Page 63 of Henhouse
Her stomach ached as she took in the sight of him. Gashes like tally marks peppered his torso—the bloodletting of the Conduit to allow the acolytes to speak with the Crossed Over. Her eyes burned. Her words caught in her throat.
‘Kiernan?’ he rasped, his voice hoarse and coated with emotion.
Kiernan’s knees wobbled as she closed the space between them. She reached a hand toward his cheek, but he jerked from her touch. ‘Let me explain,’ she pled. But Dom’s eyes took on a hardness she wasn’t sure she could break.”
Hope’s minuscule pause was the only indication Brayden had that reading this had become a challenge for her. That she bared some part of her he hadn’t seen before. He could barely fill his lungs.
Hope continued.
“‘They’ll be back shortly. You should go,’ Dom barked before resuming his seat on the bench. Despite the weeks, months maybe, that he’d been kept here, he was still as strong and imposing as ever. His muscled shoulders rippled with tension as he avoided her gaze.
‘Not without you,’ Kiernan asserted. She crouched before him to examine the shackles. Pure iron with an intricate lock that she couldn’t easily pick. She tried anyway, slipping the tip of her sword into the keyhole but to no avail. Panic flooded her system; she hadn’t thoughtthis far into her plan.
‘There are fates worse than this. Go.’
‘No!’ she bellowed, and she hoped it didn’t summon their enemies sooner. She dropped her voice so only Dom could hear. ‘No. I left you once. Never again.’
Kiernan kneeled before him, his legs spread wide enough in his seat that she could shuffle between them, bringing her face to meet his. She reached out a tentative hand, and this time he allowed her to cup his cheek, to comb her fingers through the tangles of his hair.
‘Your realm should not have fallen. I was blindsided in the chaos and I was . . . I was so scared. Scared to die. Scared to lose you should you choose the Void like so many others before you. I didn’t know if I could take it, so I let you go into the Crumbling alone. When I realized that we might stand a chance at stopping it together, I got to the Edge as fast as I could, but they already had you. It was a trap and I was a coward.’ She cast her eyes downward and clutched her hands to her chest as the tears fell. ‘But I didn’t run because I didn’t love you. I thought it was the only way for me to survive long enough to get back to you. If I had been caught . . . if they knew what you meant to me they would have used you against me, and I cannot bear the thought of you hurting. But that day I vowed that whoever brought a blade to your flesh or a wound to your soul, I would return to dust, because yours is the purest heart I know, Dominique Revengaard. It is kind and joyful and far superior to mine. I only wish that you could forgive me my cowardice, forgive me the mistakes I have made when all I ever meant to do was give my heart to you fully. When I surrender to the Void as stardust and darkness, when all that is left is pitch-black nothingness, I will carry the flame of my love for you. Wherever eternity ends, youwill still find my love waiting. I just hope to prove it to you from this breath until my last.’
Dom’s strong hands drew her face toward him, and his rough thumb brushed away the tearstains from her cheek before his lips crashed into hers in a fiery kiss that melted away any bit of darkness that remained shrouding her iron heart. He rested his forehead on hers, his depthless brown eyes alight with the love that had never truly faded between them. ‘To the end of eternity, my love.’
The groan of rusted hinges snapped them to attention, and they were no longer alone. The heaviness between them meant only one thing—eternity might very well end today.”
Hope’s eyes had reddened as she read, but she appeared to use the thunderous applause as an opportunity to cage her emotions once more.
Brayden stood slack-jawed in the crowd. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t remember anything logical. Which meant he couldn’t stay.
Before he could think about what he was doing, he beelined for the exit. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Hope, utterly wrecked at the sight ofhimfleeing from the edge.
31
The warmth was the first thing he noticed when he arrived. From the eclectic wallpaper to the glow of the chandeliers to the hum of the old cast-iron stove while Effie cooked. Everything in the Thatcher house radiated the feeling of freshly baked bread and going home. It was inviting, a warm embrace.
That is until you actually came upon any of the Thatchers under the age of seventy-five. Then it was all ice and sharp edges. Theo tried not to notice the sting of Pamela’s glare from where she sat at the breakfast table as he finished binding the trash bag that nearly overflowed. Effie and Hope still had more mess to make and the bin wasn’t going to make it.
He completely ignored Pamela as he stepped around his girlfriend—who was worth this current discomfort—and wrapped his free hand around her waist from behind. His fingers curled into her hip bone, and where his nose brushed the soft waves of her hair he was rewarded with the scent of rosemary and mint. Effie leaned intohim; if he wasn’t careful, he’d have to hide behind the trash bag as he left. He moved back enough so that the curve of her perfect backside no longer conformed to his body. He really needed to stop wondering what she looked like naked, especially with her mother watching his every move. “Where’s this go?”
Effie craned her neck away from the pan of bubbling pasta sauce she had made from scratch. “Far end of the carriage house, twenty paces to your right after you step out the front door. Try?”
She lifted the wooden spoon to his lips. Garlic, onion, and Italian spices layered perfectly with the San Marzano tomatoes and chunks of celery and carrot that were stewed alongside the ground beef. But it was an almost smoky acid that had him groaning his approval. “Soy sauce?”
“Worcestershire,” she said proudly. They’d been cooking together a lot at his place and the joy it seemed to bring her was only surpassed by her baking. In Theo’s experience, nothing brought people together quite like good food. He hoped that belief held true through the rest of the night.
“It’s very good,” he said before dropping a kiss to her collarbone. When he straightened it took every conscious thought not to reflexively shield his balls. He sensed that Pamela wanted them in a vise somewhere. He gave her a terse smile before hauling the trash toward the front door.
He admired the decor as he took his time getting to the entry. Though he knew the home was Dorothea’s first, Effie’s touch was everywhere—in the embroidery pieces that hung in their hoops like frames, to the artfully arranged bookshelves and mantels, to the faux stained glass that hung in the bay window of the front room to catchthe morning light. It was the latter that drew him briefly from his task. He set the garbage by the door, ignoring the snipped murmurs from the kitchen, and stepped into the room that housed all manner of crafts and books and hobbies. He didn’t realize it until he walked in, but he wanted a room like it someday. He inspected the fake stained glass that had made Effie a very real part of his life. The lines were perfect, the colors translucent enough to cast hued shadows onto the windowsill. She’d taken the glass from the original picture frame and used actual solder to make a gilded edge around the glass that matched the chain she fixed to the top so it could be hung just so. Intuitively he knew that this piece was important and would be prominently displayed in their home.Their home. He liked the sound of that.
Theo nearly jumped out of his skin at the whoosh of feathers and the sting of claws on his shoulder. Not wanting to startle the bird back, he turned his head ever so slightly and came face to face with a perky little parrot. He held out his hand, inviting it to change perches, and lifted it out before him. “Nice to meet you,” he said and felt a little stupid, but the bird cocked its head like it was listening. A sharp word almost screeched from the kitchen sent the parrot gliding back to its perch in the far corner of the darkened room.
Theo sighed and returned to the hall, the quick clip of Pamela’s voice a shrill murmur he didn’t care to try to understand.
Hope’s voice cut through the chatter loudly enough that he could hear from the foyer as he put on his shoes. “Be nice, or I’ll make you eat in your room.”
She would be a good mom. Theo smiled at the thought, but it wrenched away when he considered that he hadn’t heard from Schilling in a couple of days. It was a fact he immediately shared with Hopeupon arriving, though it seemed to do little to quell the embarrassment she felt over her vulnerability at the book launch. He struggled to understand Schilling in that moment. Theo himself had been about ready to proclaim his love for Hope by the end of her reading. He was surprised his friend was so resigned to his decision at just being co-parents that he hadn’t swept her off the stage with a romantic flourish. Schilling had never taken outside opinions so seriously. But this one had burrowed in and couldn’t be taken back, regardless of what Theo had to say about it now.
Any lingering guilt about not being able to right their ship evaporated as he nearly ran into Effie’s oldest sister Ellen on the sidewalk. “Sorry, didn’t see you there.”
