* * *
I huddled into the fur that I was wearing, peering out into the night sky. “Do you see them?”
“I do,” whispered Remy, pressing into me from behind.
All around us was nothing but unbroken white snow. It reached all the way out to the edges of our vision, where tall, snow-capped mountains rose majestically against the sky. Above the mountains, bright lights danced against the sky, creating patterns above us.
“Do you think we’ll ever figure out what they are?” I asked, leaning back against him.
“Of course we will,” he said. “We’re not the sort of people who give up.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “But we’ve been chasing them for months now, and we sent Bisset back with word we’d be home soon.”
“Yes, we don’t have anyone else to send back with word, do we?” Remy looked around. “We’ve depleted our expedition entirely.”
I thought of Bisset for a moment. I worried about him sometimes. He had never truly recovered from the loss of Marguerite, not that it was the sort of thing that one recovered from. But I thought he might find someone else, someone that might make him happy. I shouldn’t take him with me on expeditions to the north. I should give him time to meet someone.
Of course, Bisset was nothing if not loyal. He hadn’t committed to Marguerite on a whim. He would not commit again until he was certain. But we were still young. There was still time. I owed him so much. I only wanted happiness for him. I hoped he’d find it.
“I suppose there’s nothing for it,” said Remy. “We’ll have to go back.”
“It will be good to be back,” I said. “To see Margo. She grows so much bigger every time we turn around.”
“I miss our little princess, too,” he said, kissing my temple. “I don’t think the lights are going anywhere. They’ll still be here when we come back.”
I turned in his arms so that I faced him. I put my lips to his. I opened my mouth and slid my tongue sweetly against his, pressing close.
He pulled back, sucking in a hissing breath. “Careful, there. We haven’t put up the shelter for the night. You don’t want to distract me too much, or I’ll lose control and be forced to ravage you here in the snow.”
I scoffed. “You were always uncontrolled, Remy.”
“It’s your hair,” he said. “The orangeness of it. It inflames me.”
I shoved him. “My hair is not orange.”
“Margo says it is,” he said, shrugging.
“Well, that’s Margo,” I said, eyeing him imperiously. “After all this time, you ought to know better. If you wish to have any hope of ravaging me, you’ll have to do better than that.”
He smirked. “We’ll see. Perhaps it’s you who’ll be doing the ravaging this evening. Don’t think I can’t tell how much you can’t get enough of me.”
“You are the most arrogant man I’ve ever met,” I said.
“Yes, and you love it.”
I shoved him again.
He reached into my furred hood and ran his fingers through my hair. “It’s like embers of a fire that refused to stop burning. Your hair is beautiful.”
Despite myself, I flushed. “You don’t really have to say things like that, you know.”
He kissed me again. “Help me put up the shelter, then. Tomorrow, we turn around and head back home to our daughter. We have one last night this go around. We’d best make it count.”
I laughed. “Oh, making it count does not mean pushing on to try to reach the lights? It means taking me to bed?”
“I have my priorities,” he said, winking.
I looked at the lights one last time and then back at Remy. Being happy was an odd thing. I needed this. I needed something to try to attain. Remy needed it too.
In the end, I supposed that was why it had turned out this way. Why we couldn’t manage to sit still. Why we kept going back to the north, pressing further and further and then further still. But we didn’t live for the north, or for the mysterious lights, whatever they were.
No, we lived for each other.
We lived for Margo.
I was his. He was mine. And she was ours.
* * *
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Throne Shaker (The Clash and the Heat Book 3) Page 25