Chapter 8

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.

I was certain he'd heard me before, but this time he turned to greet me. I was pleased to note that he looked significantly better this morning—more akin to the confident, mischievous male I'd admired in the market.

His eyes looked bright though they were no longer swirling with color. His skin was luminous—an Allavari trait I'd always envied—and his straight, dark hair was gleaming. The fresh bandage on his wound was clean, no signs of bleeding after I'd stitched it the morning before when he'd slept.

Maybe all he needed was another feeding,I couldn't help but think. Could I have prevented his suffering yesterday?

"Good morning," I greeted, a little shy. I held up the blanket, and Lorik frowned at it before understanding crossed his face.

"Worried about me, little witch?"

Had his cheeks darkened slightly? Despite his teasing words, he turned and folded his wings against his back. I stared at the suede-like flesh covering the thick bones of them. Though Aysia had been part Kylorr, she'd taken more of the Allavari blood of her mother. She hadn't had wings, nor had any of the children at Correl's orphanage.

With the exception of a Kylorr female I'd stitched up six years ago, this was the closest I'd ever been to wings.

"You can touch them if you'd like," came Lorik's voice. His tone gruff and husky, dipped down like a lover's in bed. I hadn't been with a male in years—hadn't touched or stroked or kissed or laughed with one in bed in years—and I'd never felt the stretch of time more than right then.

Without agonizing over whether this was appropriate or not, I reached out my fingertips before I could second guess myself. He'd given me permission…and I was endlessly curious.

Lorik shivered when the heat of my fingers stroked down the membrane of one wing. The skin was surprisingly soft until it met the hard bone of the skeletal structure. I could feel the tiny veins running beneath it, just as I could see them in the sun.

"Are you sensitive here?" I asked. Lorik huffed out a deep breath. I realized belatedly that my voice was as low as his had been. This moment felt entirely too intimate, and I swallowed as I let my hand lower.

"Yes," he replied. That was all he would say, and I hurriedly draped the coverlet over his shoulders, standing on my tiptoes to reach them. Wrapped around his wings, the coverlet made a ridiculous shape, but when he faced me again, I wrapped the front together, tucking it tight.

I could feel him watching me as I fussed over him. Did he like it when I fussed over him?

"I'll have your clothes washed today," I told him, grasping for something to say, chancing a peek up at him. His blue eyes were swirling again.

"If you wanted me naked, Marion, you only had to ask," he said. "We can burn my clothes instead if you wish. I won't complain."

"Be serious," I chided though I felt my lips quirking at the edges. When the coverlet was secure and I was satisfied he wouldn't freeze in the chilly morning air, I stepped back. Only he snatched my wrist, quicker than I could blink—frighteningly fast—and kept me against him. Pulled me even closer. "Lorik."

"You've given me your blanket—what's going to keep you warm besides me?" he wondered, tucking me into his side like I belonged there. His skin was so hot against me I was worried he was feverish again. "I'm fine. I run hotter than most," he told me, as if reading my mind.

"What…what are you doing out here this early?" I asked, letting him warm me. He'd tucked the coverlet around me so I didn't have anywhere to turn…but it felt wonderful. The heat of him contrasted with the icy air across my cheeks. I wondered if he'd bathed already because he smelled clean and fresh, no lingerings of poison or infection.

He would leave soon, I knew. There would be no reason for him to stay.

"Tell me about the glowflies," he murmured, nudging his chin toward the five nearly hidden hives on the outskirts of the garden. Each hive was situated close to their favored plant. "A peculiar hobby. An incredibly dangerous one."

"You saw them," I pointed out. "You were out here a couple nights ago with me."

"Yes," he said, "but I knew better than to get too close."

"Afraid of glowflies?" I asked, my tone teasing. I felt relaxed against him. This newness, this unpredictability when it came to him was exciting. Exhilarating. I wondered if he'd steal a kiss while he had me close.

I was so used to being alone…and I was used to Allavari men. Most were too proper that it bordered on being cold. Most didn't show their feelings and very rarely acted on them. Allavari, like the Kylorr, were raised to show little emotion. To never let anyone see you struggle because that was not the Allavari way.

"Terrified," Lorik responded, and I heard the smile in his voice without looking up at him.

Most Allavari men would certainly never admit to being scared of anything after plastering a woman against them. That was what I'd always liked about Lorik. He was unpredictable. Even in the market, when others looked at him with half-hidden wariness. Confident in himself, he didn't seem to care what others thought of him or how a certain action would be perceived.

"You have a braydus as a companion and glowflies as your garden keepers," Lorik said, his tone wistful. He shook his head, his good arm sliding down my spine, before he hooked a hand around my waist.

My cheeks warmed, and I grinned, trying to hide it beneath the curtain of my hair when I ducked my head.

"Are you sure you aren't from the Below after all?" he wondered.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Glowflies, like your braydus, were once native to the Below," he told me. "How do you think they have all their magic? They are literally bound in it."

I looked up at him. "You sure know a lot about the Below and all its creatures."

"Oh, I'm an expert."

"I've never heard that before," I told him. "Glowflies are rare, yes. But I managed to collect all of them from across the Black Veil, re-homing them here. I chose this place to build my cottage because there was already a wrathweed hive lodged in the trunk of that tree there and a patch of the stuff growing wild."

I gestured to the tall river tree on the west of the property. I'd dug out the hive and moved it years ago, but the hollow in the trunk remained.

"Peek likes to lie in there sometimes. His little hideaway," I told Lorik.

Lorik waved his bad arm—making him wince—toward the cottage, toward the bench he'd been sitting on a couple nights ago.

"Your braydus has been watching my every move," he informed me.

Sure enough, Peek was sitting on the bench, staring right at Lorik, his long tail curled around his legs. His ears were straight up in the air. Though Peek had slept in the bedroom last night, he'd always been on alert—a stranger in his domain, no doubt, making him uneasy.

"He's keeping the Severs away, remember?" I teased.

Lorik's jaw tightened. He looked back to the hives, evenly spaced around the night garden. "Wrathweed. Fire cup. Brightbell?"

He looked to me in confirmation as he gestured. I nodded.

"Death needle. Which makes that one the shadevine hive," Lorik continued, looking at the pitch black teardrop-shaped mass on the edge of the garden. At night, it glowed silver from within.

"Yes, that's right."

"Wherever did you find that one?" he asked.

Shadevines were the rarest of the glowflies.

"It was easy," I told him. "Utterly by chance, I suppose. I was out in the forest collecting lovery leaves for my candles. Before I knew it, night had fallen. But there was a cave nearby, and it was glowing silver in the dark. I saw the shadevines creeping along the rock. I knew there must be a hive inside. I went back the next day when they were asleep and started the transfer."

"Is the cave still there?" he wondered.

"Yes, but there was only one hive in the cave. I haven't come across another in the five years I've had this one."

"Shadevine queens are immortal," he said softly. "You'd think there would be more since that's the case."

There was something in the tone of his voice that had me quieting.

"Yes, but many queens were captured to try to replicate that immortality," I said carefully.

The Rolara villagers knew I kept glowflies or at least suspected I did. The antidotes and some of my potions couldn't be possible without them. There were others who kept glowflies. The Healers' Guild, for instance, kept a patch of land on the northern edge of the Black Veil and tended to it in shifts based off the season. I was the only one who had shadevines, as far as I knew. But I had never been selfish. Any request from the guild for shadevine blooms, I'd honored.

"Why are you asking about the shadevine hive?"

I'd had three trespassers on my land in the ten years I'd lived in the Black Veil. All of them had come for the glowflies. Foolishly, they'd all come at night, when the glowflies were active, and they'd been stung dozens of times each, every hive swarming as if they knew they needed to protect themselves as a single unit. The village witch's barrier spell only worked on Severs, apparently. Not thieves.

One thief had died. I'd heard about it in the village the next day. Wrathweed stings were poisonous. To be stung thrice without an antidote was certain death. Since then, not a single soul had tried to take the hives.

I didn't know if the thieves had wanted the shadevines or if they'd wanted the hearts of the hives—where most of the magic was concentrated and was thus most valuable. Likely, they'd wanted both.

"Curiosity," Lorik answered me.

"Many have tried to take them," I informed him, keeping my tone level. "None have succeeded."

"That's apparent," he replied. "They trust their keepers alone. You must have a pure soul, Marion."

I cocked my head to the side. He was still radiating heat. I felt the rumble of his voice against me, the vibration of it sinking into my skin.

He was…something. Something I couldn't see. I knew that as certainly as I knew I should stay away from him.

So why was I pressing closer, pleased with his compliment? Maybe I'd been much too starved for affection and intimacy. Maybe I missed the heat and weight of a male against me. Maybe just one little taste of Lorik would be enough.

But I was a healer first and foremost. I couldn't forget that. I needed to see him well…and then afterward?

Maybe afterward I could explore whatever this was. Maybe afterward, I could go to Grimstone's with him and drink ale and kiss him in a back booth.

I wanted to uncover all his secrets…even if I feared what I would find.