Page 20 of The Duke With the Dragon Tattoo
“I did, yes,” she said, grimacing at the excess pride in her voice. She couldn’t say why, exactly, but she very much wanted him to be pleased with her. Impressed, perhaps. “Oh! And the best one I brought just for you.” Bustling to the wooden box at the foot of the bed, covered to protect a nest, she hoisted it next to him and lifted the lid. “Happy birth—”
He said words she’d never known to be curses until that moment, as he retreated across the vast bed.
Shocked, utterly stymied, she stared down into the disinterested eye of the young roosting rook with a broken wing in complete amazement. “You… you don’t like it?” She knew it to be an obviously senseless question the moment it escaped on a quivering gasp, but astonishment had apparently stolen her wits.
“Like it?” he panted from several spans away. “Why the fuck would I—” Disgust had pilfered what little color resided in his cheeks, but once he looked into her swimming eyes, he clamped his jaw against whatever else he’d been about to say.
A hot tear slid down her cheek. She wished she could drown herself in it, somehow, so powerful was her mortification.
His panic seemed to intensify as he held out a hand. “Don’t… don’t cry.”
“I’mnot.” She sucked in a shaky gasp, petrified into place by indecision and self-contempt as her breaths turned into hiccups.
“Please.” He groaned. “I—can’t bear it if you—” Decisive determination hardened his features, and he only spared the nest three sideways glances of unease as he inched back toward her.
“I—gave you a birthday—and—and then I—ruinedit!” she sobbed.
“Lorelai.” Big hands dragged her off her feet and onto the bed, until she was cradled against his chest. A warm body with not one soft place to be found, folded around her like a shelter from the storm of her sorrow.
She collapsed into his strength, abandoning her own. Never had she been held like this. Never had anyone taken the burden of her weight, nor the weight of her pain, and acted as a bulwark against it. If only she could stop crying long enough to marvel at the miracle.
Callused fingers snagged at her cheeks as tears disappeared the moment they fell.
“Lorelai.Please.Do not weep. I’m sorry.” The desperation in his voice quelled her sadness, enough to give her the strength to fight the next wave of sobs. His breath was a sweet-scented breeze across her face as he pulled her closer. His voice broke often with uncharacteristic youth as he scrambled to explain. “When I woke in that grave… Ravens… they werepickingat the bodies of the dead. Tearing things off them. Out of them. You understand? One came after me…”
HolyGod. Lorelai hid her face against his chest as a fresh wave of tears crashed against her. She’d gifted him a nightmare. How could she be so thoughtless?
“Lorelai.” The backs of his knuckles lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Sweetest Lorelai.” It was as though he could not stop saying her name. His own eyes melted. Misted. His rigid features impossibly tender. “I know you. You had a reason, didn’t you? For bringing me this…” His dimpled chin gestured to the crate teetering dangerously next to them.
“It’ssoinane.”
“Tell me,” he soothed, his fingers brushing at damp curls trying to stick to the tears on her cheeks.
Snuffling her embarrassment, she peered over to the crate. “I thought the raven’s feathers look like your eyes. Black upon first glance, but when you inspect them more closely, there are a great many colors, indeed.” She leaned up a little. Not enough to leave his embrace, but to show him what she meant. “Sort of—sort of iridescent, aren’t they? Extraordinary, really. Every time I looked at him, I thought of you. I thought—they were lovely.”
She stared at the raven, currently running his long beak across the back of his feathers with improbable bends of his neck, impervious to her outburst of emotion.
The silence stretched out for a moment too long before one arm released her, and reached for the box.
“I suppose…thisone isn’t so terrible.” He stroked a feather with the very tip of a square finger, palpably suppressing a flinch when the bird noticed.
Both man and creature didn’t move for endless silent moments.
Her every fiber attuned to his, Lorelai sensed him relax in unfurling increments, turning to warm muscle again instead of cold steel. She’d never been so comfortable. Never felt so safe.
“Good God, what’s it doing?”
The bird had rested its beak atop his wrist, inspecting them both with tiny, rapid jerks of his head.
“I think he likes you,” she ventured. Perhaps if she educated him about the birds, he’d understand them better. Perhaps he’d even forgive them for mistaking him for a corpse. He’d been in a grave, after all. They could hardly be blamed. “Ravens are really such clever birds. Someone once told me they have a rather intricate language, not just all cackles and caws. They like puzzles, and play.” She brushed her hand over the bird’s uninjured wing, enjoying the inky sheen illuminated by the candlelight. “They fall in love.”
“How do you know?” His whisper caressed her ear, and she shivered.
“For their whole life, they have one mate. One other to whom, no matter where the wind takes them, they never fail to return. I always considered them rather beautiful, romantic birds… That is, of course, unless they’re eating people.”
She felt him smile against her hair.
“It’s why I’m so anxious for Atilla to heal,” she babbled on. “What if he has someone waiting for him? Someone he’s desperate to return to? What if she’s afraid he won’t come for her?” The very idea fragmented her.
