She set off for the kitchen. Maybe room service would be enough of a peace offering to ensure Corvin didn’t go Mr. Miyagi on her again. She was so tired of chopping wood and scrubbing floors. Yesterday had been the strangest, longest, luckiest day of her life, but the revelations had left her achy and exhausted. She could leave the fortress without being drained, and she had the means to disappear into a new life once she was on the outside. The only unknown was how far the binding spell extended, and whether she could get that far without getting caught.
Only one way to find out.
Tilly was an Oracle of limited power, but what she did have, she put to good use. Breakfast for two, including bacon and Corvin’s favorite cheesy dill scones, was waiting on the counter when she reached the kitchen, tucked neatly away in a picnic basket complete with gingham linen.
A swell of emotion made Audrey grip the counter. Tears filled her eyes as she read the note beside the basket. A pit opened up in her stomach as memories of a time when all she had longed for was the family life she’d seen on TV, a packed lunch on the counter and a mom to kiss her on the top of the head and send her off to school. She would miss Tilly. And the food. Oh, gods, the food! But it wasn’t worth joining a cult and being tethered to the Synod for the rest of her life. They kept everyone on a short leash, and she was meant to run free.
And you have a promise to keep.
At least she had learned how to use her powers better. But it only counted if Lilly was okay in the end. Every day strapped to that table had to feel like an eternity. Almost a month…Audrey shook her head.
Don’t think about that either.
She needed to focus on her plan. Go over what she knew, make sure she wasn’t missing anything obvious. Timing. Packing. She needed a day, two at most.
I’m coming for you, kid.
Which meant she had one more day—and one night—left with Corvin. She didn’t want to spend them fighting. She grabbed the basket and headed for the tower.
“I’m coming up! I hope you’re decent!” she shouted as she rounded the stairwell into Corvin’s living room. He stood in the kitchen with his back to her, slicing something on the counter. The chair by the fire was dented and covered with the same rumpled pillow and blanket he’d been sleeping with since she stole his bed.
Smoke cawed and launched from Corvin’s shoulder to land on the handle of her breakfast basket as she set it down. He ducked his head under the linen napkin covering the food and flipped it back to survey the bounty with his beady little eyes. Audrey snatched a blueberry muffin before he could peck at it. She still hadn’t gotten used to sharing her food.
Corvin took a deep breath and hummed it out. “Cheese scones?”
The vibration of his voice gave her a little tingle, but she shrugged and answered through a mouthful of muffin. “Somebody loves you.”
He rinsed his hands in the sink and finally turned around. Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t the dazzling smile he flashed at her. She’d never realized how perfect his teeth were. Her heart skipped a beat, and she almost choked on the crumbs she inhaled.
His eyes danced with laughter. Gone was the brooding intensity, the guarded indifference. He seemed…happy to see her. Which caught her completely off guard.
She poured a cup of coffee and retreated to the sitting area as Corvin poked through the basket. Smoke had apparently decided he wanted the muffin and followed her. She rolled her eyes and fed him a bit from her hand. “So, what’s on the agenda today? Paint the fence? Wax-on, wax-off?”
Corvin settled across from her with a quizzical furrow to his brows, but he made no comment as he took a bite of scone. A low rumble of pleasure echoed from his chest, and she felt her cheeks heat up.
Smoke hopped from her chair to Corvin’s shoulder and pecked at his ear until he shared some of the heavenly pastry. She laughed as Corvin obliged. He cleared his throat. “How was your stay in the dormitory?”
“Fine.” No reason to tell him she hadn’t slept there, or at all. “But do you have somewhere safe to stash my winnings? I don’t want them to get stolen.”
“I’m glad you asked. I have something I want to show you.” He set his food aside, and she followed him to the stairwell. Instead of going down to the right, he opened the door on the left, which he’d told her was a storage closet. It led to more stairs, which were freshly swept. Curious, she followed him up. They arrived at another door. Corvin glanced down at her on the step below him and smiled again as he pushed it open and let her enter ahead of him.
Inside was a small round room with a pitched ceiling and a single window open to let in a crisp breeze. A stack of boxes, books, and antiques was shoved against the far wall. Beneath the window was a cot covered with thick blankets and the pillow from Corvin’s bed that she’d claimed for her own. The few clothes she’d accumulated in her stay here were clean and neatly folded on top of a chest at the foot of the bed. Another small chest—more ornate and inlaid with gold and turquoise—served as a nightstand. A glass jar sat on top, filled with fresh wildflowers.
Her heart wrenched, and she had to hold back the tears in her eyes for the second time that morning.
Corvin misread her silence. “You hate it.”
“No! No… it’s… this is for me?” She turned to smile at him over her shoulder. “You did this for me?”
He smiled back, and she noticed the dark half-moons under his eyes. She probably had a set to match. “I want you to be comfortable here. I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner. I understand wanting your own space. I haven’t cleaned the flue yet, but the fireplace should work. You have a door and a window. I can get you a basin for washing. There’s no electricity, but there are candles and oil lamps—”
She pressed her fingers over his lips, and that fire jumped to life in his eyes, lighting one to match in the pit of her belly. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
He blinked and took her hand, pressing it to his chest. He was warm against her cool skin, and the steady thump of his heart seemed to match the whoosh of blood pumping in her ears. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“It’s okay.” She tried to pull her hand back, but he held on to it. She didn’t need any more kindness from him. She already liked him too much for her own good.
“Let me finish.” He stared at her face, and the words caught in his throat. “Yesterday, I was… an ass.”
A surprised laugh burst from her, and his mouth curled in that half-smile she’d come to know so well. She’d thought it meant disinterest but suddenly realized it was self-consciousness, which made it much more endearing.
“And before that, I have no excuse. You were right—I’m not very good with people.”
She looked down at her feet.
“The truth is, I…” he licked his lips. “I find it hard to think about anything else when you’re around. I want you so much it’s excruciating. But that’s no excuse for the way I behaved. I’m really not such a brute.”
Her pulse kicked up and she turned away so he wouldn’t see the heat crawling up her cheeks. Her eyes scanned the room, and she pulled her hand away from him before she did something stupid. Like kiss him. “Apology accepted.”
Giving in to those urges would make leaving that much harder to leave.
She didn’t want to hurt Corvin. He wasn’t helping with this new, vulnerable version either. Normally, she would suspect someone’s motives, but for some reason, he seemed more genuine than he ever had before. On top of her pile of freshly laundered clothes was a giant piece of suede. She unfolded it to find a large glove that would fit up over her elbow. “What’s this?”
Corvin leaned in the doorway, studying her. “That’s for your lesson. We can start whenever you’re ready. Take your time to get situated.” He backed out of the room and swung the heavy oak door shut.
She sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, then fell to her back and stared up at the cobwebs swaying gently in the rafters and the dust motes dancing in the early mornin
g light.
A goofy grin spread over her face. She touched her fingers to her lips. They were still warm from Corvin’s breath. She closed her eyes and, for a moment, let herself imagine what would have happened if she had answered that tingling question and thrown herself into his arms. Would he have caught her? Kissed her?
Would he be making love to her right now in this very spot?
Because the way he was looking at her when he made his confession, it would definitely have been something more than sex. She’d never had a man look at her like that. Lust, she was familiar with, but this had been more like deep, passionate longing. That look had felt like someone hit a gong in the room and it was still thrumming up her spine and making her fingers tingle. How could one look communicate so much?
What if he really does have feelings for you?
It was obvious at this point that Corvin didn’t do things by halves. He poured his heart and soul into everything he did—whether it was tending to injured birds or training novices or apologizing.
She laughed and scrubbed her hands over her face. She was definitely overreacting, and it was probably because no one had ever done anything so nice for her in the history of ever. She’d never had her own room. Her cell at Parkview didn’t count. This place, even some of these people… it was the first time she could see herself maybe belonging somewhere. How fucked up was it that she was still running away?
No, how fucked up are you?
She didn’t want to answer that.
Chapter Thirteen
Smoke flew from his lookout window with a loud caw to announce that Audrey was coming down. The nerves in Corvin’s stomach jumped to life again when she emerged from the tower. The sway of her hips and breasts as she walked toward him had the same effect as always—warming his blood, making his hands feel empty and his pants too tight. He ached to bury his fingers in her tussled hair, to see it spread out on the earth like a curtain of silken wheat.
The tentative smile on her face made his breath catch. Was it real? Did she really like her room? Had she forgiven him? Her body language was relaxed and confident, as always, but Audrey’s actions had seldom matched her feelings.
He’d decided to conduct an experiment and follow Roderic’s advice by completely blocking his empathic powers around her. He would not even use his second sight around her because he didn’t want to catch a glimpse of her aura.
Now they were on an even playing field. Yet somehow he felt at a drastic disadvantage.
“Everything all right?” Her smile wilted as she approached.
He grinned, trying to coax hers back. “Fine, yes—good.”
She squinted at him, skeptically.
“I have another surprise for you.”
Audrey followed him down a narrow path into the forest and pulled her training glove on. “Geez, is it my birthday or something?”
He stopped, and she bumped into him. He turned and caught her around the waist before she could fall back. She blinked up at him in surprise as he let her go, staring into her eyes. They were the softest blue he’d ever seen them. They seemed to change with the light and sometimes her mood. Now they were almost violet. “When is your birthday? I just realized I never asked—what’s your sign?”
A bitter expression twisted her mouth, and she broke their eye contact.
Panic filled his head. Had that been wrong to ask? He rubbed her shoulder, to comfort himself as much as her, but he resisted the urge to probe or influence her feelings.
“I don’t know when my real birthday is. We always celebrated the day Jack found me—April twenty-second.” She shrugged and slipped away from his touch and kept walking one pace behind him.
Corvin cleared his throat and held out his hand to help her cross a streambed. She ignored him and cleared the impressively large gap without a running start. As the brush got thicker and they had to huddle closer together to navigate, he said, “You know, after you’re initiated, you could have a reading.”
“A reading for what?”
“Your past, if you really want to know. There are ancient mysteries that are only revealed to those who choose to walk the Threefold Path.”
“That’s okay, I’m not really into all that woo-woo stuff.”
“It’s not woo-woo. You’re a part of the Legacy. We have Oracles who could determine what sign you are in this life and begin a regression chart. They could match it against their records and possibly discover who your family—”
Audrey charged past him, whipping him in the face with a low branch. “I don’t really care. They didn’t want me. That’s all I need to know.”
He was all too familiar with that sentiment, and also knew it wasn’t true. He’d often wondered why the other half of his bloodline hadn’t stepped up to claim him. Questioning his mother about it when he was younger had swamped her with grief and guilt, so he’d stopped asking. But whenever councilors from other territories visited, he found himself searching their faces for clues. He wouldn’t press. Everyone dealt with that sort of deep-seated hurt in their own way.
They travelled the rest of the way in silence. As they broke the tree line and entered the clearing, Audrey shaded her eyes and stepped into the sun. A fine mist clung to the grasses as the rays burned off the morning dew. The calls of meadowlarks echoed in the distance, and a doe and her fawn munched on mushrooms at the meadow’s edge. He watched carefully as Audrey took in the scene, and he couldn’t help smiling.
She appeared awestruck, and that was the perfect reaction to have upon seeing his favorite place on earth. Since childhood, he’d spent the accumulation of years here, lounging in the grass, reading beneath the peach tree, playing with the foxes, rabbits, and jays. He’d never brought another person here.
Let her in, Roderic had said. And so he was. He hadn’t expected seeing her standing here with that wheat-gold hair and that look of wonder on her face to feel so…right. His heart swelled, and his magic pulsed through his body outward in a wave. The hair on his forearms prickled. He smiled wider because he recognized this feeling. It was the same as when he’d found his calling. The feeling of destiny.
“So this is where you wander off to.” She froze when she spotted the deer, whispering, “Oh my gosh, Corvin, look! It’s Bambi!”
He chuckled and took her by the hand. “It’s okay, you won’t scare them. They know they’re safe here.”
Hopefully Audrey felt that way too. She let him guide her farther into the clearing, then released his hand to do a slow turn.
“You’re just full of surprises today.”
The pleasure in her voice made his heart featherlight, and the last bit of his worry slipped away. He let the satisfaction he felt show in his smile. “You have no idea.”
Her eyes sparkled with interest, and he gestured to the covered box beside the boulders in the center of the glen. Audrey leaned over his shoulder to watch as he uncovered the box and gently lifted the golden eagle out. The bird’s heart was beating fast with excitement, and he opened his senses enough to pulse some calming energy into her. As an extra precaution, he’d also put a hood on her.
“Oh!” Audrey said.
The eagle instantly responded to her voice, tilting her head and closing her beak to listen. He’d often heard Audrey talking to the eagle when she thought he was sleeping in his chair in the mornings. The two of them seemed to have a sort of camaraderie.
“Are we setting her free already?”
“No. She’s not healed enough to hunt yet, but she needs to build her strength back up.”
“Shouldn’t one of the other Summoners help with this? Like Peter?”
He shrugged. “Peter would do well, but I don’t bring anyone to this place normally. Besides, she likes you.”
A small smile quirked her lips. “Oh yeah? Did she tell you that?”
“Perhaps.” He gestured for Audrey to sit on the ground. When she was settled, he dropped slowly to his knees and set the eagle on the grass between them. He waited a few sec
onds for her to sense her new surroundings. “Keep talking—she likes your voice.”
“Oh, okay.”
He reached for Audrey’s hand and set her to stroking the eagle’s back. She seemed mesmerized by the moment, but not nervous at all.
“How are you today, Honey?” Her tone was softer than he’d ever heard it. “Looks like we’ve both gotten some yard privileges. Are you excited? Wait till you see this place. It’s like a Disney movie come to life. You’re gonna love it way more than that cramped cage. You can stretch your wings here.”
In answer, the eagle dropped her head to taste the dew on the grass and tentatively stretched her good wing up and out. Audrey stroked it without hesitation, running her hand down the feathers in a way that birds felt like a tickle. She giggled when the bird kept her wing out, inviting her to do it again. “Are we going to take the blinders off her? Corvin?”
He blinked, slow to realize she’d been talking to him. “You named her Honey?”
“Huh? Oh…No, I just needed to call her something.”
“I like it. It suits her—the color.”
Audrey nodded and resumed her petting. “Yeah, I thought so too.”
“Let’s hope she lives up to the name and stays sweet,” he said, removing the hood. It was a moment of truth with all birds of prey. Most remained relatively docile when blinded, but that could easily shift once they scented freedom. Honey wouldn’t get far with one wing bandaged, but she could reinjure herself if she attempted to. As a precaution, he’d tied a lead to the bracelet on her foot.
It took Honey a moment to adjust to the sudden light, and he and Audrey sat still as she took in her surroundings. Corvin pulsed another wave of calm at her and noticed that Audrey’s shoulders relaxed slightly too.
“Let her see your hand—the one with the glove.”
Audrey kept her movements slow, and Honey gladly chewed on the thick leather, then pulled Audrey’s arm to the ground and pinned it with her talons.
“Good. Keep talking. See if you can stroke her back some more. Don’t be afraid—she won’t hurt you. If she bites, it will be a gentle warning.”
To Tame A Wild Heart: A Zyne Witch Urban Fantasy Romance (Zyne Legacy Romance Book 1) Page 12