Page 36 of Angel in Absentia
In front of Tenida, he combed his hands through her hair and leaned over her. His body was full of pain, full as it always was, but he could imagine what it might be to truly caress her, imagine her response. He still had the memories, sacred things, always free in his mind to repeat themselves.
Why had he let her go? Why had he not found her sooner?
Beneath it all, he knew the answer, that small, quiet whisper that bent the steel of his own desires one last time, urging him to give her back to her own life, to her own choices in which she was truly free without him. The beast in him consented to release her only under the condition that if she ever asked for his help again, that would be the last of it.
She would be his, not just in heart, but in every other way. He would take her in his hands and transform them both. Tenida backed away, seeming to sense the intensity of the feelings as the air around them crackled with black sparks.
“Princess,” he whispered against her lips, preparing to set her free in a word, and willing her to call on him again, willing her to one day ask of him the world so that he could claim hers with such finality that he’d never have to part with her again. “Wake up.”
CHAPTER 11
REST
LEA GASPED FROM the bed, nearly screaming as Iris jolted up beside her, throwing a tray she’d been holding clean through the air and causing crackers, soup, and a half-eaten apple to crash across the bedroom floor.
Clea struggled through the covers, coiling them close to her as she slammed her back against the headboard, panting heavily.
“She’s awake!” Iris called, crawling onto the bed as footsteps hurried outside but no one entered. One guard peered in and then rushed off, presumably to call for others.
Clea stared forward, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. She rubbed her face, trying to remember what had happened and looking over to Iris, who lifted a hand to her face.
Clea had awoken with the strong sensation that she’d been stranded somewhere. Murky images swam back into her brain like she’d come back from a dream she couldn’t recall.
“Clea,” Iris said. “Clea, thank goodness. How are you feeling?”
“Tired. And sore.” Clea rubbed her face. She’d experienced similar fatigue from healing before, but this was profoundly different. All healing involved some level of exposure to obscure risks, but as she tried to retrace what had happened to her, it was far too bizarre to reasonably recount in a way that sounded sane.Her mind felt like it was still collecting itself from the ends of the earth, and she had a profound headache.
Iris pushed a cup of water into her hands, and Clea drank thirstily as she inspected her bedroom with its blue and white curtains and carpeting. Several candles burned on a stand nearby.
“What do you remember?” Iris said, a bit more intensely than Clea would have expected, and for a moment, Clea was worried that something else had happened to her father.
As her mind filed through the memories, she distinctly remembered being scattered. She wasn’t sure how to describe the feeling, and then beyond that, she simply felt like she’d been wandering in a vast and otherworldly desert. It had been a journey, and she’d at last found…Ryson? In a dream?
But it had been bizarre. Extremely bizarre. Everything had felt so real as if she’d just been there moments ago. It had been a bright, full moon, in a distant land, and she had seen Ryson, Prince, and Alina. Together. Together? No. She tried furiously to decode their words to each other, but they were all garbled now.
She inspected the candlelight in the room and glanced out the window. There, beyond the glass, was a crescent moon.
“Iris,” she said, glancing over at the woman who looked rather exhausted herself. Clea rose from the bed, easing over to the window and glancing out. She felt strangely weak as her fingers touched the cool glass.
It hadn’t been a crescent moon when she’d performed her healing.
“How long have I been asleep?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder.
Iris looked over toward the open door as Yvan strode through it.
“Clea,” she said, her voice naturally gruff as she approached steadily before exchanging glances with Iris. “You’re all right?”
Clea nodded, searching the room again for other clues as to what had happened while she was asleep but finding none. Had Yvan and the others been sleeping on the royal floors all this time?
Yvan looked different beyond the change from a white to a long blue tunic. The often-open severity in her eyes that Clea was well acquainted with was tinged with a glint of hesitation. Clea at last realized that Yvan’s hair even looked the slightest bit longer, but maybe that was because she didn’t have it braided back.
“How long was I asleep? My father is okay? The healing stuck?” Clea asked the questions so quickly that they almost fell over each other, trying to suss out the strangeness she sensed in the room.
Iris still sat on the bed.
Yvan nodded, raising her eyebrows as she fell back into a nearby chair. She whistled, running her hands through her hair. “He’s all right, that’s for sure.”
“Yvan,” Iris snapped.
