Page 201 of Flame and Sparrow

Dravyn didn’t force any more details out of me. He only reclined more fully against the back of the tub, a deep sigh rumbling through him. “Damn all the gods of this realm, and all the demons of the mortal realm, too…all of them.”

One of his arms remained loosely wrapped around my waist. The other draped over the edge of the tub, and as he muttered and cursed the impossible battles pressing in all around us, his fingers clenched so tightly against the copper rim I was surprised they didn’t sink into the metal.

The water heated around us, stopping just short of being uncomfortable. His skin burned against mine, occasionally flaring hotter—evidence of a darker, barely suppressed fire simmering just beneath the surface of him.

Because the calmness I’d witnessed earlier had only been an act, of course, and mostly for my benefit.

I took his hand and guided it away from the edge, pressed it against my cheek instead.

His fingers unclenched as soon as they touched my skin—from heated steel to softness in an instant.

He relaxed a little more as I sank closer to him, and I couldn’t help marveling at the way he could shift so quickly, the way the layers of him were constantly rearranging themselves around me.

I’d once told him I didn’t need him to burn the world down for me, but in that moment, I had no doubt that he would have done it—that he would have set fire to anything I asked, but never let the flames touch me. And it was a strange thing, to feel so safe in the arms of someone capable of such destruction.

After a few minutes of huddling against him, absently trailing my fingers over the muscles of his arm, I asked, “Has the pain from your injury stopped?”

“Yes.”

I couldn’t tell if he was being honest or just trying to comfort me.

His chest shook with a quiet laugh, as if he sensed my skepticism. “Relax,miran-achth. I’m fine.”

“We’re done with secrets between us, right?” I asked.

“I’m done with them,” he agreed.

“Then you have to tell me what that means.” I tilted my face so I could see his, and he smiled at the insistence in my gaze.

He tucked a damp strand of hair behind my ear. His smile turned sly for an instant, and I thought he was going to come up with a way to dodge the question once more.

Then he said, “There isn’t an easy, direct translation into any other language…because it’s more like an idea. A feeling. We have a story in my old kingdom, that when the one you’re meant to be with enters the world, they steal a part of your soul with their first breath.

“And you exist, missing that part, until they find you and breathe it back into you.Miran-achthrefers to the breath—the part that is missing. You can survive without it. Plenty do. But to have the missing piece is to breathe easier, more deeply. The first time the term left my lips, I wasn’t thinking of that story, really; I was only thinking of how relieved I was to have you back with me. How you had survived the trial, so I could inhale again.”

Slowly, I sat up. I was hyper-aware of the steaming water sliding off my skin. Of all the places where his body still pressed to mine. Of each beat of my heart, and his, and each breath we both took. Even now, without even meaning to, all those beats and breaths felt perfectly in sync with one another.

Maybe they always had been, and I’d just been too stubborn to see it.

Suddenly those three words I’d been struggling to say since our reunion felt inadequate.

“Are you all right?” he asked, after my silence had stretched on for nearly a full minute.

I shifted so we were facing one another; I needed to see him. I couldn’t speak, so I simply nodded before leaning up to kiss him.

It felt like the first time I’d ever done it—softly at first, my lips just barely brushing his, my breaths spilling warm and slow into his mouth, his chest rising and falling with deep, deliberate inhales.

His hands gripped my hips, steadying me. His knees rose up, further pinning me in place before he took my face in his hands and pulled me deeper into the kiss.

The tub quickly felt too small, too confining, for the way I needed to kiss him, to touch him, to press myself against him.

He shared the same thoughts, apparently, because after a moment he stood and stepped out of the water, carrying me with him. He wrapped a towel around himself and grabbed a second one for me.

He placed me on the polished countertop—warming the stone with a touch of his hand—and trailed the plush towel over my damp skin while his lips and tongue continued to tangle with mine, drying me until only a few droplets of the bath still clung to my body.

He tossed the towel aside and drank these last beads of water away himself, his warm mouth pressing in and his tongue licking at the curve of my shoulder, the valley between my breasts, along the edge of my hip.

Soon the only dampness that remained was what was pooling between my legs; he drank of that too before straightening, planting an arm on either side of me on the countertop and leaning in to brush another kiss to my lips.

---