Page 105 of The Devil In Blue

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“No. I tasted betrayal yet again… until you allowed me to pour my anger upon you. And you did not judge me or condemn me for it. I had so much anger to give. Maybe I still do.”

“I will take every drop of it if it means you no longer have to bear it alone, Briar. Know that.”

The corner of my lip curled. “Does that mean we can keep the chains?”

Rune’s brow quirked. “If you’d like,” he smirked. “I would build a whole room dedicated to indulging your desires if you wish.”

I pulled him into another untamed kiss, savoring the taste of him.

“My desires are clear,” I breathed. “I desire you.”

“That is the easiest wish I could ever grant you. You already have me. You’ve had me since the day you first saw me covered in blood and filth. And you have me now. Your mind has changed, but your soul remains the same and that is what I fell in love with, Briar.You.”

I slid my ankles around the back of his legs and pulled him tighter against me, reveling in how his cock was still so hard and eager.

“Then show me again what wonders I have to look forward to,” I said, biting his chin lightly. “I should need frequent reminders.”

He leaned forward, bracing his fists on the table as he bent to lick over my taut nipple.

“Be careful what you ask for, little bird,” he rasped, biting down against my breast and making me yelp. “We have both changed in fifteen years.”

That promise in itself nearly made me come. I shuddered at his words and held him close, content to have him inside me all night long.

Briar was a natural. She wasn’t squeamish or afraid of much after her experiences the past fifteen years. When I told her I wanted to start cleaning up the woods and make them more hospitable for the other inhabitants of the Glyn, she was all too eager to help.

But she was going to need her own familiar and I had no doubt she was strong enough to create one now.

A sacrifice of blood, bone, and tears could create one, but it wasn’t just about what was given physically. I feared that Briar felt too much and would put too much into her creation as I had with Elanor, but she had convinced me she was in a good place. A place of confidence and control.

We sat in a clearing in the woods where Briar had arranged a circle of white stones on the mossy ground just as I’d taught her. Naeve and Lura stood off to the side, anxiously watching as Briar placed her molar in a bowl. She’d pulled it herself earlier in the week in preparation. Another would grow back, but bone was hard to grow back. Even for sovereigns.

She was tough as nails now and I admired the hell out of her for it.

Briar crushed her tooth into a stone bowl until it was gritty powder.

“Now, the blood?” she said, looking up at me for guidance.

I nodded, watching but not intervening. Creating something from your soul was not a simple thing. It was deeply personal and sometimes difficult and came with risks. Risks I was certain Briar could handle.

She’d become so strong. Months of reading, learning to fly with her new wings, feeding our lust-filled escapades, and learning about our world had built an entirely new woman and I loved her all the same.

Briar brought the tip of a small dagger to her palm and made a straight, slow incision across her skin, barely even wincing. Then she squeezed the blood over her crushed tooth and from a little vial she had tucked in her coat pocket, she poured a few drops of tears into the mix.

I was there when she collected them. She was so enamored by the waterfall down the mountain that she wept. She’d been drifting further and further away from the restraints Southminster had burdened her with and she was allowing herself to feel more and more. Her emotions often overwhelmed her, but she was learning to control them rather than suppress them. It was a process I was more than happy to be a part of.

“Alright,” she sighed, carefully sliding the bowl into the middle of the stone circle.

“You remember the words?”

“Yes.” Taking a deep breath, Briar stood, eyes fixed on the bowl.

“The familiar will take physical form from the contents in that bowl, but speaking the words will give it a mind.”

Briar nodded and took a few more breaths, letting them out slowly the way she did when she was about to take flight. Then she closed her eyes and began to speak words from the old tongue exactly the way I’d taught her. And ever since the idea of getting a familiar occurred to her, she’d been buried in books of sovereign history and how the realms worked. And with that came her interest in the old language.

So when she spoke the incantation, she did it with more heart than I had. She felt the words and she poured them into her creation, one trickle at a time. Her accent was pure and her intentions were even more so.

In the middle of the circle, the stone bowl was smoking and filled the clearing with the scent of rain and orange peel. It was an odd scent, but distinctive… which meant something was forming. Something that would be a part of Briar and its own entity all at once.