“Mind your own business, brother,” I uttered a belated reply.
“Oh, I would, but considering both our living quarters are on the Eastern side and you kept me up all night, I think I deserve details,” he insisted as he took another bite of that pasty.
“If you are going to talk nonsense, I will go before my stomach turns,” it was Takara who retorted and I nodded gratefully in her direction.
“No need, I’ll be on my way,” I announced, holding the plate and the glass and made my way towards the door.
“We’ll see you all next month. Mother, thank you. Takara, hope you have an easy month, Damaris, take care of her, Vikram...” I stopped as my brother threw me a seductive smirk. “Shut up. May you all have a blessed month.”
I made my way back into the chambers and found my mate sleeping in the exact same position I had left her in, so I grabbed a small table that I usually filled with books and placed the plate and glass on top of it, then dragged it by the bed, next to her.
“Good morning beautiful,” I whispered, my breath tickling the shell of her ear. She smiled softly, lazily, tired from the eventful night. “Breakfast for my lady,” I announced. It seemed to persuade her a bit more as she opened her eyes and excitement flashed through them at the assortment of pastries, quiche and fruit I had gathered for her.
“Mmmm, delicious,” she murmured and stood up slowly, pulling up the sheet a bit more to cover her breasts as she rose, but instead of the plate, she looked at me.
“Good morning,” Anwen greeted with a smile and I did not abstain from kissing her, long and hard. The first thing I wanted to taste for breakfast.
I forced myself to stop after a while and let her eat, while I changed and packed a few more things I needed from other chambers and supply cabinets and placed them in their rightful place back into the bedroom, to be copied back into Evigt. Once Anwen was finished, I gave her one of my shirts and pants, seeing how the dress she had worn last night was destroyed and unusable and we made our way down to the stables. I normally enjoyed walking back into the forest and through the portal but seeing how we were both in a hurry, in need of a shower and my mate did not have suitable clothes, I decided a horse ride was the easiest thing to do, apart from a carriage but I was sure she would not like the attention.
Anwen seemed reluctant at first, protested a bit, but when I explained that it was either ten minutes on the horse or an hour walk, she allowed me to hoist her up into the saddle. By the way she grabbed onto me and did not reply to any of the explanations and details I offered when we passed different buildings or streets, she was uncomfortable and scared. I held her tighter, making sure to point out the remaining distance every other minute.
Luckily, she started relaxing when the forest became visible and almost kissed the ground as I placed her down from the saddle. I smiled and scratched the horse’s mane before sending it back to the palace, then grabbed my lover in my arms and stepped into the portal that would take us both home.
She only spoke once we made it through the door of her mansion, when I finally put her down since in between swapping portals and jumping matter, it was clear her mind and body felt dazed. The first thing she did was go into the kitchen and press the button on the coffee maker, filling the sitting room with a toasted-nutty aroma.
“Coffee?” she asked sweetly while she came out of the kitchen with two steaming mugs, then passed one onto me and proceeded to sit on the sofa. I took a moment to breathe everything in, take in the details of the place I had seen so many times.
Once Anwen had announced the ending of us, I’d spent nights thinking about the surroundings, missing the royal blue rug on the entrance hall, the ficus pot hanging from the bookshelf and the crystal lamp that sent small rainbow projections onto our bodies when we watched stories on the sofa. But what I missed most was this, the small gestures, the inconsequential movements our bodies shared that proved nothing but that, a shift of the muscles, a gesture we had done millions of times through our lives. When she extended her hand to me with a cup of coffee, when she patted the seat next to her with a silent invitation for me to join, the way she rested her head on my chest and allowed her hair to release strands on my shoulder. The gestures that united us, that made us one.
I kissed my mate’s brow and she sipped lazily from her coffee. “I need to visit the district,” I announced and as soon as the words were spoken, she shifted. Something had startled her.
“You’re leaving?” Anwen threw me an incredulous look.
“Just for a few hours, fahrenor. There are things to be sorted, faerie homes to be visited, it's a marking tradition,” I explained.
“Can I come?'' she tried to look excited but I saw through her mask. Even so, the fact that my mate did not want to sever our connection this quickly brought me enormous joy. I kissed her slowly, refraining myself from going too far, joining too deep because I knew that one bit of her taste would set me ablaze, so much so that I would not be able to leave until I’d fucked her to my last breath.
I was desperate, my spirit begged to be reconnected with hers and now that I felt how her body opened up so perfectly to receive mine, I was about to burst out of my skin so I felt her again, and again and again, hear those little squeaks she made when the sensation was too much. Goddess, this woman would be the end of me.
“Why don’t you relax for a few hours? Sleep a while, rest up,” I suggested and her face brightened at the thought. I knew she was tired and I had better ideas than to drag her across the district for hours on end. By the time I left, she was already in bed, comfortable in her mountain of pillows.
I spent the day visiting and greeting each and every faerie I found, making sure to visit the families of those who had been affected by the fire a few months ago, offer my support and check on their healing and progress. All of them congratulated me cheerfully, some asked about the mark's meaning and others, the ones Anwen had met during her stay, already knew and wished me, some in a more reluctant than cheerful tone, a fruitful mating. I listened to the reporting, did the necessary healing in the Western side of the district, the one that seemed to be drying out the roots in the past month, for some unknown reason.
By the time I finished, it was almost dawn, so I headed back to the cave for a quick shower and a set of fresh clothes and appeared straight at her doorstep. Even though we had been separated for less than a day, I could feel the effect on the intertwining of our energies. I did not know how long the mating effects lasted, or if they would be completed in our case, seeing how Anwen was human, but something had banded in between us last night and a steady stream of new energy flowed through my veins, alimenting my power. Anwen’s energy.
I knocked on the door. It did not feel right to enter without her permission, especially since I had not been allowed in this place in the past moon cycle, but I took the time to grow a crown of gardenias and white roses. When my starlight opened the door and practically surrendered in my arms, I placed it on her head, crowning her.
“Finally,” she reproached my tardiness and placed a hand on her head to keep the flowers in place. “I was starting to worry you forgot about me.”
“I could never,” I smiled and placed a kiss on her brow, then closed the door behind me and headed into the kitchen where some kind of pie awaited.
“You cooked?” I was surprised. “For me?”
“Tried to cook,” she raised her shoulders to say she was not very pleased with the results. “I noticed how you fae love your pies so I tried to make you one,” I approached the plate and took a cautious sniff. I sensed pumpkin, some kind of salty cheese and ash. Lots and lots of ash. I even raised my brows in question, making Anwen confess.
“I burnt it. Cressi wrote to me and we stayed all day talking and I didn’t hear the beeping. By the time I got to it, it was burnt.”
“I’m sure it’s still delicious,” I encouraged with a grateful smile, picking up the fork by the plate as I took a generous bite.
