Page 14 of A Song of Saints and Swans
And rarely to someone without divine heritage.
Pathetic pining aside, I deserved an award for how well-behaved I’d been, especially considering the delicious abuse that poured from her lips. Anthia could snap her manicured fingers, and I would do anything she said.
I wonder if she’d scratch those talons over my skin…
“Jar.” Rena’s stern voice steered me away from the lust-soaked direction my thoughts were headed. “Give Anthia some space to look around, please.”
Realizing I was practically riding her ass—oops—I begrudgingly backed off with a gruff apology. I could feelRena’s eyes on me, and if I wasn’t already painfully aware of how far gone I was for this angel, I would have been embarrassed to degrade myself with such a show of lowly…contrition.
To my surprise, Anthia didn’t take the opportunity to tease. “It’s all right, Jarilo.” A secretive smile curved her luscious lips. “You’ve been growing on me lately. Like a benign tumor.”
She’s perfect.
I crossed my arms and leaned against the kitchen countertop before shooting her a saucy wink. “If you’re trying to get me hard, swan, please continue.”
The slight blush that colored her cheeks affected me so intensely, I averted my eyes and envisioned Veles dancing naked in the grove to get myself back to baseline.
That’ll do it.
While my attraction to Anthia had appeared the moment we met, thiscompulsionto be near her—to touchher—only manifested after my incident at the London lab.
When everything changed.
It wasn’t my dick running the show that day, but the basic need to survive. As my body started to fail, my only goal was to drag myself to wherever my angel was.
But there’s more to the story than that.
My gaze warily drifted to where Rena was perched on the quilt-covered bed. I’d purposefully kept my memories of that day locked down in my sister’s presence, for fear of her discovering the truth.
It was for the best. The last thing I ever wanted was to cause Marena pain.
And this would destroy her.
Anthia made a soft sound, snapping my attention back to where she was tentatively exploring the interior of the wagon.
The loving way her elegant fingers traced over every surface implied that whoever had lived here was important to her. For a moment, I tensed, wondering if the previous owner had shared her bed, before recalling how every swan I’d interrogated swore no one in the clan ever dared go near her.
Good.
Because she’s mine.
“ThisVardowas my mother’s,” Anthia quietly murmured, her gaze riveted on the ceramic bowl in her hands. “She disappeared before I’d even reached maturity, but it took Gerard another few dozen years to accept she was gone. After that, I was given permission to go through the wagon and claim a few things for myself before we left it behind. That was when I discovered the first letter…”
She swallowed hard, running her thumb over a crack in the bowl, and the ache to comfort her was near suffocating. Determined not to crowd her, I simply watched for any sign that she needed me, even though it felt like I was falling all the way from Perun’spalace to Vel’s fortress in the Nav.
I’ve got it bad.
Dropping my gaze, I frowned to see the bowl she was admiring had been patched with tree sap and covered in gold powder—as if whoever painstakingly repaired the item hadwantedto highlight the damage.
Humans are so weird.
Rena thoughtfully hummed. “It appears the new tenants are familiar with the Japanese art ofKintsugi.The act of filling cracks with gold reminds us to embrace the past and our flaws. That even with our damage, we are perfect.”
The expert way in which Rena handled Anthia’s confession was unsurprising, but I caught an unexpected waver in my sister’s voice. Covertly glancing her way, I was shocked to catch the same lovesick expression I surely wore every time I looked at the shifter.
Oh, fuck.
A white-hot blast of primal needrushed through me—so potent, I had to grip the edge of the counter to stop from tackling them both.
