“Then a simple ward on the door will do,” he said. “Those who come to kill mages tend to come with magical abilities to aid them in doing so. As do Healers. We’ll simply tell her that if I don’t respond to three knockings on the door, I’m to be left alone. But that’s only every two weeks or so, and I’m usually back by local dawn—earlier, since Darkhana experiences dawn before Katan does.
“Besides, once you feel confident that I can handle the morning rounds, you can lounge in bed,” he said with a smile. At the questioning lift of her brows, he cocked one of his own at her. “You’ll have an apprentice—me—who can do the morning rounds for you.”
That . . . He . . . Wow, he’s right . . . I can sleep in, Saleria thought with dawning wonder. It pinched into a frown in the next moment, accompanied by a rough sigh. “Except I’ll have to get it through Nannan’s head that you actually can do morning rounds for me. And that’s assuming you’re a morning person. I won’t make you do something you’d hate to do, otherwise. At the end of the day—or the start of it, rather—tending the Grove is still my responsibility.”
Aradin chuckled. “Teral isn’t one, but I am. I love being outdoors at dawn. The crisp chill in the air, the scent of dew on the plants, the little trills of the birds waking up . . . and the colors of sunrise, streaking the clouds and the sky in shades of peach and gold and more? Glorious, all of it.”
The way he looked at her, the warmth and enthusiasm in those intriguing hazel eyes, the smile curving those lips, even the wisp of blond hair that had escaped from its thong, all came together in a very compelling package. Saleria found herself swaying forward on instinct. She checked herself for a moment, then with a silent, fear-dismissing, Bollocks to that, she finished leaning forward and touched her mouth to his.
(Well, that was unexpected,) Teral observed in the back of his mind.
(Unexpected, but welcome,) Aradin returned, his sub-thoughts adding a mental hushing. Teral obediently fell silent. He didn’t step into the Dark, but he did give Aradin full control of the moment. And Aradin gave it to Saleria, meeting her touch for touch but letting her take the lead. It was she who parted her lips first, and her tongue that slid along his bottom lip. He matched her movements, enjoying every moment.
It wasn’t quite enough, though. Tipping his head, he deepened the kiss. She sighed and leaned in closer. Somehow, somewhere in there, they turned in the midst of their embrace until the kiss finally ended with a soft, parting nibble. Sighing happily as he lay next to her, Aradin looked up at the curving limbs of the Bower. The moss was soft and springy under his head and back, and birds twittered in the distance. The hue of the sky was a plain, mid-morning blue . . . but it felt like dawn to him all over again.
“Mmm,” he sighed. “I could enjoy waking up to that, too.”
Resting on her hip, skin still tingling from where his fingers had caressed, where his lips had brushed, Saleria chuckled at his quip. Just as her humor started to die down, a stray thought crossed her mind, and she choked on another peal of laughter, head tipping back. She caught the curious, inquisitive quirk of his brows when she glanced down again. Blotting a tear from the corner of one eye, she shrugged diffidently. “It’s . . . hard to explain.”
Glad they were within the Bower’s protections, Aradin tucked his hands behind his head and shrugged. “Try me.”
“Oh . . .” Searching for a place to begin, she gestured vaguely. “The other morning—I think the day you arrived—I had a grumpy thought when Nannan came in to wake me up and get me moving. I was wishing that one day she’d come in and be silent instead of so vocally firm and cheerful.”
“Oh?” he prompted her, wondering why their kiss would make her think of that.
“Yes, well . . . I imagined, just now, her finding you in my bed, and was thinking that might actually shut her up for once, out of sheer indignation,” Saleria said. She blushed and ducked her head. “Not exactly the nicest thing to think about doing—shocking her indignant, I mean. Not the you-being-in-my-bed bit. I, um . . . Oh!” Her blush faded and her eyes snapped wide. “Teral! Oh, I completely forgot . . . !”
(And here it gets awkward,) Teral muttered in the back of his mind.
(Only if we let it,) Aradin said. He repeated the words out loud, more or less. “It’s only awkward if we let it be awkward. Yes, he was here, but he has nothing against it. You did enjoy it, yes?”
“Well, yes,” Saleria said, since that was far too obvious to bother with a lie.