"Hope you dressed warm," she said, sitting. She pulled on her knit hat and braced her bag of weapons between her body and the window before lying down on her back. "It gets chilly here."
"Body warmth," he replied and joined her, lying beside her.
He was warm, she admitted. His magic filled the space around them, bending light and shadows in a way she found as mesmerizing as flames or the falling snow.
"D and I used to camp out on the beach when we were little," Darian said. "You ever do that?"
"The life of a god and a servant were very different," she replied. "I was put to work before I turned eight."
"You must have some good memory of the immortal world."
Her thoughts were on her family. She touched the necklace at her throat, the hole within her growing. She wondered what a life surrounded by those with the luxury to care for one another was like. She'd seen Sofi and Damian together, their love and attachment. When Dusty found Bianca, she swore she'd seen a miracle, for the master assassin was the last person in either world she'd ever have thought would fall to something like love.
Love, after all, was nothing more than being vulnerable and waiting for someone to hurt her. At least, she'd thought this until Dusty succumbed to it. The day she'd met Bianca, she'd known Dusty would know unconditional love from the Healer.
Jenn had felt alone after that day but thrilled nonetheless. Dusty deserved happiness after all he'd been through. But she … she didn't want what came with that kind of happiness. Loss of independence, complete surrender, placing her fate in another's hands.
She'd never be able to trust someone with everything or find her equal the way Damian and Dusty had found theirs. She'd give anything to be treated as Sofi and Bianca were: as treasured partners. She was too different, though, too independent. She'd never found someone with her mental toughness, someone who could challenge her. Someone who could love her and understand how important it was that she remained her own person. No man she'd ever been with could tolerate the part of her that refused to be caged.
Some small part of her yearned to feel that sense of unconditional safety and affection. But doing so also meant sacrificing her independence and the risk of losing everything that meant something to her, a potential lifetime of pain. Again. It wasn't worth it.
"I take it that's a no."