Believing in Blue

by Maggie Morton

  “Wren? Wren!” Sia encased her in a body-crushing hug, which made Wren groan again, but this time the pain was actually welcome. So was Sia’s happy face when she let go of Wren. “I don’t care if you’ll never look like yourself again, Wren. I’m just fine with that, as long as you’re okay.”

  “I may be okay, but does this world have some sort of magic aspirin? My head is pounding.”

  Piru stood and walked over to her bed. “I’ll get you something immediately. Sia, your mother will have some headache potions in stock, won’t she?”

  “Definitely. Do I need to go get them, or…or could you do it?”

  “Don’t want to leave her side, do you, dear girl?” Piru looked as though he knew something Wren didn’t, something about how Sia felt about her, perhaps. Did Sia care about her beyond the bounds of mere friendship? And if so, did she like Wren back as much as Wren liked her?

  It seemed she might have her answer soon; after a few more incredibly tight hugs, and a large number of stated variations on how relieved everyone was, Wren’s family and Piru left the room.

  Now that it was only the two of them, Sia perched on the edge of the bed where Wren lay. She reached out toward Wren’s forehead, and Wren held her breath for a moment. But it seemed Sia had decided against touching her, returning her hand to her knee instead of doing what she clearly wanted to do with it.

  “It’s okay,” Wren said. “You can touch me. You can touch me anywhere you like.” Shit. Apparently, almost dying had made her a fair amount more ballsy than she had been before her near-death experience. And was Sia even attracted to her new form?

  Sia began to play with the sheets next to Wren’s body, working the hem of the fabric back and forth between her fingers. “I think it’ll take some getting used to, seeing you like this, looking so different.”

  “Oh.” Wren pushed herself upright and shoved her pillows up behind her back. She spent a few moments making sure they were arranged just right. Anything to distract herself from what Sia might have meant by those words. “Guess I’m stuck like this, huh?”

  “That’s what Piru said at first, but now he thinks there’s a chance you can change back. Your mom, Passea, told him she was pretty sure that if you worked with her, and shared each other’s magic, you could. I…I mean, I’m fine with how you look now, you’re pretty and all, but I do miss your real face. It won’t be the same doing this, doing what I’ve wanted to do ever since I first laid eyes on you, but I know it’s you underneath, and that’s all that really matters to me. If you’ll let me do it, that is…” Sia’s face was suddenly inches away from Wren’s, her lips parted, her eyelids slightly lowered.

  Wren didn’t want to hesitate, didn’t want to chance Sia changing her mind, so she leaned forward the small distance it took for their lips to meet.

  Sia’s lips were softer than Wren ever could have imagined, and she was a really good kisser, although Wren didn’t exactly have much practice evaluating anyone’s kissing abilities. But that didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered, nothing but the softness of Sia’s lips and the fact that she wanted this, wanted to be with Wren, no matter what she looked like. Any earlier in her life, Wren would have been worrying nonstop about so many things in that moment.

  She would have worried about what Sia thought of her kissing.

  She would have worried if Sia really liked her, the way she’d said she did, or if this was just a brief, passing thing.

  She would have worried about how the heck the Winged Blue and Winged Red could possibly work out their differences.

  She would have worried about what Myuss was up to right then—if she had escaped, if she was still a threat to her and the rest of the Winged Blue.

  But now all she was worried about was how long she would get to do this, to kiss Sia, again and again, because she didn’t want anything to interrupt it. Not even breakfast, as hungry as her suddenly growling stomach had decided she was.

  “You hungry, Wren?” Sia had stopped kissing her, a lopsided grin lighting up her beautiful face. “Or are you hiding an angry wildebeest in your tummy?”

  “I am hungry,” Wren told her, feeling surprisingly unembarrassed by Sia’s teasing remark. “But I’ll only eat if you’ll join me.”

  “Breakfast in bed for two!” Sia rang an imaginary bell, and she and Wren laughed. Then Wren grabbed her and gently tackled her to the bed, kissing her again and again and doing her best to ignore her stomach’s insistent growls. Yes, Wren had officially decided that until she’d had her fill of Sia’s lips, everything else could wait.

  About the Author

  Maggie Morton lives in Northern California with her partner and their two cats. She is the winner of an Alice B. Readers’ Lavender Certificate for her first novel, the lesbian erotic romance Dreaming of Her. Her other novels are Under Her Spell and Out of This World.

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