Page 196 of May: Bloom & Bane

Eden’s soft, warm weight shifts against us, her long copper hair tickling the spaces between my ribs.

“Why did you stop?” she whines, her pupils blown wide, a drowsy smile pulling at her lips.

“Just admiring the view, ash’kaela.” I press a kiss to her temple and force my skelva to resume their slow circles. “You make it very difficult to concentrate.”

She hums, squeezing around my knot in answer.

“Mmm. Liar.” Her hand drifts up, patting clumsily at the center of our chest. “Rahnové, why do you feel so heavy all of a sudden?”

Drunk on my venom, can’t even hold her own head up, and all it takes is her pressing a hand over our heart, and she knows.

“I’m not heavy, luváel.” The lie singes my tongue.

“Mm’kay,” she slurs agreeably, eyes closing, utterly unbothered. “Tell Sage I love him anyway.”

Her breathing evens out within moments.

She doesn’t know, Sage finally says. She didn’t even realize I was gone.

I stare down at her face, softened by sleep. Her chest rises and falls peacefully.

She’ll feel it when she wakes up, I offer. It was my venya; otherwise, she would have noticed it right away. And she did know something was wrong.

She thought you were heavy, Ashán.

She thought we were heavy, I correct. She said she loves you. She probably just thought you were letting me drive since I had been gone for so long.

Yeah… that’s probably it, he rasps.

We sit in uncomfortable silence.

Sage? I call out. I-I missed you. I’m glad we’re both back.

He doesn’t answer. Deep in our mind, his dim green-gold light shivers, tightly coiled around Eden’s heartbeat. I know how to handle Sage when he’s furious. I know how to match his temper, and fight him for every inch of territory in this body. But I do not know what to do with this…

I do the only thing no one could ever do for me. I let my shadow unspool into the dark, settling it beside that shivering green-gold light.

It’s real. I whisper the words I begged the void for and never received. She’s real. You’re out. I have you now.

His light flickers, leaning a fraction of a degree toward my shadow. And for tonight, that’s enough.

CHAPTER 57

tribute to the king

—EDEN

An ache in my chest pulls me into wakefulness. Sage’s arm is heavy over my waist, but his breathing sounds off. Ashán’s shadow is draped across us both, pulled inward, the way you’d press a cloth into a wound.

We’re lying in the nest in our bedroom. I must have been so tired that I slept through them carrying me inside. I ease out from under Sage’s arm. Ashán’s shadow tightens across the nest before it settles. Droot follows me to the bathroom, pulsing a warm amber.

“And how are you feeling this morning, Droot?”

Droot did not sleep well, he chirps. Big Bird and Big Bony Bird kept The Sun out very late.

“They did, didn’t they?” I suppress my giggle. “We’ll have to talk to them about curfew.”

The Sun was screaming, he chirps, glowing an embarrassed shade of red, his tiny ears flopping back in distress. Droot thought The Sun was in trouble, but Big Bony Bird said The Sun was just blooming. And then he gave Droot a whole bowl of skullberries.