“You have this way about you. I’ve seen it before.” She bit her tongue to stop any more words from flowing out with what else she thought – that he was good and honorable and walked the edge of humorlessness in his determination to make every right decision. “Anyway, all I meant is that I know you make your people proud. You can’t waste all your time watching over me.”
“It is not a waste, little human. It could never be a waste. We have shed blood together, have shared secrets and held them honorably. You are my comrade in arms, and my friend. I would not have anything harm you.”
Yes, she should request that summit immediately, because this night was turning her into a puddle of emotional goo.
His wings flared, and she held onto that to pull herself out of this emotional morass she was falling into. “Do you like flying?”
It took him a moment to orient himself to the new thread of conversation. “Like it? How do you mean?”
“Well, I guess flying for you is like running for humans, right?” After his nod, she continued. “Some humans hate running and will never do it. Some force themselves to do it, but there is no joy in the act. And some humans love to run. Which is it with you and flying?”
“I have never thought on it.” His eyelids lowered, bringing his eyelashes into relief against his skin. No eyebrows, but yes to eyelashes. Hair on his head but none on his chest or arms. In this form, did he still have hair in his private regions?
The split second after that thought crossed her brain – Damn you, Id! – the most intense heat in the history of the blush raced over her skin, from her cheeks to her forehead and down her neck to the top of her chest.
His eyelids raised and his brows furrowed the moment he saw her face. “Are you well? You appear overheated.”
“I’m fine, really hot all of a sudden.” One hand pulled her hair away from her face while the other fanned away. “No worries. You were saying about flying?”
He glanced around to see if he could ascertain the cause of her reaction. Thank gods there was no way that could happen. Not finding anything, he turned back to her, answering her question. “There is a freedom in flying that I can find nowhere else. I am away from my obligations and only answerable to the elements.”
“Sounds like you fall into the love category, then.”
He considered some more before giving a final, decisive nod. “That is a fair way to put it. I cannot disagree.”
She was going to ask. Worst that could happen, he would say no.
Best that could happen, he would say yes and she would be cradled against the large expanse of chest, breathing in the smell of newly cracked stone as she saw the world as he experienced it every day, his deep voice low, intimate breaths against her ear as he kept her close so his words weren’t lost on the wind.
On second thought, maybe that was the worst that could happen.
She was going to ask anyway.
“Terak?”
It would take mere moments to reach over and cradle her heated cheek in his palm. His claws curled, eager to experience the feel of her warm flesh. A deeper blush than he had ever seen on her, apparent even in the dark of the moonlit night.
So appealing, his little human. She spoke words of duty to him, her certainty of his leadership flinging open passageways to deep caverns, shining light on hidden doubts and tenacious worries.
And after the comfort brought by her declaration, she immediately caused discomfort to throb through his body by the lift of her hair and the curve of her neck.
To follow that blush as far down as it goes, and then to go further…
Her eyes were luminous in the moonlight, a warmth even in the midst of the coldest night.
“Yes?”
“I-” She broke off, letting her arms down so her hair fell around her face. She licked her full lips, a nervous gesture he was growing familiar with, coming to loathe as he could not follow where that pink little tongue led. “Remember that first night?”
The first night? “Impossible to forget.”
“True.” Her smile held for long moments, not a product of nervousness but of fondness. While he thought on it with a certain amount of pleasure as well, he never dared hope she shared the sentiment. “That was the first time I ever flew.”
“Not even in one of the human machines?” He could see no pleasure in flying if it was in one of those contraptions. Where was the pleasure without the wind on a face or the force of wings slicing through air? No, it would only be good as a means of transportation.
She shook her head. “No. My only family lives here, and my father said there was no reason to go elsewhere.”
He had never thought to ask her, afterwards. Understandable. While at the end of that first night a cautious truce had been declared, she had been a far way from trusting him and he wished to make no mistakes that would change that. “Did you enjoy it?”