Page 128 of Spring Guardians & Songbirds

That made me chuckle. “So, what is there to say about it?”

“It will not happen again—”

“It is all up to you, my love. If you want me or not, if you need me or not.”

She snapped a book shut so violently, dust clouded overhead and made her cough. “Let me finish.”

“I did let you finish. Didn't I?”

She hit me. Went to her tip toes and squared me with a book on my head with all she had. I did deserve that. “It will not happen again if you are not part of it. It was an exchange, nothing more. I won’t owe you anything.”

“Owe?” That made me pause and turn to her. “I was part of it perhaps more than you were.” I backed her to the shelf, caging her in. The way she looked up at me reminded me again just how much I’d enjoyed it. Leaning to her ear, I whispered, “Never heard of a sweeter sound than the sound you make when you come. One day, love of mine, when you give me the honour of touching you again, you will be screaming my name, too. That’ll make it a whole lot sweeter.”

“I don’t scream.”

“I beg to differ. But then again you do like me begging,” I said, trailing kisses down her neck, and her hands shot to my chest, clutching my jacket tight. Her mind was torn because one moment she pushed me away, and the next she couldn’t get me close enough to her. “Ask. Just ask and I’ll be at your feet. Or do you want to hear me beg for a taste of you? Do you want me to beg for you to come on my tongue? I could bet you taste as sweet as heavens, my sweet villain.”

She whimpered when I sunk my teeth on her neck and then kissed the sting away. So dizzying. Her scent, her shape, her mind. It was all cast for me, and it spun my mind with violent want. “Ask and I’ll do it.” I held her face to me while I rested my forehead to hers. “Ask because I am losing my mind.”

Just when her lips parted for her to speak, a throat cleared to our side. Moriko stood with her arms crossed tight across her chest and a stern face judged the position she’d caught us in. “I hate you. Oh, I hate you, too,” she mocked with a bored tone. “I will kill you. Oh, I will kill you, too.”

Snow slid away from me and brushed some dust from her shoulders. “I, for one, said more than that. Second, have you ever had a good, angry, hateful fuck?” she asked, tapping her shoulder and marching away.

The Hanaian queen gave me an assessing look. “Think I liked her better with your mouth on her. Kept her quiet enough.”

Straightening my jacket I said, “I quite like her loose tongue, Your Majesty. Sometimes more than when it is in my mouth.”

With a heavy sigh, she shut her eyes and turned to leave.

Snow and the others were already flipping through the books, searching for any mention of Vas attached to the sea monster he’d slain.

There was mention of the Vilewrath all throughout Numen mythos and tellings, but very little on its disappearance. However, the children’s books were thick with information.

Vas was born in the sea, son of a tradesman and a highborn Norodoh woman. Many paragraphs told of his accomplishments, from the eradication of sea beasts to pirates and illegal trade made on the Moor. He was a hero in the unblessed west, but he was a hero to the blessed too.

Nia shot up from her seat. “I’ve got it,” she said, waving a book before us. “Aurora met him in Adriata. Look. ‘Sight first cast under Henah’s starry sky, a breath first shared in Henah’s land. Worth and unworth met, yet the two shone like the stars they were under that night. Enamoured with her beauty and her kind, the unblessed man believed for the first time that there was a divine. Enamoured by his tenancy, his crystal eyes and his tender smile, the white flame guardian believed for the first time that the gods had been unjust to omit help in Vrammethen. They tasted the beauty of night and the perks of the dark to enjoy one another—to fall for one another. But when the sun shone the next morning, Aurora’s betrayal was clear to the heavens. She’d betrayed Fader. His trust, his care and his love. Mostly, she had defied his power, his word and his ruling. To mingle with humans was ill-advised. To mingle with those with hearts darker than the tar pits of Golgotha’s heaven was forbidden. A violation. The two unfated lovers were not divinely punished. For the divine refused to stoop to the gall they’d committed.” Nia blinked at the pages, running a finger along the inner spine. “It was torn. The next page was torn.”

“Vas was made to live out his human years and she was chained to the realm,” Moriko said with a sigh, pulling Nia to her lap, and leaving a kiss on her shoulder. “Predictable, my ahana.”

Nia trailed a finger under the next page. “The next part starts with Aurora being trapped. ‘The silver gilded guardian was trapped in the silver gilded sceptre. A gift, a curse. The realm now possessed the power to turn Fader’s mercy into either. As the magic remained unstable, so did the Numen folk. Carefully handed to those that feared neither magic nor death, Red Coven kept the divine object where no one could step—Nephthys Isle. Protected not only by the magic tether of all Eldmoor witches, but by the hand of the mighty Golgotha and his creatures laying lair in the Sea of the dark.”

“Visha mentioned that,” Snow said and grabbed the book from Nia to read the title. “The insults to the divine. A prose poem mythos written by—” She frowned at the cover page. “E.V”

“Esmeray Vassenas,” I said. “First a scholar then an author before becoming Henah’s confidant. Safe to assume all this occurred during the time she lived.”

Nia stood and rushed to the shelves again. Everything had narrowed down. We now had a time frame to match and line everything up.

Snow dropped back in her seat. “Also safe to assume that they have wiped out this in any history book of that time too. We are now back where we started.”

Her friend dropped about a dozen or so more books on the table. “All written during that period of time. Mostly Eldmoorian. One ought to speak of the sceptre.”

Moriko picked up one of the thin, colourful editions. “Doubt that they were teaching children where they hid the sceptre pieces, ahana.”

Snow pointed a finger at the Autumn Queen. “First time you called her your flower I pretended my senses had dulled from the dust. You say it a third time and I—”

“Be nice now, love,” I said, pulling her threatening finger down.

Nia snickered, bringing a packet of almonds for Snow to munch on them. “Yes, be nice now.”