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“It’s like attraction,” he said. “A Kylorr will like the taste of someone and not another. You?” He blew out a rough breath, his leg shifting underneath the sheet. “I like your blood very, very much, Marion. We fit one another in that way. It’s natural. It’s notuncommon, but no, it doesn’t happen every time. I’ve only experienced it once before.”
“A lover?” I asked before I thought better of it.
He smiled, watching me. His teeth seemed sharper in the low light, but I couldn’t find it in me to be afraid.
“Yes.”
I nodded.
“Have you ever been fed from before?” he wanted to know.
“Once,” I told him. “My sister, Aysia.”
His brow furrowed. “Was she sick?”
I knew why he was asking. It wasn’t common practice to feed on a family member unless the circumstances were dire.
“She was dying. It…it didn’t save her,” I said quietly.
His wings twitched. “I’m sorry, Marion.”
“It was a long time ago,” I told him. Ten years. “And it’s not a secret. She wasn’t my sister by blood. Only in…” My soul, my heart. “Only in every way it actually mattered.”
“What happened to her?” Lorik asked. I continued to scrape my nail across the wood, though no more wax remained. “I’ve heard rumors, but…you never truly know.”
“She fell in love,” I told him, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
“With…Veras?”
I nodded, hating that name. Hating that Allavari male and his slick smile with every fiber of my being. The hate had never dulled. Not a single bit.
“Yes. And it got her killed,” I told him. “I’m a healer, and I couldn’t save her.”
Chapter
Eight
Iwoke with a crick in my neck, but the heavy blanket from my bed draped over my shoulders. It took me a moment to gain my bearings—I was sitting in the chair I’d been perched in the majority of yesterday with a stiff back. Morning light streamed across an empty bed from the window behind me.
Lorik.
I stood, noticing the coverlet had been replaced and was smoothed. Not a single sound came from within my cottage, and I walked to the door, peering into the kitchen, finding it empty.
The fire in the hearth was burning, though, keeping the chill of wintry air away. Soon, all of Allavar would be covered in snow.
“Lorik?” I called out, thinking he might be in the washroom, only to receive no response. I frowned.
When I opened the door to my cottage, tugging on my soft boots and grabbing a shawl to wrap around my shoulders from where it hung off the back of the chair, I stepped onto the cobbled path and peered around.
Surely he didn’t simply leave without saying goodbye,I thought, a dull disappointment throbbing in my chest, though I should’ve been happy to have my bed back.
Sighing, I went around the side of the cottage…
Only to find Lorik standing in the middle of my garden, peering at the glowfly hives.
He was glorious in sunlight. I couldn’t help but admire him. His wings were completely stretched out as if he was warming them in the morning sun. I could see the veins in the dark gray membranes. They resembled roots of a plant, of a tree, decorating his wings.
He was bare-chested, I realized, likely because I had yet to wash his shirt and vest, still covered in blood. I felt a pang of guilt at the thought, hurried back inside to snag the coverlet from the bed, and returned.
