“Did you like them?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
She laid her lips on the swell of his shoulder, where a particularly beautiful talesm had once lived. Now the area was bare, but the flesh pulsed with life.
He was a miracle. A gift. But not a gift without cost.
“Your talesm were beautiful and frightening. They were you.”
She closed her eyes and her tongue flicked out, tasting his skin. A noise left his throat, and he closed his eyes, letting his head hang down as his skin shivered under her touch.
“I could stay here for days, Ava. Talking to you. Touching you,” he said. “Making love to you and learning you again. But I don’t think we should.”
The thought was tempting, but she reluctantly agreed, so she pulled her mouth away from the salt of his shoulder and shifted away. “I know. We should get back to the Oslo house.”
“I don’t like the coincidence of Sari’s haven being compromised right when there is an influx of Grigori into the nearest major city.”
“You don’t think it’s a coincidence at all, do you?”
“No.”
She sighed. “I’d like to stop running. Just for a little bit. Think that’ll ever happen again?” She scooted forward, but he grabbed her hand before she could leave the bed.
“We went to the ocean once, didn’t we?”
She smiled. Nodded. “Do you remember?”
“I remember you, standing near the waves. It was dark, and someone had lit lanterns that flew into the sky.”
She nodded, and her heart swelled. “Yes. That happened in Kusadasi.”
“See?” He kissed the palm of her hand before he smiled. “It is coming back to me even more now. Soon I will remember every moment.”
She tried to lighten the mood so she wouldn’t cry. “When you get to the part about remembering you need to put your towels in the laundry basket, focus really hard on that one, okay?”
“What?” He frowned, but she could see a familiar gleam of mischief in his eyes. “I have a habit of not putting dirty towels in the laundry? This is… shocking.”
“I’m guessing that bit hasn’t changed at all, has it?”
He grinned, and in that moment, he was the cocky warrior she hadn’t been able to keep away from so many months ago.
“Real,” she murmured.
Ava bent down to lay a searing kiss on his lips before he could stand. He held her head, fisted a hand in her hair to hold her close, before he finally let her catch a breath.
“Real,” he breathed out. “And yours. Everything else, we will work through. Together.”
“Okay,” she whispered, closing her eyes and nodding slightly, though he still clutched her hair in his hand. “Okay.”
It was more than a wish or a hope. It was a commitment. He’d been taken from her, but he was given back. A gift and a miracle. She didn’t know why or how, but he was alive.
There would be fights. Misunderstandings. But those were inevitable, weren’t they? Her heart knew him. Her soul did, too. They would learn each other again. And in the meantime, there would be no secrets.
“Malachi, in my dreams, when you’re not there… There’s someone—”
“Who?”
“Jaron.” The hand in her hair tightened, and he held her even closer. “He’s been there, Malachi. In my head. And he’s shown me things.”
He said nothing for a while, but he relaxed his hands and stroked the hair back from her face, soothing her. Touching her. As if to reassure himself that she was still there and unharmed.
“Tell me everything.”