"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
For all that this is a party, she remains largely quiet and unobtrusive. Something most certainly not her norm, but then, this party is not for her. She is only here as a bystander. And for the first time in ages, she allows it to remain as such. She could watch quietly from the privacy of her small nook, unseen and largely invisible. There is much to be seen at such a gathering anyway. Much that might interest her.
But she does not watch as she normally might. For once, does not intrude where she is not wanted. Sometimes, it’s enough to simply be. She would let Luster have this night.
She had brought her children, and, after ensuring they were whole and unharmed, she had left them to enjoy the night. This was not a night for mothers to hover over their children, no matter how much she’d missed them. No, this was a night for them to discover and engage. To find new friends. Even if Dagen would’ve been happy for her to remain. The thought brings a small smile to her lips, and she cannot help but to check in on them briefly.
With a soft, barely audible sigh, she leans against a nearby tree, gaze inward even as she watches the gathering grow larger as the attendance begins to swell. The small corner she’d found is private, perfect for someone who wishes to remain unseen, but close enough to allow her her petty foibles. She might remains unseen, but she could still watch. She could still do what she does best.
After a time, a sound draws her attention, bring her back to herself. As her gaze focuses, she straightens, blue eyes shifting to find someone approaching. It takes her only a moment to recognize him, so familiar now after all the time they had spent together. She never thought she might grow so comfortable with another, but somehow she had. Far more than that of a lover, but that of someone who had been her most constant companion for years. It didn’t seem to matter why it had happened anymore. Only that his face has become more familiar to her than nearly any other. “Dovev,” she says softly, her greeting lacking any of the harshness it might once have had. “You should be... out there.”
She’d returned him home from those brief days in the Pampas, fetched him for this party and they sure as hell weren’t going back. Then she walked the kids into the masses to drop them off and let them play, meet some new kids their own ages. In the meantime, he went about his own tasks, circling the gathering and scouting the area, calculating each attendee with a casual glance for possible threats as he was trained to.
This was where he’d brought his families to remain safe, after all, and he would ensure that they would be.
His gaze lingered on Zoe with her sister, his eldest daughter in this land. Those damn galaxies in her eyes were stunning, hiding him away in her eyes like a secret. It was fitting for his secret daughter. He followed up with a sweeping observation over her twin sister, who was so wary or afraid of him that he caught her eye. She looked away immediately and after another heart beat, he did too, returning to his brief patrol.
Each member of his branching family was examined from a distance; Dizzy, Zoryn, Defy. Luster, Dustov, Dark. Heartfire, Brazen, Dagen. And Briella. They very well could be half the island, he thought with a smirk, perhaps even larger than the lavender family now since they seemed to stop having children after that youngest one born in Ischia.
They were all safe, though, and he circled back to where he’d seen Heartfire tuck herself away. Like him, she was always watching, always analyzing. They made a good team together.
He walked straight to her, his pace casual and at-ease during these festivities, and brushed his lips over her cheek and along her neck. She smelled good, like cool shadows and crisp winter, warm and earthy undertones.
”You should be… out there.”
He followed her spine to her hips then turned around to stand at her shoulder, placing a lingering kiss beside her jaw. “Why should I be out there when you are right here?” he murmured, leaving a stinging little nip on her skin. He took a deep breath and let it out slow, lifting his head to gaze outward and watch the children play. “They are safe and I can see them from here.”
In hindsight, the progression of time, this inevitable conclusion, is so clear. A hazard for someone like her, to know and understand how she had brought herself (had brought all of them) to this point. Her intentions had been so noble, or so she thought, but she could never have anticipated what those intentions had wrought. Even if she could see her own fault in them so clearly now.
Still, she cannot bring herself to regret entirely. Finding him, bloody and broken, in that field so long ago now had set her on this path. Had brought her Brazen and Dagen. She could never regret them.
And Dovev. She’d fought him so long and hard, but now it feels almost as though it had been inevitable. He had terrified her, though she would never admit to such a thing. He might not believe it of her anyway. In a way, he still does. He has far too much power over her. But she is done fighting it. She is done suffering so fruitlessly.
She couldn’t erase the pain she’d caused, but she could stop opening new wounds. Her heart had always been feckless and foolish anyway. And if she were being very honest with herself, she might admit that their first meeting so long ago, when he’d seen the sharpest edges of her and admired them for their glint, was the beginning of the end for her. But she is not quite ready to be that honest yet.
She stills beneath his touch, her skin heating as he trails an almost imperceptible line along her spine and hip, then forward, to her shoulder, her jaw. A breath catches in her throat as she turns her gaze to him, a blue flame, so carefully contained. The scent of the island clings to him, crisp with the bite of snow, overlaying the coppery tang that she recognizes as his. As familiar as he is.
It’s so tempting, to lose herself in the moment. But she had not brought him here for her. Had not negotiated his freedom for this. No matter how much she might wish it.
The nip stings faintly, sending a shiver along her skin, bringing a heated sharpness to her gaze. She touches him then, her lips going to the edges of bone masking his face as he peers out at the island. “How will you see them if you’re distracted?” she murmurs, breath light against the curve of his cheek, suggestive even as her words remind him of his self-imposed obligations.
There was a fire in her brilliant blue eyes when he touched her so lightly, an answering heat that he definitely wanted to coax more of. He could stoke those flames so hot and make them both burn with it. He was almost surprised that he wanted it all over again, considering the first time he'd only been pushing because she'd always shoved back and denied him. He'd given up on actually getting under her skin. Until she finally let him in and he dove into it with a long-contained hunger.
Even the memory of it got his heart pumping and he warmed under her return touch. His eyes closed with a soft breath as her lips traced his mask. If she continued this way, she definitely wasn't getting out of it.
"How will you see them if you're distracted?" she teased in a murmur, her breath on his cheek.
He blinked open his eyes and took a step closer, pressed the hard edges of his bone against her soft blue body. His shoulder leaned into hers, and his hip leaned into hers, and his lips trailed hungry little nips over her neck to her jaw. He may have already gotten too far to stop. Self-control had never been in his skillset.
"Distract me," he commanded in a thick voice, quiet and brushing over her skin. The kids would be fine. Plenty of people around to see if anything happens to them. Tonight was theirs, here in the outskirts in the darkness, hidden away from view. He backed up slowly anyway though, coaxing her with him to disappear for a while, deeper into the trees, further from any people that may be near.
His heated black gaze stayed on her, so dark with want. He wanted to burn tonight, wanted to feel it. Wanted her to bring it and flare brightly with him.
She had always been self-contained, always in control. And perhaps that had been the trouble with him. He had gotten under her skin. Far more than she would ever care to admit. Something that no one else, in all her long years, had managed to accomplish. Only her steely self-control had prevented her from giving in to him long before she had.
She would never be an easy woman. Would not be like the ones who had come before her in his life. She is not soft or kind, would never pander to his need for control or aggression. She would never be someone he needed to take care of, or protect.
For a very long time, she hadn’t thought he could truly want someone like that. Hadn’t thought his interest in her would last for longer than it took to seduce her. And she’d resisted, because she couldn’t be just another in a long string of women for him. But she’d been wrong. So very wrong. And now, they had both made their choice.
A flash of heat echoes across her entire body as he presses close, the edges of bone biting into her skin, reminding her of how he’d pinned her to the ground, teeth on her throat as he’d growled his final and only warning. She hadn’t heeded it then, and now they are long past that. She trails her lips almost absently along his skin as he places a line of heated nips down the blue of her neck.
Her eyes gleam with challenge as he bites out his husky demand. Distract me. She shifts, gaze following as he retreats deeper into the trees, blue eyes clashing with black. A faint smile toys with her lips, taunting even in silence. Barely there, not quite ready to curl into true amusement. She follows a few steps, never quite closing the distance between them.
He would have to do a lot better than that if he wanted her unbridled passion.
“Distract you?” she questions mildly, feet stilling as the deeper shadows of the tropical forest engulfs them. Despite the evenness of her tone, a teasing heat curls through each syllable. Suggestively tempting, deliberately misunderstanding his command. “There are distractions aplenty on this island tonight. What did you have in mind?”
