Page 46 of Seraph's Tears
I closed my eyes and slept the sweet sleep I’d searched for since Falling through the sky. Not a single nightmare found me.
When I woke, shadows had crawled across the floor, lengthening almost to the fireplace. I blinked and sat halfway up.
Eve stirred beside me, her breath making the tiny filaments of my feathers nearest her face wave and whisper in the air.
I scrubbed my face with one hand. I felt…amazing. Better rested, healthier, happier, everything. My heart beat at a slower rate, and I could feel the ayim pumping lazily through my body, mixing with my blood as designed. My chest…didn’t hurt.
Odd.
I was grateful, but confused.
Eve sighed, and my attention changed to her. She was glorious in that sleeping pose. My wing covered her naked body, keeping her warm. But I could see each of her curves in my mind’s eye. My mouth flooded and hunger for her filled me, making my limbs go tight and tense again.
I’d never stop wanting her, not in five hundred years. Not in a thousand. This human was my world.
My stomach rumbled. If I was hungry, she’d be ravenous once she woke. I gazed down at this sweet, lovely creature who’d wandered into my life. What a lucky bastard I was. I silently slipped from the bed, replacing my wing with a real blanket, and padded to the kitchen to find her something to eat.
I was a terrible cook—between being a noble’s son and a ranking leader on the warfront, my time had been spent doing other things than cooking. But I did make tea and toasted bread, then heated up some leftover stew from earlier.
Rather absurdly proud of myself, I brought it back upstairs as Eve woke.
Confusion showed across her face first. Then her eyes focused on me, and a slow, intimate smile spread across her face. “Hello.”
My chest nearly burst open with all the happiness and affection that billowed inside. “Here,” I said gruffly. I set the tray on the nightstand beside my bed. “Eat. You must be hungry.”
Her eyes sparkled and she sat up, letting the blanket fall around her waist. Her breasts drew my attention, succulent and full and everything a seraph could ever hope for. Her nipples pebbled, and I remembered the room was probably too cold for a human. Pity.
I bustled around the chamber, found another blanket, and wrapped both of them around her shoulders as she took a bite of toast. Her necklace dangled between her breasts.
Something in my chest shifted and locked into place as I watched and cared for her.
I rubbed my chest. I had grown so used to it throbbing and aching, this strange sensation of flickers and sparks radiating outward, as if following the path of my bloodstream, was both a relief and a mystery.
It was similar to…no, that wasn’t possible. She was a human. I banished the thought from my mind.
“Thank you,” she said shyly, licking a dab of jam from her upper lip. I wished I’d sat closer so I could lick it off myself.
“For the food?” My eyes flicked to the rapidly emptying plate. “You’re welcome.”
Her cheeks reddened. “Yes, and then, uh, earlier.” Her eyes glanced at the mussed sheets around her.
I grinned. “You’re welcome for that, too.”
“My friend back home won’t believe it when I tell her how wonderful sex can be.” She flashed a grin at me. “Or at least, sex with a seraph.”
I preened a little.
Then her face fell and she plucked at the blanket in her lap.
“What’s wrong?”
“I…I forgot. She married a few weeks ago, after I began here as a housekeeper. I received…a letter.” Her pauses sounded odd, though the emotion in her words was genuine. She glanced up and sadness reflected back at me.
“So she now knows how wonderful sex can be?” I teased.
But she didn’t smile. “I doubt it,” she sighed. “Her husband is known for his meanness. I never liked him, even as children.”
“I don’t understand. Why would she agree to marry him then? Has love blinded her to his faults?”
