Page 36 of Lera of Lunos
“You are more famous than River,” I say quietly, following Tye to a table that the innkeeper has ordered to be set. “Was it like this before you left?”
My male nods once and pushes the bread toward me, the aroma of yeast and fresh flour filling the air. Breaking into the thick crust, I study Tye over the haze of false privacy. The whole dining room is watching us. Watching him. The realization seeps through me slowly, mixing with Tye’s words and secrets. He wasn’t just an athlete; he was a hero. A beacon of hope, showing the low-born commoners that work and dedicationcouldtake them to their dreams. And if I know Tye, he thinks he let down every one of them.
I slide my hand along the tabletop to grip Tye’s fingers, my thumb caressing his callused knuckles.I’m here,I tell him silently.And I love you.
Tye’s gaze penetrates mine, as if anchoring itself in my soul to the exclusion of the world. The feline intensity makes my heart stutter, the sudden need to be closer so overpowering that my breath catches in my throat. My male. This glorious, mischievous, wounded, loyal warrior is mine. History and present and all.
“Well, if it isn’t you,” a cold voice snaps. The female stalking toward us looks sweaty from a hard ride. Red hair pulled back into a thick braid, she wears the livery of a palace servant and glares at Tye with icy green eyes.
A muscle in Tye’s jaw ticks. “Saritta.” Rising from his chair, he bows to the newcomer. “An unexpected pleasure, running into you so... efficiently.”
I rise too, my body tense, an acrid possessiveness washing over me.
The female snorts. “What were you expecting, Tyelor? A parade? A noose? With you, one can never quite tell.” Saritta’s face swivels toward me, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “And what is that?”
Tye pulls me close against his body, his brown leather armor creaking, his hard muscles a wall of support at my back. “Saritta, allow me to introduce my quint-bonded and mate, Leralynn. Lera, this is Saritta. My sister.”
26
Lera
Saritta freezes, the gaze she pins me with changing from dismissive to intrusive. Her scent of sweat, soap, and starch lingers in the air between us.
“Mate?” Her nose wrinkles, her perfect features contorting from surprise to confusion back to unfiltered disgust. “You mated with a human? That is low even for you, Tyelor.” Putting her hands on the tabletop before her brother, she leans forward, her voice lowering. “If you came back to ask for Mother’s blessing, you can go back where you came from, you bastard. You’ve created enough problems for our family without piling more dung onto the heap.”
When Tye’s face remains unreadable enough to rival Coal’s, Saritta spins on her heels and strides out of the inn.
I am on her heels before I can think, ignoring Tye’s protests behind me. My hand closes around the female’s wrist just as she steps outside. With the breeze, the smell of harsh soap is even more prominent. That, coupled with the roughness of her skin and strength of her muscles, tells me the female labors hard at the palace. “Your brother returns after several centuries and you intercept him to do what, exactly?” I demand. “Do you even care why we came?”
Saritta looks down at me, pulling her hand from my grasp in a single, hard jerk. “Do you know how much our mother sacrificed for yourmateto twirl around a horizontal bar? What it cost her to let him play athlete while she worked to the bone to feed us?”
“I—”
“Go ask your mate how he threw decades of her sacrifice away for a night of drink.” Centuries of hurt and pain roll through Saritta’s green gaze. “How he left our mother and me with nothing but debt—walked away rather than face what he’d done. How he never even acknowledged that we’d been attacked, much less came home to help. After all our mother did for him, Tyelorlefther the one time she needed him. If you’ve any brains in that mortal head of yours, you would turn tail and run as bloody far from him as you can.”
I stare at Saritta, my mind sifting through and rearranging her words in search of meaning. “You think Tye left you for fear of facing up to a mistake?” I say incredulously. “You actually think that the male with the biggest heart in Lunos ignored an attack on his family because hedidn’tcare for you? That after giving up his youth and his tiger for flex, he walked away from it all for a night of fun and debauchery?”
“When the night of debauchery leads to forfeiting the one competition that might have changed our social standing and future? Yes, my brother is enough of a coward to run after that.” Saritta’s eyes narrow. “And what’s this babbling about a tiger?”
“Tye’s animal form.” I frown, wondering if I’m misusing the words. “The tiger Tye shifts into.”
“Tye isn’t a shifter.” Saritta snorts. “And if he tells you he is, he’s lying. Get used to that, girl, if you’re with him. Shifter.” She shakes her head. “Shifters don’t survive flex beyond colts’ school games. You stand at a crossroads, lass. Open your eyes to the male sitting across the table from you, or else drink in his lies until, one day, the world tells you the truth.”
“You are wrong,” I ground out, putting all the weight of my pain behind it, my missing quint mates, my love for Tye, so fierce inside me that it almost hurts. I catch Saritta’s green gaze, though the female, nearly as tall as her brother, towers over me. “You have no notion of what Tye is. No notion of why he left. And certainly no notion of what he’s done since. And if you care too little to bother finding out, stay the bloody hell out of our way.”
* * *
I returnto the table to find it empty. The innkeeper scurries over to assure me that Tyelor has settled the bill over her protests and ordered the rest of our dinner sent to our room. After imploring me to bring the male back downstairs, where so many of his fans are already filling the dining room, she sends me up with a bottle of wine and the promise of a warm bath to be brought up at once.
Climbing the stairs, I slowly push open the door to a small but clean room. The crackling fire warms the space, sending shadows dancing across the floor. Bare to the waist, Tye stands staring out the window. The light sculpts his muscles with an artist’s skill, but when I approach to wrap my arms around him, I find nothing but rock-hard tension beneath his skin.
“Saritta—” I start softly.
“Saritta has a right to her grudges.” Tye turns and walks over to the washbasin, his magic heating the water to a steaming simmer. “And we’ve not come for a family reunion. I have sent a letter to the palace with River’s seal on it. Prince Xane will grant us an audience tomorrow morning. And then it’ll be him, not Saritta, who we need to convince of the truth.”
27
Tye
