Chapter
Thirty-Seven
Sebian Present Day, Deepmarsh Castle
ight days.
Eight fucking days wasted, freezing my tail feathers off—three to fly up north, and nearlyE double that to get back to where I should have stayed in the first place. Whichever pathfinder had reported Domren’s sighting far outside the walls of Ammarett had caused me eight nights of roosting between frigid winds instead of between Galantia’s warm legs. If I found out who that blind fool was, I was going to pluck him bare!
Because Domren hadn’t been there.
I brushed the light dusting of snow from the shoulder pieces of my cuirass as I strode along the corridor, eyes going to Galantia’s chamber door. The sun had only just peeked up behind the white- capped pines that lined the marsh toward the east, so she might still be asleep. Hopefully. I couldn’t wait to climb under the blanket, wrap myself around her from behind, and soak in her warmth. But not until I had the name of that incompetent pathfinder… I invited myself into Malyr’s chambers, ears immediately twitching at the strangest sound. Not for the rustling of parchment that indicated he was already at his desk—he’d been struggling with insomnia for several weeks now. No, it was his muffled laugh, dull and breathy, as if he’d released it into a crumpled piece of cotton. I’d only heard him laugh twice before—both times I thought his mind
was about to crumble.
The moment I stepped into his personal room, my feet froze right along with my heart, as if the chill of the north had followed me home. Galantia wasn’t in her chambers… because she sat at Malyr’s desk. On. His. Lap.
“I got it all wrong again, didn’t I?” she asked as she glanced over her shoulder back at him, dressed in nothing but her long-sleeved shift and a black scarf wrapped loosely around her neck. Oh, and Malyr’s wool-knitted quilt was draped over both of them, painting a surreal picture, but it persisted no matter how often I blinked. “These two are just so difficult to tell apart.”
“Yes, they seem very similar at first glance, but if you pay attention to the sway down here…”
Malyr’s hand settled on Galantia’s, a quill clasped between her fingers, and slowly guided it to glide across the parchment before them. “You feel this? Zé is less elongated and more rounded at the bottom, like a lazy roll on a gentle drift during a summer morning. The letters of Old Vhaer are based on flight movements. Try again.”
Galantia nodded, which let her beautiful blonde tresses shift on her shoulders before she lifted the quill out of Malyr’s touch, only to place it back on the parchment. She squinted as she gave it all her focus, gliding the tip over it. When it came to a stop, she looked back at Malyr once more.
“Did I do it?” she asked with a cheeky grin.
Malyr’s lips parted, and he ran his tongue along the upper corner of his teeth, making it look like he was about to bite, but no, it was an actual fucking smile. “Make a zé? No. But after five cups of wine, someone cross-eyed might let it pass as a gé.”
Galantia laughed.
Malyr laughed.
What the fuck was going on here?
The longer I watched them, the heavier my breaths became. Since when did Malyr spend time with Galantia outside of tormenting or fucking her? What had happened between them during those eight damn days that he stroked his fingers into her hair and to the back of her head without a yank?
And why did he lower his face to hers, closing his eyes as if he was about to— Oh, shit, he was kissing her.
My lungs caved, refusing another draw of air until the lack of oxygen blurred the sight of how he devoured her mouth. How he rose with her, letting the chair legs groan and the quilt fall as he placed her onto the parchment. How he gathered her shift, shoved his trousers down, spread her thighs for him. All while he kissed her, both moaning so loudly into each other’s mouths, it snapped me out of
my trance.
He kissed her.
I stammered in a lungful of air, breathing through that sudden stickiness in my chest that shouldn’t be there. She wasn’t mine… could never be. What claim did I have on her? None. What right did I have to interfere? None.
But I did anyway, stepping into the room, rubbing over that damn tightness in my chest that refused to go away. “Things are awfully cheerful around here this morning.”
Galantia jumped at the sound of my voice, and her hazel eyes found mine. “Sebian!”
“You’re back early,” Malyr said, his tone a little too flat for my taste, but at least he had the decency to put his cock away and brush her shift down. “I did not expect your return for another two days.”
“Clearly not,” was all I said as I looked about the room first, then toward his nest. Discarded cups. Candles melted down to the wick. Platters with fruits and bread. Whitish snail trails all over the
black pillows and blankets. Goddess be damned, had they spent eight days in his nest, fucking? “Who was the pathfinder that reported the sighting of Prince Domren outside the walls of the capital? That bastard wasn’t in the north.”
Malyr helped Galantia to slip off the desk, then looked at me with a bored kind of expression I
wanted to punch. “His banners.”
“What?”
“The pathfinder spotted… his banners…” he enunciated as if I was fucking slow or something, all while Galantia walked toward me. “Reports never said anything about Domren himself. You know full well that scouts are to remain at a safe distance, making it impossible to confirm or deny his presence within his own banners.”
There was a twitch in my left eye. “Are you saying that I spent eight fucking—”
Galantia wrapped her arms around me, taking me into a hug that was a little too stiff, a little too short. “I’m so glad you came back unharmed.”
Unharmed? It had taken me less than fifteen minutes to realize that Domren wasn’t there before I’d headed back, my arrows utterly useless and my balls frozen solid, thank you very much. And Malyr couldn’t have been bothered to give all that a mention?
I breathed through the anger in my chest.
None of that was her fault, so I lifted my arm to pull Galantia deep into me. Goddess help me, I just wanted to grab her, hide us under the blanket, and spend the morning inside her. But before I managed my fingers on her shoulder, she took a step away, taking with her all that warmth I so desperately needed. Why so distant?
Beneath the fur in my bracers, an after chill buried along my skin, lifting the hairs along my arms as if my ravens wanted to ruffle their feathers, eyes going to Malyr. “Why didn’t you make me aware of all this before I headed north?”
“It’s not like you left me much of an opportunity to bring it up,” he said and walked up to me. “The moment I marked the map, you flew off without another word. Even left Galantia standing and waiting by the stables, as if your sweetheart wasn’t worth a quick goodbye.” I might have considered that pat he gave on my shoulder as condescending, wasn’t it for how that last part drove shame into my rounding spine. “I will be in my library.”
The moment he disappeared through the set of doors, I looked back at Galantia, seeing the dismay over how I’d left written across her hardened features. “I’m sorry I left without saying a word.”
“I understand, and I’m sorry that it didn’t work out,” she said, trundling up a smile, as lovely as ever but somehow weak around the edges. “You want revenge, saw an opportunity, and took it. They don’t come by nearly as often as the chance of spending a day at the cliffs…”
Well, that summed it up rationally, but did nothing to soften the disappointment on her features.
“It’s no excuse to just leave without telling you. I really wanted to take you to the ocean that day, so you could see us fly and tumble.”
“Oh, I did,” she said, the corners of her mouth lifting higher, returning the usual radiance to her smile. “Malyr was kind enough to take me instead. We saw…”
Her words faded into nothing but disjointed noise. Something about a girl. Chainmail. Salt. All I could focus on were the words, Malyr and kind, and how both were used in the same sentence, such a contradiction, it melted my fucking brain away.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa…” I lifted my hand, which silenced her. “What do you mean, he took you?”
She shrugged, throwing her hands up right along with the motion as if any of this was supposed to make sense. “Malyr found me by the stables where I waited for you. He told me you’d left, then he
took me to the cliffs instead.”
That stickiness in my chest turned to tar.
Heavy, viscid, disgusting tar.
My mind went back to that day and how Malyr had brought up Domren. How he hadn’t made a single mention of the chance that the bastard might not even have been there, but how he had eagerly marked the map, anyway. How, all the while, his horse—which he rarely rode and never for the amusement of humans—had stood saddled and ready in the stables as if… Oh goddess, help me, what an idiot I was.
“That bastard planned to take you there all along,” I muttered low, feeling like twice the fool over how easily he’d managed me out of the way. Why had he? What was all this about? “Goddess help me, I shouldn’t have left. Shouldn’t have left you alone with him.”
Shouldn’t have let him kiss her… “What are you talking about?” Galantia wrapped her arms around herself, fingers mindlessly playing with the edges of her scarf as she frowned at me. “He gave me a wonderful day, Sebian.”
Which was half the fucking problem here, but for reasons I couldn’t quite grasp yet. “This is all so strange… Finding you like this with him.”
Remnants of her smile vanished, seemingly chewed away between her shifting jaws. “We grew… closer while you were gone.”
“Closer?” A laugh burst from my lungs, but I wasn’t feeling amused in the slightest, my voice dripping with bitterness. “Yeah, I could see that when you fucking… devoured each other on that
damn desk.”
He kissed her!
Goddess help me, why did my chest ache?
“You didn’t seem to have an issue with sharing me when you left.” Her expression hardened. “At least he kisses me instead of turning away from it at every chance.”
That shut me up for a second or two. She had a point. For weeks, she’d wanted my kiss. For weeks, I’d refused her, giving Malyr ample opportunity to just… slither into the that space where she was the most vulnerable. She wanted me to kiss her? I would!
“You have no fucking idea how many times I wanted to!” I grabbed her middle and pulled her against me, tightly, loving the way her weight hung on my arm as if her legs were about to give out.
“You want me to kiss you, sweetheart, hmm?”
She nodded in frantic little bobs, nervously wetting her lips, her breathing strained and erratic.
“Yes.”
I stared at her lips; those peachy, tempting lips that quivered the closer I came with my own. Our breaths melded into heady longing. Our hearts pounded against each other where my chest pressed into hers. I wanted this, and I didn’t give a shit if it was wrong. I could do this!
Until my lips touched hers, full and warm and puffy and soft and giving, reminding me of how they
could never truly preen… and… and… I couldn’t do it.
I pulled back right then, just in time to watch Galantia’s lips pout toward empty air for less than a second before her eyes snapped open and found mine. “I’m sorry, I just…”
Couldn’t give her that… When my voice trailed off, she stepped back and hooked a finger into her scarf, tugging the fabric down low enough that dark red marks and purple bruises peeked out from behind it. “You don’t have to explain. Malyr already told me.”
My eyes shot back to hers right then, stomach clenching as if someone had punched me in the guts.
“Told you what?”
“That kisses are special to your kind, since they’re reserved for one’s mate,” she said, which soothed my pulse into something less panicked, but only slightly. “We both know I can never be that for you.”
That tar dripped down along my ribcage, staining my core black because she had no idea how that didn’t even scratch the surface of how difficult this was for me. There was so much she didn’t know,
so much she wouldn’t understand.
Neither was now a good time to try her.
She’d backed away from me already—clearly upset, perhaps even a bit heartbroken—the air between us frigid. I didn’t like it. Didn’t like how we were with each other right now. Maybe I couldn’t give her a kiss, but what about other things? Falling to sleep together? Waking together?
Taking care of her?
I’d given her all that, hadn’t I?
And gladly!
I opened the buckles on my cuirass as if it would help my chest expand, not liking how fucking… emotional this was getting. I reached for her scarf, giving a little tug until I managed a good look at… What the fuck was I looking at? A bite mark?
I couldn’t help but shake my head at the sight. “He fucking bit into your scar?”
“It’s fine,” she said as if it was merely a love nibble. “And it’s not what you think.”
“Oh, sweetheart, you can’t begin to imagine what exactly I’m thinking right about now. Let me see this.” Another tug on the fabric revealed two scabbing marks where his teeth must’ve punctured skin, though purple-blue bruises colored the outline of his bite print. “This is fucking awful.”
Galantia shoved my finger off, tugging the scarf back over it as if Malyr’s bite mark was something precious that needed covering and cradling. “I said it’s fine.”
“None of this is fine.” Everything was different from how I left it, leaving me desperate to reconnect with her, to show her that I might not kiss, but I did care for her deeper than I’d realized
until now. “How long ago did this—”
“Stop fussing about it!”
All blood left my face, letting my cheeks prickle with the onset of numbness. “I just meant to help.”
“I know,” she said, her features finally softening as her gaze lowered to the ground. “But it’s not needed. He didn’t do it in malice or in a flare of temper. I… I wanted this.”
“You… wanted him to bite your scar?” I’d never much judged Malyr’s sexual urges, or questioned why they were how they were, but this? “That’s a new sort of deranged.”
“I don’t expect you to understand.” She threw a hand up as if she didn’t quite understand it either, and then turned toward the window by the desk. “At first, when he hurt me, there was only pain. Then, it aroused me. But now…” A sigh. “There’s something more to the pain, the hate, the resentment.
Something I always wanted.”
Strange how, against the dropping of my stomach and the numbness that spread across my skin, my first thought was that Malyr had to be a damn good kisser. So good, he’d actually managed to make her think this wayward dynamic between them was love—or, at least, something on the verge of it.
Just like I’d feared.
I swallowed past a lump in my throat, feeling sorry for her and me right along with it because… Where did this leave me? “You know, you can never be that for Malyr, either.”
She swung around, deep vertical wrinkles set between her glistening eyes. “Why do you have to say that, hmm?”
Because he had stirred her up against me as if he had any truer claim to her that wasn’t based on politics and negotiations. “All I’m trying to tell you is that you should be careful around Malyr and question his motives.”
“Question his…” She gripped the train of her shift as if her level of perplexity required her to cling to something. “What about your motives, Sebian?”
“Oh, my motives are in question now? Mine?” The only man of two who actually cared about her in a way I hadn’t in years? So many lonely years. “From the moment I took you, I looked after you as well as I could, didn’t I?”
“And why, pray tell, might that have been?” A lift of her chin. “The time a man has to wait before he can kill his enemy is well-spent between the legs of his enemy’s betrothed.”
My jaws locked up so fast and hard that my ears twitched, because that sure as shit sounded like the stuff that came out of Malyr’s mouth. “I’ll chance a guess. He told you?”
“Does that make it any less true?”
“No.” But it made me wonder all the more why he’d clearly been busy these last eight days, driving a wedge between Galantia and me, putting a heavy burden on our friendship. “I wanted you to fucking scream my name when I made you come, and have it echo in your head while that bastard Domren failed to get you there. The difference being that I could discern between you and Domren while, to Malyr, you are and always will be a Brisden.”
“And yet, at times, I can make him forget,” she murmured.
“Do you know that Cici came out of his chambers the morning I left?” I asked, if only in a pitiful attempt to turn this shit right back around on him. “She looked a tad… disheveled.”
For the fraction of a second, her lips turned into a narrow line, but she nodded it away. “He told me that he spoke to her. Malyr sent wagonloads of grains and food to Tidestone, to ensure the army he needs is fed come spring, yes, but also to reassure me of his motives. Lord Taradur is overseeing the safe transport.”
“Malyr extending a kindness toward your father, even if it gives him a slight benefit?” My stomach gave a strange roil, almost like a warning from my guts, because I didn’t believe that for a fucking second. “If anything, Malyr personally drilled holes into the wagons to have it all spill on the way there.”
“Well, I guess we’ll find out once it arrives sometime after my visit with my parents,” she said. “I tried finding fault in his motives, Sebian. I really did. But I couldn’t. And I’m no longer trying.”
Yeah, Malyr had obviously kissed her wits goodbye, because something about this story didn’t add up. “When did he command the food be transported to Tidestone?”
She shrugged. “The day you left, I presume? Like I said, the decision somehow came out of the conversation with Cici, which was why she was in his chambers in the first place.”
“And when did he tell you about the arrival time?”
“Same day. At the cliffs.”
The day Malyr had spilled ink over a handful of snowflakes… My gaze trailed to the window. Or more precisely, to the white blanket of snow beyond it. Flying the distance between the southern stores and Tidestone took about five days. No amount of horses could pull that through snow and muck in the timeline she suggested.
Which meant that something was going on here that required Malyr to cause strife between Galantia and me—something he kept me in the dark about. Luckily, now I knew exactly where to go
looking.
