Jason’s lips curved in the most subtle of smiles, and it was a kick to her heart, a treasure beyond price. Who is to say I am not already your slave, princess? Tender amusement in her mind. After all, here I lie, my body ravaged by your passion.
Laughing softly in delight at the fact that her spymaster was teasing her in return, she reached up to trace the swirling black of a tattoo that spoke of lands of white sand and blue seas, palm fronds waving in a balmy breeze while seagulls fought overhead and jewel-bright fish darted in the shallows. “Will you tell me the story of this one day?” she asked in the intimate murmur between lovers as he settled himself between her thighs once more, his weight braced on his forearms.
“It was to remind me I was alive,” he said, the words stark. “I felt so little a part of the world at times that I wasn’t certain I wasn’t a shadow in truth, a phantom who made no impact, had no place. The pain, and the indelible mark of that pain, told me I lived, that I was a person.”
Angry sadness twisted within her, but rather than darkness, she gave him a smile. “Well,” she said, rubbing her foot over his calf, “next time you want to feel alive, come home and drag me into a bedroom.” She nuzzled at his throat, her skin flushing. I can’t believe I just said that. Truly, I am becoming shameless where you are concerned. It is most disturbing.
Bending his head, his hair sliding around his face as his body slid into her own, Jason said, I won’t tell, his quiet laughter more precious to her than a million faceted gemstones.
Epilogue
Mahiya had always known Jason would have to leave—a spymaster could not remain in one place. Though he’d done very well to have information at his fingertips the past two weeks they’d spent entangled with one another as they set up their home.
“Neha and Nivriti appear to be holding their truce for the time being,” he’d told her a week ago. “It’s impossible to predict what either one will do—theirs is a unique battle.”
“Yes.” Mahiya had seen the love behind the hate, seen the need to touch behind the need to annihilate. “I wonder if deep down, they didn’t want to kill one another, if that’s why they both ended up injured but alive.”
“Yes.”
Now, seven days after that conversation, her lover stood waiting to take his leave, heading to parts unknown for how many days, she did not know.
“I may not be able to contact you every day,” he said, the man who had woken her with a kiss this morning buried beneath the obsidian steel of the spymaster. “But I will as often as I can—and should you not be able to get in touch with me, call Raphael or any of the Seven. Or if you’re more comfortable speaking to the women, Elena and Jessamy will both be able to get their hands on any relevant information.”
This man, she thought as he spoke, would never tell her he loved her, would never give her flowers and pretty romance. He might never even admit either to her or to himself that she mattered to him in a way that was no simple sensual connection but a heart bond that made her chest ache.
But, what did she need of words and flattery? She’d grown up around lies and illusions, whispers and insinuations, the thousand intrigues and romances of a living court. Eris had said he loved Neha over and over, and he’d told Nivriti the same thing.
No, words did not matter to Mahiya, never would.
“I know,” she said to Jason’s instruction. “I have everyone’s numbers.” Putting her hands on his shoulders, she rose on tiptoe to claim a kiss to hold her until his return. “I’ll miss you while you’re gone,” she whispered against his lips afterward. “And if you don’t take care of yourself, I’ll be most displeased.”
His fingers spread on her lower back, his head bent over her own. “I’ll return home as soon as I can.”
Tears clogged her throat at his acceptance that this was his place now, his haven. Stepping back, she twined her fingers through his. “I’ll walk you to the edge of my hill.” It was a joke, the rolling hillock of land barely deserving of the name, but she’d insisted on calling it that—until she’d woken up two days ago to find a neatly carved wooden sign on it, proclaiming the rise “Mahiya’s Hill.”
It made her smile and fall impossibly deeper in love with him each time she saw it.
Jason’s wing brushed hers as they walked through the gardens, the wild roses scenting the air in sultry perfume, the sunlight warm on her face. Her mother lived and was a lethal creature she didn’t wholly understand. Neha might yet plunge her region into war. Lijuan was stirring again, and darkness shadowed the horizon.
And yet this moment, it was perfect.
All too soon, they were at the edge of the silly little hill, and Jason’s fingers slipped from her own. Neither of them spoke as he spread his wings and took off, his feathers shimmering jet in the sunlight, his strength magnificent. Instead of rising high up above the cloud layer as he usually did, he did a wide sweep above her . . . and then she heard it.
A voice so pure, it had no match. So clear and exquisite that the birds went silent and the wind sighed, held in thrall. Her heart, it twisted and broke, reformed, the ache so deep, it had no end and no beginning. She didn’t know she’d gone to her knees, was crying, until salt water seeped into her mouth.
“The only songs in my heart were ones that made the Refuge drown in tears. So I stopped.”
This song was not meant for the Refuge. It was meant for Mahiya. And the tears she shed, they carried no sadness. Because she’d been wrong. Her wild storm had just told her he loved her, the piercing joy of his song branding her as indelibly his.
I’ll be home soon, princess.