Page 115 of Shadows and Flames
My body healed quickly due to my Lylithan blood, but as city sounds trickled through the glass and the other guests of the lodging house began to tend to their morning needs, I still felt the sweet soreness within my muscles because of what we’d done.
After El had released me from the wall, we’d tumbled under the quilt where we lay now, kissing sweetly and falling asleep before we could speak much more.
He was taking me to the Well. With him. Whether I’d be able to set foot near enough to even catch a glimpse of it or not was yet to be determined. What I would not stand for would be any unnecessary distance between us or him facing an unknown danger alone. He’d traveled to another realm, taken on the Jakshka to savemyfriend. He’d traversed the continent in the years we were apart while I’d loved and lost and tried to scrape together the pieces of myself that were broken.
When I’d truly needed my El, my Shadow, he encircled me in his warmth and helped me weld the pieces together.
Elián shifted, nose scrunching so cutely. A wobbly smile spread on my lips. The gesture was so much like Soleil in the brief moments I was able to hold him.
There was still an ache there. Where I could almost see our babe, snuggling on Elián’s chest instead of my own palm now lightly tracing the rose over his heart.
But, maybe. Maybe those sort of mornings were yet to be ours. One day.
El moved again, still asleep, and pulled me closer. He dropped a kiss to my brow, where my short curls were tangled. On the ship from Morova, he’d said he didn’t mind my longer tresses being gone. That he didn’tneedthem.
Of course, I’d not expected him to wield my power—as well as his—to compensate for my shorn hair. My lower belly flipped at the memory, and the dying ache between my legs was replaced with a telltale pulse.
“Nmn,” Elián mumbled, and his grip on me tightened even more. Our legs were woven together like one of the colorful garments I was now accustomed to him wearing.
I watched him silently, drinking in the peace of this moment before we rode away to yet another place where danger awaited. My fingernails dragged light paths over his sides, where the muscles remained tense but were still looser than when he was awake. He had a tattoo of a decorated blade, one with fluid, wavy edges like the Ralthan River I could draw with my eyes closed. It was drawn in exquisite detail, stretching from the bottom of his rib to the top of his hip. The ink was black, but as I traced what appeared to be jewels set in a circular pattern on the pommel, I tried to imagine such a blade set with rubies. Or emeralds or sapphires. Something colorful to match the personality and depth of its wearer.
The pad of my finger had wandered to a particularly nasty scar on his hip, decades healed over but large, when I sensed the change in Elián’s breathing. It shallowed a bit, and then the possessive hand on my own hip took on new intentionality.
Elián kissed me again, lingering on my scalp as he breathed me in. Brazenly, he palmed my ass and gave a gentle yet knowing squeeze. “Sabos al’dia,” he grunted, eyes still closed. I continued to silently circle the scar on his hip, unsure of what he said, though I had an idea.
His lids parted to reveal that light, that warmth, and his dimples popped with his widening smirk. Elián dropped a kiss to my nose this time, and he repeated what he said, this time more clearly. Voice still rumbling and rough, he drawled, “Sa-bos ahl-di-a.”
I repeated the words slowly, heat rising to my cheeks. It was so simple, and in this moment, he was such a far cry from the impenetrable statue he once was with me.
“Sabos al’dia,” I said more quickly, and El grinned, showing his fangs. He nodded, hair shuddering against the pillow.
“I’m guessing that means ‘good morning.’”
Elián passed his touch lightly over the center of my spine, over the scar that sent a faint shiver over my skin. “Sê. Yes.”
“Sê. Sabos al’dia,” I recited a few more times, testing the pronunciation. Embarrassingly, my fluency in the languages of our realm was limited to the common tongue and an old dialect of Rhaestran my mother used with me as a child. Through my travels as a member of the royal family, then as a mercenary, I’d picked up countless phrases and could more than survive in most towns the common tongue had yet to touch. But I wanted—needed—to know this one. To be closer to him. I moved my fingernail to the valley in the middle of his chest. “Will you keep teaching me?”
He smiled again, lips closed and nose wrinkling, just a bit. “Sê, mé relanha,” he said, rolling the ‘R’ like a tumbling tide. “Yes, my queen. I will.”
I let him feel my own grin as I ducked into his chest, inhaled the scent of him as he did me. It had been quite strange, during my pregnancy, to hold more than one being within myself. More than one scent. But it was beautiful, too, the aroma of fire mixed with ocean waves.
“We should go,” Elián whispered after some time. Yes, even in this brief moment of stillness, the morning sun had brightened, illuminating more of the rumpled quilt, two pillows that’d made their way to the floor, and our clothes that were strewn in haphazard heaps.
I rose onto my hip, and spoke over my skipping heart as I gazed down at Elián. “How long of a ride from here to the Well?”
His hand was still on my ass, and he used the other to lightly circle my nipple. Unlike last evening, they were not lustful caresses. Just tender reminders and absent exploration. “Nine, give or take. If we were to move quickly.”
I sighed. The prospect of traveling with Elián was more than welcome, yet more time in beds that did not belong to either of us irked. And that was a separate, much smaller concern than Cal essentially taking over The Shadows.
Nibbling on my lip, I shoved away the dreadful inevitability of this particular quest—confronting perhaps the worst of the demons of my past. “Once this whole thing is over, where would you want to live?” After a pause, I added in quiet breath, “Together.”
Aside from said demon, I’d not lived with a lover before. My personal experience of companionship was so fucked up it shouldn’t even be considered, but with Elián, I had an idea of what it could be like. What Maman and Papa had for centuries, even with the mountains of their responsibilities.
Would Elián want to mate me?
To my relief, he did not see or call attention to the flash of panic that forced a thick swallow in my throat. He tilted his head, contemplating. “I do not know. I have not had a permanent home aside from the Well in…ever.” He frowned to himself.
“I don’t need a permanent home. From birth, I divided my time between Versillia and Rhaestras, then as an adult, I enjoyed traveling. Meeting new people and seeing new things.”
