Page 268 of May: Bloom & Bane

The next one is not a man who needs holding. The next one is a man who will not let anybody near him.

I pick up the crystal and turn it slowly. Somewhere in a house full of covered mirrors, a stitched giant sits alone in the dark and refuses to speak to his wife.

“Well, hello, little thread,” I murmur.

Ørvahn turns to his other side. And in the cupboard, behind the raspberry tea, there is another jar. There is always another jar.

CHAPTER 83

overruled

—ASHÁN & SAGE

It starts as an itch, low, between my shoulder blades, in the ruined scar tissue where Runak sealed my skin closed. It deepens into pressure and heat.

“Ash?” Eden’s hands tighten around our waist. “Sage? What’s wrong?”

“Move back,” Sage says. The pressure continues building under our scar.

“Down,” Therael shouts. “Everyone back!”

Something enormous twists beneath my skin. Two shapes, shifting over one another like creatures fighting over the same narrow shell.

A wet crack snaps through the clearing as the scar splits.

I have felt pain in this life. I had these wings sawed from my back twelve times in a single night. I would do it again. I would do it a hundred more times… before I would choose this.

They tear out of the sealed flesh between my shoulders, splitting the skin that he fused shut, forcing through muscle that had already made its peace with being empty. A groan forces its way from my mouth and my knees hit the snow. Eden’s hands roam over my skull, but I can’t hear what she’s saying over the roar of my own body coming apart. They erupt from my back in a spray of black ichor and green sap. For one horrible second the agony whites out the entire world—and then it’s over. And we can breathe again.

I drag air into lungs that suddenly have room and I lift my head as they settle behind me. The weight of them pulls at muscles that remember exactly how to hold them. One translucent green wing unfurls, a black-and-white skeletal wing on the other side. One of each. No matter whose form we wear. The seam of us visible and permanent, spread wide across the clearing behind me.

The silence of the clearing is heavy, broken only by the hiss of steam rising where the black ichor and green sap meet the snow. Therael is frozen, his eyes wide.

I try to hold still as Eden reaches up, her palm incredibly warm where it makes contact. She presses her hand flat against the center of our back, right where my wing becomes his.

A low growl vibrates through my chest. Her fingers slide outward, brushing the delicate membranes. On the other side, her fingertips trace the harsh curve of my bone.

“They’re beautiful,” she whispers. “You’re finally whole.”

Our wings flare in response to her words. If I thought they were sensitive before—this is a brand-new kind of torment. Every single nerve ending is raw, newly born, and when Eden’s fingertips trace the veins of it, the sensation is devastating.

Another growl escapes us.

“Eden,” we murmur. “You need to stop. If you keep⁠—”

“Keep what?” she breathes.

The little menace. She knows. She drags a fingertip down the length of our shadow-wing, and my whole spine bows.

“That,” Sage grits through our teeth. “Keep doing that.”

She does it again.

I turn on her and catch her face in both hands. I take her mouth like I’m starving for it. I have spent this entire curse being emptied of one memory at a time, and now she is here, she is ním, and she is stroking her hands up the raw nerves of my wings like she wants to graft herself directly into our split seams. She gasps against my lips. Her fingers fist in my wing and we both groan into her mouth.

“Okay,” someone says distantly.

I don’t stop. I can’t. Eden’s flush against me, one hand knotted in a wing and the other sliding down the front of my chest. I’ve got a fistful of copper hair, the other hand splayed wide over the swell of our daughter. The kiss has gone frantic and filthy, and I am dimly aware that we are not alone, but I cannot find the inclination to care.