Lilu liked to solve problems, and he also knew how tempting she was about it.
The sky suddenly rumbled with a promise. This storm would not be like the last. The cold bit in deep and he shivered.
The Arrow was a pine tree, hundreds of years old, struck by lightning. The resulting fire had burned everything around it into a small clearing. Only a sliver of the tree remained, blackened and sharp at the tip a hundred feet tall, casting a shadow over the Wistwilds like a giant sundial. That’s where he found them.
He heard them before he saw them. Lilu’s rage was audible with every hit, and Tizzy grunted as she received more force than she could take. But she wouldn’t give up. He’d never seen her so ruthless and determined. She may not have been any good with a sword, but she was doing fine with her fists.
Tizzy got daring, sending a desperate kick with all her weight and momentum. It would have knocked the daemon off her feet for sure. It would have hit squarely in her stomach, but Lilu was a faster fighter than his sister, and she slid out of harm’s way, and suddenly Tizzy was wide open. Lilu punished her for the mistake with a punch that knocked the breath from her and sent her to her knees.
“What the hell is this?” Aleth didn’t even realize he’d said it. Lilu glared in response, the anger in her face smoothing into her usual condescending smile as she realized who was facing her. Tizzy wheezed on the ground.
“Lessons,” the daemon said plainly.
“What could you possibly be teaching her by beating the shit out of her?”
Tizzy looked up, blood in her teeth. “Go away!”
It hurt but not enough to dissuade his anger. “Seriously? This is what you want? What are you going to get from this?”
“It’ll make her tough,” Lilu said. “It’s going to be hard for anyone to train her if she’s reeling from every hit. She needs to know pain. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying myself.”
Tizzy got to her feet, wiping her mouth. “This is what I want. Stop treating me like I can’t handle it! Like I can’t handle anything! I don’t need you to baby me!”
“But you need this instead? How is this helping?”
“It was helping plenty before you showed up!”
Lilu loved the sound of them arguing and shouting at one another, in as much of a way as she could understand loving anything.
“Tell you what.” The smile on her face was devilish. “Judge how well it’s working for yourself. Fight her.”
“No.”
But his answer wasn’t accepted. Tizzy picked up Wish from the ground and came for him, bellowing. He had just enough time to get out of her way.
“Will you stop? This is ridiculous!”
She was dead serious about all of it. If he hadn’t drawn Mercy to parry her next attack, she’d have ripped his stomach open. Her new confidence astounded him. It made her faster and stronger. But she was still sloppy, and that made him angry. It didn’t look like she had learned anything at all.
“All you’ve done—” he hissed, swinging, “—is make yourself suffer—” he knew he was putting too much strength into it, driving her back, “—so you can be a bitch!”
When she tried a swing of her own, the force of his parry knocked the sword out of her hands and sent it skidding through the brush. She roared and charged him, her small fist sinking into his gut with power he didn’t expect.
He should have stopped right then, but he didn’t. He threw his sword down and swung back, and she juked out of the way with a swift, practiced movement. It made him livid. There was no reason he should’ve missed. She was having trouble hitting him, too, always aiming for his face, which was just out of her reach. It was easy to block her when she aimed high, but then she swept her leg into his knee, and he stumbled. It gave her an opportunity to connect to his jaw, but her fist never landed. He caught it, shoved her back, and punched her in the cheek.
She stopped, and so did he. She held her face and stared at the ground.
“Tizzy, I—”
She ran past him, and Lilu smirked.
“Is this my fault too?” she asked.
He thought of a hundred things to say all at once but bit his tongue and chased after Tizzy. He knew he shouldn’t have hit her, regardless of the cheap shots she had taken. She had only been trying to prove herself.
“Stop! Tizzy, please!”
He wasn’t far behind her. She slogged through the mud, branches cracking and breaking underfoot. Soon, he was only inches away, but she still wouldn’t slow down. He came up behind and wrapped his arms around her, stopping her in her tracks and sweeping her off the ground. She kicked and squirmed.
“Let go! Why won’t you just go away?”
He brought her to the ground and kept his embrace as tight as he could. “Because the last time I did that, it ripped us apart.”
She quit struggling, but he didn’t let go. He listened to her sniffle, then felt her tears on his hand. Finally, she leaned into him and sighed.
“Am I really a bitch?”
He kissed her on the cheek where he’d hit her, and she could feel the tiny grin on his lips.
“You already know the answer to that.”
She sobbed. “Gods, the answer is yes, isn’t it?”
“A little.”
It became hauntingly quiet between them. There was only the singing of the wind and the guttural roar in the clouds warning the world below. He could see bruises on her hands and arms and blood on her knuckles. She felt tired and stiff in his arms.
“I’ll go back with you,” he said.
She didn’t have the energy to understand him. “Back?”
“Yeah.” It didn’t feel like it was possible to pull her in any closer, but he tried. “We can go back. I need a little time, but I’ll do it.”
“Back to Suradia?”
When he didn’t answer, she knew. He meant home. Her heart soared, but guilt cut her down.
“I’m sorry I’ve pushed and nagged—”
“You’re better.” He picked up one of her hands as carefully as he could. “You are. Just take it easy, okay?”
She turned and held his face with her mangled hands and kissed him with her bloodied lips. Together, they heard the first crack of thunder.
They didn’t make it to the cavern before it started to rain. It was cold, and the raindrops were big, and they scattered wildly in the wind. It was miserable, but Tizzy loved it. There was something enticing and passionate brewing in the air as the sky grew black, and she couldn’t wait to get Aleth next to her on her balcony drenched in the rain.
Getting carried away with her thoughts had made her breathless. When they got back to the abbey, it seemed like everyone was excited about something, but she had no interest in what it could be. She dodged everyone as deftly as she could to get to her room, Aleth following like a shadow.
By the time she was there with the door closed beind them, every muscle in her body cried in agony, but it didn’t stop her from turning around and peeling off his clothes. He started to free her of her own, moving delicately, sensing she was in pain. He tried to kiss her just as tenderly, but she was voracious, throwing her arms around his neck and changing the pace. He wanted to oblige, but everywhere he went to touch her, there was a bruise or a scrape barring him.
He tried something different, working his fingers down into the muscles of her neck and shoulders. She bit her lip and stopped, completely frozen when his touch reached her back.
He shook his head and smiled. “Come on, let me work on you for a minute.” He picked her up and carried her to the bed.
“Maybe I overdid it,” she mumbled. He resumed massaging anywhere she’d let him, and she moaned into her blankets. “Why do you always stop me?”
“Stop you from what? Coming at me like a wild animal?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I guess I’m still working through some things. Admitting you’re about to fuck your sister is a lot to come to terms with, you know.”
She leaned back and laughed.
“Cut it out. This is hard to do when you move around so much.”
She rolled onto her back and stared up at him, her smile twisted with mischief. He looked down at her bare and bruised skin, concealed by nothing more than damp underclothes, and swallowed uncomfortably.
“Why don’t you work on this side a little, hm?”
“You’re very persistent.”
She took his hand and guided it to the inside of her thigh. “It hurts right here.”
“I bet it does.”
When he lowered himself onto her, feeling so much of her skin touching his, his worries disappeared. It was wrong, but he couldn’t keep denying it was where he belonged. He kissed her slowly and deeply, and she wove her fingers through his hair as he gently parted her legs. His lips moved down her chest, and she shuddered as he inched closer to parts of her body that begged for a touch.
The curtains thrashed in the wind, and a streak of lightning lit up the sky. She pulled him close as the thunder rolled in, and for several moments they didn’t move, watching the flashes in the night. It was beautiful, she thought. And then she couldn’t bear the thought of any more clothing separating them.
The blankets were soft and cold when they slid beneath them, bare and tangled together like they might never part. She couldn’t let go or she would never feel so whole again in her life. She thought she knew what to expect when this moment finally happened, but it felt like nothing she had imagined. He knew exactly what he was doing, every kiss, every caress, everywhere he grazed his teeth so gently, and then his fingers found her, and she was purring and moaning into his chest.
Her face was flush when he guided her hand and she felt him. She loved the sounds he made, the way he kissed her so aggressively, the way he trembled when she touched him. And then he stopped her.
She gazed up at him, brushing his cheek, running her thumb over his lips. “No more holding back. We’re ready for this.”
He breathed deeply and nodded, lacing his fingers with hers, kissing her. She gasped. The pain was slight but sharp.
The room was frigid, the balcony slick with the storm’s downpour, but the cold didn’t reach them. He was inside of her, and there was nothing else in the world that mattered. Everything around her melted away, and all she knew was that she had moaned and whimpered into him as everything happened faster, as she was brought to her edge. She could feel his breath hot in her hair, could feel the sweat on him as he shuddered and gasped and cried out with her.
When he stopped, she looked up at him catching his breath, and she could feel his heartbeat. He could feel hers. He laid on her chest, and they watched the storm until sleep took them.
***
Slumber didn’t last. Only a few hours later, Tizzy was woken by a familiar sensation. She shook Aleth awake.
“Eidi!”
There was nothing they could do but crawl to opposite sides of the bed and look innocently asleep. Eidi slipped through the walls with no warning.
“Hey, you two need to get up!” The banshee tried to hide a curious expression behind her hand as Tizzy rolled to her side and glared her down.
“Could you learn how to knock?”
“I’m so sorry, Tizzy, but this is important! Ziaul and the others have arrived! You should dress and come to the grand hall at once.”
She left the same way she had entered, and Tizzy grunted. Aleth’s hand found hers under the blankets.
“You should go,” he said.
“You should go with me.”
“I suppose I have to.”
He smiled as he said it. There was a softness to him that she’d never seen before. She slid in beside him again, brushing the hair out of his eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
His face was red. “Very okay. You?”
Her answer was a warm kiss before climbing out of bed to clean up and dress herself. He watched her bare skin light up as a bolt flashed in the sky, then joined her. She stood and leaned on her hip, making no effort to rush, not caring to meet any of these important people.
Tizzy lit the hearth to bring a glow to the room. When she inspected herself in the mirror, her face looked every bit like she’d been beaten by a Greater Daemon. She stepped to the balcony and let the rain cleanse her, letting her drenched, tangled hair hang down her shoulders like two drowned animals. She grumbled, and Aleth stood behind her, his hands at her waist.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “And you look like you’ll rip someone’s throat out if they say otherwise. Can’t get much better than that.”
“That’s exactly the look I’m going for.”
She fished through her wardrobe for something dry to wear, noticing their soaked clothes in front of the fire.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to borrow a shirt.”
He stifled a laugh. “I’ll pass.”
She was quiet, leaving him to his thoughts as another cool, damp breeze met them. He watched his legs dangle over the cliff.
“I remember the night I decided to leave.” It had been frigid and bleak. Fitting. The smell of the snow had been cold and dirty when he was spotted in the orchard. “Rhett caught me before I got very far.” There had been a storm up north. Distant thunder had rumbled through the clouds. A streak had come close and shattered the black sky, lighting up his brother’s face. He remembered being stuck between fear and courage. “When he hit me, I told myself that was going to be the last fucking time.” His hand drifted to his neck, touching the cord to his hidden Hallenar pendant.
“He told me no one wanted me around. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, but after Tizzy and I had a bad fight that day, I couldn’t keep hearing it anymore. I didn’t feel like I had anyone left on my side, so I ran. I ran as fast as I could, and I swore to myself I would never cry over them. They weren’t worth it.”
“But you were sad. People cry when they’re sad.”
“They pushed me away. They don’t deserve tears, they deserve to be hated!”
“Maybe it’s true, but you’re not mad at them. You’re mad at yourself for still being sad.”
“I know.” He swallowed hard, holding in bitter tears welling up in his throat. “Feeling like this makes me pathetic.”
“Such is the way of emotions, Aleth, and you’ve got more than most. But you have to find other ways to get through them besides drinking, fighting, and fucking. You’re a mess.”
He groaned and laid back in the grass, having no argument. “She wants to go back.”
“Tizzy?”
“Yeah. To see them.”
“Do it.” Ilisha started to get to her feet. “If it’s in your heart, maybe give them one chance to earn you back. If it’s not in your heart, go anyway and make them miserable. They’re assholes, aren’t they? They deserve it.”
It seemed easier when she said it. Aleth rolled and stood with her.
“Thanks.”
“What are mothers for?” she said airily. “I have an idea. You’ve got your sword with you. Should we spar like old times and work off some of this anguish of yours?”
He folded his arms. “I’m a lot better now. Are you going to be able to keep up with me?”
The tree behind her twisted a branch down into her hand. It toughened and shed itself until it was tempered and sharp to match Mercy.
“Please, you say that like I’m old. I’m only eight hundred and seventy; I’m practically a spring chicken. Perhaps a summer chicken, but I still think I can give you a run for your money.”
She had been a good partner when he was younger, he remembered as she lunged forward to test him. It was a slow movement, and he parried it gently.
“Don’t play games,” Ilisha warned. “You’d better do your best.”
She slashed upward almost faster than he could track. He stepped back with just enough time to avoid a cut that would have opened his throat with a thin, vertical line.
“I can’t tell if your lack of consistency is a strategy or a weakness!” he said.
“It’s definitely not a weakness.” Ilisha was laughing. “How audacious of you to think I even have such a thing.”
Every time he fought her, it was like fighting different people. She’d taught him to be surprised by nothing and to never get comfortable with his opponent’s mannerisms. In battle, people could be unpredictable, and the way she fought proved it. She was graceful and showmanlike and very strong, but he was still faster. He always had been.
It didn’t take long for him to realize that this was not for the fun of it. He could feel the sweat cold against his skin as the wind circled and howled around them. Ilisha was grunting and shouting with every swing, giving everything she had, and he had no choice but to do the same. She started to tire, and he would have done the same, but something coursed through him and made him quicker and fiercer.
“Aleth!”
He paused, panting.
“Boy, I yield. Calm down!”
“Sorry.” He sheathed Mercy and rested his arms over his head, breathing deeply. Perhaps he had more anguish to work off than he thought.
“When you say you’re the best, even if it’s a little conceited, it’s no lie.” Her smile held nothing back. “How do you feel?”
He felt sheepish but decided to let the pink in his face speak for him. “Like I can breathe again.”
“Then run off. Find your sister. I know that’s your next move. The storm will be here soon, so you should be quick about it.”
“She’ll be with Lilu,” Aleth grumbled. “I have no idea where she’ll have taken Tizzy.”
With the faerie’s gentle magic, the tree accepted its limb back and healed beautifully. Ilisha took another deep, full breath of air, stretching her arms and feeling them tingle all the way into the forest around them and down below.
“They’re toward the Sheerspine River, by the Arrow.”
Not knowing where Tizzy was had been an excuse, one which he no longer had, so he bid Ilisha goodbye and moved down into the cavern and through the Wistwilds.
Tizzy had to deal with things in her own way, he knew that, but he wished they didn’t involve Lilu. He knew well enough the way Lilu liked to solve problems, and he also knew how tempting she was about it.
The sky suddenly rumbled with a promise. This storm would not be like the last. The cold bit in deep and he shivered.
The Arrow was a pine tree, hundreds of years old, struck by lightning. The resulting fire had burned everything around it into a small clearing. Only a sliver of the tree remained, blackened and sharp at the tip a hundred feet tall, casting a shadow over the Wistwilds like a giant sundial. That’s where he found them.
He heard them before he saw them. Lilu’s rage was audible with every hit, and Tizzy grunted as she received more force than she could take. But she wouldn’t give up. He’d never seen her so ruthless and determined. She may not have been any good with a sword, but she was doing fine with her fists.
Tizzy got daring, sending a desperate kick with all her weight and momentum. It would have knocked the daemon off her feet for sure. It would have hit squarely in her stomach, but Lilu was a faster fighter than his sister, and she slid out of harm’s way, and suddenly Tizzy was wide open. Lilu punished her for the mistake with a punch that knocked the breath from her and sent her to her knees.
“What the hell is this?” Aleth didn’t even realize he’d said it. Lilu glared in response, the anger in her face smoothing into her usual condescending smile as she realized who was facing her. Tizzy wheezed on the ground.
“Lessons,” the daemon said plainly.
“What could you possibly be teaching her by beating the shit out of her?”
Tizzy looked up, blood in her teeth. “Go away!”
It hurt but not enough to dissuade his anger. “Seriously? This is what you want? What are you going to get from this?”
“It’ll make her tough,” Lilu said. “It’s going to be hard for anyone to train her if she’s reeling from every hit. She needs to know pain. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying myself.”
Tizzy got to her feet, wiping her mouth. “This is what I want. Stop treating me like I can’t handle it! Like I can’t handle anything! I don’t need you to baby me!”
“But you need this instead? How is this helping?”
“It was helping plenty before you showed up!”
Lilu loved the sound of them arguing and shouting at one another, in as much of a way as she could understand loving anything.
“Tell you what.” The smile on her face was devilish. “Judge how well it’s working for yourself. Fight her.”
“No.”
But his answer wasn’t accepted. Tizzy picked up Wish from the ground and came for him, bellowing. He had just enough time to get out of her way.
“Will you stop? This is ridiculous!”
She was dead serious about all of it. If he hadn’t drawn Mercy to parry her next attack, she’d have ripped his stomach open. Her new confidence astounded him. It made her faster and stronger. But she was still sloppy, and that made him angry. It didn’t look like she had learned anything at all.
“All you’ve done—” he hissed, swinging, “—is make yourself suffer—” he knew he was putting too much strength into it, driving her back, “—so you can be a bitch!”
When she tried a swing of her own, the force of his parry knocked the sword out of her hands and sent it skidding through the brush. She roared and charged him, her small fist sinking into his gut with power he didn’t expect.
He should have stopped right then, but he didn’t. He threw his sword down and swung back, and she juked out of the way with a swift, practiced movement. It made him livid. There was no reason he should’ve missed. She was having trouble hitting him, too, always aiming for his face, which was just out of her reach. It was easy to block her when she aimed high, but then she swept her leg into his knee, and he stumbled. It gave her an opportunity to connect to his jaw, but her fist never landed. He caught it, shoved her back, and punched her in the cheek.
She stopped, and so did he. She held her face and stared at the ground.
“Tizzy, I—”
She ran past him, and Lilu smirked.
“Is this my fault too?” she asked.
He thought of a hundred things to say all at once but bit his tongue and chased after Tizzy. He knew he shouldn’t have hit her, regardless of the cheap shots she had taken. She had only been trying to prove herself.
“Stop! Tizzy, please!”
He wasn’t far behind her. She slogged through the mud, branches cracking and breaking underfoot. Soon, he was only inches away, but she still wouldn’t slow down. He came up behind and wrapped his arms around her, stopping her in her tracks and sweeping her off the ground. She kicked and squirmed.
“Let go! Why won’t you just go away?”
He brought her to the ground and kept his embrace as tight as he could. “Because the last time I did that, it ripped us apart.”
She quit struggling, but he didn’t let go. He listened to her sniffle, then felt her tears on his hand. Finally, she leaned into him and sighed.
“Am I really a bitch?”
He kissed her on the cheek where he’d hit her, and she could feel the tiny grin on his lips.
“You already know the answer to that.”
She sobbed. “Gods, the answer is yes, isn’t it?”
“A little.”
It became hauntingly quiet between them. There was only the singing of the wind and the guttural roar in the clouds warning the world below. He could see bruises on her hands and arms and blood on her knuckles. She felt tired and stiff in his arms.
“I’ll go back with you,” he said.
She didn’t have the energy to understand him. “Back?”
“Yeah.” It didn’t feel like it was possible to pull her in any closer, but he tried. “We can go back. I need a little time, but I’ll do it.”
“Back to Suradia?”
When he didn’t answer, she knew. He meant home. Her heart soared, but guilt cut her down.
“I’m sorry I’ve pushed and nagged—”
“You’re better.” He picked up one of her hands as carefully as he could. “You are. Just take it easy, okay?”
She turned and held his face with her mangled hands and kissed him with her bloodied lips. Together, they heard the first crack of thunder.
They didn’t make it to the cavern before it started to rain. It was cold, and the raindrops were big, and they scattered wildly in the wind. It was miserable, but Tizzy loved it. There was something enticing and passionate brewing in the air as the sky grew black, and she couldn’t wait to get Aleth next to her on her balcony drenched in the rain.
Getting carried away with her thoughts had made her breathless. When they got back to the abbey, it seemed like everyone was excited about something, but she had no interest in what it could be. She dodged everyone as deftly as she could to get to her room, Aleth following like a shadow.
By the time she was there with the door closed beind them, every muscle in her body cried in agony, but it didn’t stop her from turning around and peeling off his clothes. He started to free her of her own, moving delicately, sensing she was in pain. He tried to kiss her just as tenderly, but she was voracious, throwing her arms around his neck and changing the pace. He wanted to oblige, but everywhere he went to touch her, there was a bruise or a scrape barring him.
He tried something different, working his fingers down into the muscles of her neck and shoulders. She bit her lip and stopped, completely frozen when his touch reached her back.
He shook his head and smiled. “Come on, let me work on you for a minute.” He picked her up and carried her to the bed.
“Maybe I overdid it,” she mumbled. He resumed massaging anywhere she’d let him, and she moaned into her blankets. “Why do you always stop me?”
“Stop you from what? Coming at me like a wild animal?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I guess I’m still working through some things. Admitting you’re about to fuck your sister is a lot to come to terms with, you know.”
She leaned back and laughed.
“Cut it out. This is hard to do when you move around so much.”
She rolled onto her back and stared up at him, her smile twisted with mischief. He looked down at her bare and bruised skin, concealed by nothing more than damp underclothes, and swallowed uncomfortably.
“Why don’t you work on this side a little, hm?”
“You’re very persistent.”
She took his hand and guided it to the inside of her thigh. “It hurts right here.”
“I bet it does.”
When he lowered himself onto her, feeling so much of her skin touching his, his worries disappeared. It was wrong, but he couldn’t keep denying it was where he belonged. He kissed her slowly and deeply, and she wove her fingers through his hair as he gently parted her legs. His lips moved down her chest, and she shuddered as he inched closer to parts of her body that begged for a touch.
The curtains thrashed in the wind, and a streak of lightning lit up the sky. She pulled him close as the thunder rolled in, and for several moments they didn’t move, watching the flashes in the night. It was beautiful, she thought. And then she couldn’t bear the thought of any more clothing separating them.
The blankets were soft and cold when they slid beneath them, bare and tangled together like they might never part. She couldn’t let go or she would never feel so whole again in her life. She thought she knew what to expect when this moment finally happened, but it felt like nothing she had imagined. He knew exactly what he was doing, every kiss, every caress, everywhere he grazed his teeth so gently, and then his fingers found her, and she was purring and moaning into his chest.
Her face was flush when he guided her hand and she felt him. She loved the sounds he made, the way he kissed her so aggressively, the way he trembled when she touched him. And then he stopped her.
She gazed up at him, brushing his cheek, running her thumb over his lips. “No more holding back. We’re ready for this.”
He breathed deeply and nodded, lacing his fingers with hers, kissing her. She gasped. The pain was slight but sharp.
The room was frigid, the balcony slick with the storm’s downpour, but the cold didn’t reach them. He was inside of her, and there was nothing else in the world that mattered. Everything around her melted away, and all she knew was that she had moaned and whimpered into him as everything happened faster, as she was brought to her edge. She could feel his breath hot in her hair, could feel the sweat on him as he shuddered and gasped and cried out with her.
When he stopped, she looked up at him catching his breath, and she could feel his heartbeat. He could feel hers. He laid on her chest, and they watched the storm until sleep took them.
***
Slumber didn’t last. Only a few hours later, Tizzy was woken by a familiar sensation. She shook Aleth awake.
“Eidi!”
There was nothing they could do but crawl to opposite sides of the bed and look innocently asleep. Eidi slipped through the walls with no warning.
“Hey, you two need to get up!” The banshee tried to hide a curious expression behind her hand as Tizzy rolled to her side and glared her down.
“Could you learn how to knock?”
“I’m so sorry, Tizzy, but this is important! Ziaul and the others have arrived! You should dress and come to the grand hall at once.”
She left the same way she had entered, and Tizzy grunted. Aleth’s hand found hers under the blankets.
“You should go,” he said.
“You should go with me.”
“I suppose I have to.”
He smiled as he said it. There was a softness to him that she’d never seen before. She slid in beside him again, brushing the hair out of his eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
His face was red. “Very okay. You?”
Her answer was a warm kiss before climbing out of bed to clean up and dress herself. He watched her bare skin light up as a bolt flashed in the sky, then joined her. She stood and leaned on her hip, making no effort to rush, not caring to meet any of these important people.
Tizzy lit the hearth to bring a glow to the room. When she inspected herself in the mirror, her face looked every bit like she’d been beaten by a Greater Daemon. She stepped to the balcony and let the rain cleanse her, letting her drenched, tangled hair hang down her shoulders like two drowned animals. She grumbled, and Aleth stood behind her, his hands at her waist.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “And you look like you’ll rip someone’s throat out if they say otherwise. Can’t get much better than that.”
“That’s exactly the look I’m going for.”
She fished through her wardrobe for something dry to wear, noticing their soaked clothes in front of the fire.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to borrow a shirt.”
He stifled a laugh. “I’ll pass.”
