“Sometimes I think we really were,” she murmured dreamily, clearly still adrift in her own submissive headspace.
“What’s that, sweetheart?” I asked quietly, stroking her hair.
“Made for each other,” she sighed.
If my heart could swell any further, I was afraid it might burst. Instead, it thrummed rapidly in my chest, my pulse racing at her words.
Do you feel it too, then? Have you felt this tether between us? That inescapable pull? All this time?I wanted to ask.
Realistically, though, I knew that Arken was just drunk. High on the endorphins of submission, basking in the afterglow of our perfect chemistry. And so was I. But that didn’t alter how I felt. Not in theslightest. Quite the opposite, really.
There were so many things that I wanted to ask her. So many things that I wanted to say. But I had done my job well, pushing Arken’s pleasure to the absolute edge of exhaustion. Already, her breath had steadied, her chest beginning to rise and fall against mine at a gentle, familiar cadence.
Arken was fast asleep, and did not stir when I leaned in to press a soft kiss against her forehead. Even as I lingered, savoring the warmth of her skin, her eyelids didn’t so much as flutter.
“Táieach kyn chroí, myon-Caindélach,” I whispered.
I love you, Little Conduit.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Kieran
Arken already knew that I had to leave early this morning, but that didn’t make it any easier to walk away. I woke up before sunrise, feeling both elated and forlorn as I held her in my arms. Delicately, quietly, I managed to detangle myself from her without waking her from whatever pleasant dreams had left a soft smile on her face, even now.
Before I left, I stole a strip of parchment from her desk and scrawled out a quick note:
I forgot to give this to you. I found it on the beach yesterday. Pretty sure it’s astral quartz. Either way, it made me think of you. Thank you for everything last night, Little Conduit. That was a gift I didn’t deserve—as are you.
There was so much more that I wanted to say, but certain conversations and confessions would have to wait. I left the note and the smooth, shiny stone on the pillow where I had been sleeping beside her, leaning down to press a soft kiss against her forehead. Leaving Arken’s bed was my own private Hel, but there was work to be done.
In truth, I had been slacking a bit over the last week or so. While this woman’s affections were clearly the most delicious, distracting substance known to mankind, I couldn’t justify any further distance from the growing threat of the Bloodborne—I needed to focus. By the time dawn began to crest over Sophrosyne, I was already halfway to headquarters.
For the first several hours, HQ was relatively quiet outside of the shuffling steps of a scant few who had worked overnight shifts. I took advantage of the calm silence, using that time to review missives and correspondence from my various sources, cross-referencing the latest information with existing intel. We had several briefings scheduled this morning, though, so the majority of the upper ranks began to trickle in by 9 AM. As I made my way over to my commander’s offices to check in, I overheard the tail end of a conversation between several of Rorick’s rangers.
“You found another one? A disturbance in the Wyldwoods?”
“Aye. It’s already startin’ to fade, I reckon. But I swear on the Source, I felt at least three pockets of that eerie shit out there during rotation this morning.”
“Gods. D’you think it’s another Leshy?”
“Who the fuck knows, Brennans? Do I look like a scholar of daemons to you?”
Their voices began to fade as we were headed in opposite directions, but my brow furrowed. New aetheric reverberations in the woods? That didn’t make sense at all. It had been over ten days nowsince the incident. When I sent my own cadre into investigate after Rorick’s, they hadn’t found anything new. And there hadn’t been any further reports on daemonic activity.OneLeshy was a rare enough thing, but multiple? Practically unheard of.
“Come in, Captain,” Commander Ka called as I knocked at his door.
“Morning, Commander,” I said as I entered, concern still gnawing at the back of my mind.
“You’re in early,” Ka noted.
“Just catching up on anything I may have missed while under the weather,” I lied smoothly.
Hanjae Ka raised a thick brow over his stack of missives, but said nothing. Whether that was because he saw straight through my bullshit, or because he was giving me the benefit of the doubt—I could never seem to tell.
“How long do you think it’ll be before you summon us for briefings, Commander?” I asked.
Most of our internal meetings were on specific, set schedules—but as of late, we had started to play certain things by ear. Leadership knew to expect summons at random these days when it came to updates on this rising domestic threat.