Page 127 of Hearts of Stone

“Enough,” Graven growled.

“So instead I should’ve whored myself out, like you?” Seneca shot back.

“Enough!”

Quiet fell over the roof of the house at Graven’s roar, and the male turned to me.

“Jade doesn’t need jewels or trinkets or pretty flowers. She is a wealthy woman, so she can get all of those things for herself. What she hasn’t had nearly enough of is males worthy of her making her the centre of attention. Make her feel special, Wulfstan. That’s the key.”

“If I was back in Scotland, I’d take her flying over the tors, to go diving in an ice-cold loch and then I’d build a fire and cook her a nice fat salmon for her dinner,” I said, mentioning the things my lord had done to win his lady.

“Perhaps not that,” Carrick said, but then he poked a claw in the air. “But a field…” he turned to the others. “Remember that place Master Ashley took us to?”

“What, the…?” Seneca smiled slowly and then nodded. “Yes, that place is beautiful.”

“Where is this place?” I demanded. “Will I need to fly over several days and set my lady up at inns on the way?”

“Not so far,” Graven assured me. “In a field just beyond the city, up in the hills.” He consulted the sky. “And we’re at just the right time of the year for it too.”

“So, where are we?” Jade asked me now, looking around the field. The rhythmic creak of insects I didn’t know provided background music to what was about to happen.

“Just a field,” I said, feigning innocence. I plucked the picnic blanket from the basket and flicked it out over the grass. I’d practised the move many times before this and was pleased when it fell in a neat square. “Milady.”

She curtseyed prettily and allowed herself to be escorted over, and I dug a small pillow out from the basket and placed it behind her back. Seneca and Carrick had squabbled over what to add to the basket, but I saw that we had wine, cheese and bread, which was the makings of any good feast. I arranged the food across the blanket and then settled down across from her.

“A drink, perhaps?”

I held out the bottle for her to approve the label and her eyebrows shot up.

“A Jim Barry The Florita Riesling?”

“This is a good drop?” I asked.

“It’s about eighty bucks a bottle, so yeah,” she said with a smile.

Modern corkscrews were fiddly, finicky things, so I’d been forced to practise using them too on cheap bottles of wine. I’d broken far too many until I was hissing with frustration, launching into a rant about the fact we used to smash the necks off our bottles, post-battle, back in my time.

“Yes, and you risked swallowing slivers of glass,” Graven had informed me. “Try again.”

But I managed to pull the cork free with a satisfying pop, then poured my lady a glass of a wine that smelled of grapes, the sun beating on granite stones and just a hint of the blossoms that sprouted on peach trees. I offered it to her with a flourish, unable to let a full breath out until she took it.

“God, this is so good…” she sighed, and that gave me hope. The way the lines of her body softened as she relaxed back against the cushion, her eyes heavily hooded as she gazed up at the night sky. Yes, that was the way I wanted her, right before I asked this.

“Did you know me before?” She paused, mid-sip, peering at me over the top of the glass. I frowned slightly, worried that she might take offence, but I looked steadily into her eyes. “Did you?”

“Yes,” she said finally, setting the glass down. “I did.”

“What was I like?”

I looked down, partially not wanting to know the answer, fearing the ideas she must’ve already had of me. Perhaps I’d been weak. Maybe I’d made a bloody arse of myself—

“You were very brave.” She sat up, then her hand came to rest on my arm and she gave it a squeeze. But a lady might do such to her brother, so I pushed on.

“And did you…” I lifted my eyes up to look into hers. “Did you care for me?”

She let out a sigh at that, and I feared I had my answer, and not the one I had hoped for. I went to pull away, but she held me fast.

“I didn’t get a chance to develop much of a relationship with you,” she said, “but…” A world could be held in that one word, all the hope and all the horror hovering there, ready to be unleashed. “But yeah, I cared for you.” She moved then to press herself into my side and my arm went around her, my wing spreading outwards to shield her from the night air. “You died and I… I wanted to get to know you better, so I brought you back from the dead.”

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