Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Zyra held one made of white calla lilies and demon-red roses.
She handed me the other: magenta carnations and white roses tipped in blood red.
She got on the back of a Sprint with Manny.
After Tanyn loaded up Hurley, he mounted the Sprint, and I got on behind him.
With light flurries falling, we sped down the road that hugged the plateau, came to the landing platform, and sped across that.
The path we took edged the coast, and it was a good fifteen-minute glide, so probably an hour plus walk, to the cove.
The minute the males stopped the Sprints, I knew why this was a favorite spot of Darynda and Tanyn.
It was beautiful.
The water in the cove was shallow, and the color of Tanyn’s eyes, and snowflake-patterned clear ice limned the edges that touched the shore, and when the sun hit them, prisms of light reflected off the water.
There was a white marble conical funeral plinth that, if you didn’t know what this place was, and as such, to look for it, it would be lost in the blinding white of the snow that surrounded it.
Mangold and Zyra approached first, with Zyra putting their bouquet of flowers at the base of the plinth, while Tanyn and I hung back.
We gave them time.
They took it, in silent reflection.
It was only when Zyr let out a little sob that Manny led her away.
I turned to Tanyn to hand him the bouquet.
He took it without looking at it.
No, he was staring in my eyes.
“Cold?” he asked.
I was freezing.
I made my lips curve up. “I’m totally getting used to it.”
“Liar,” he whispered.
Caught.
I shrugged.
His head dropped and he touched his lips to mine.
He was killing me.
When he lifted away, I said, “Say hi to her from me.”
Instantaneously, red lightning crackled through his now black eyes.
But he nodded and moved to the plinth.
Hurley went with him and sat down in the snow beside Tanyn’s feet.
It took him a while to lay the bouquet by the plinth, and watching him standing there, staring at the space where, under the snow, his mother’s body lay, it was too much. Too intimate. Too private.
I turned away, walked to the shore and stared out to sea.
And I thought of the pic of the female on that couch, smiling.
The lynx in their pen, healing.
The lynx outside their pen, roaming.
I thought of welcoming small rooms in a tiny portion of a vast castle that made a happy home.
I thought of a motley group of four people, stranded, alone, and making a family.
I thought of a boy fishing, to feed his mother as the supplies ran low.
And partly tame, mostly wild beasts circling a dead female to protect her from nothing.
And I wept.
I was so in my thoughts, when I felt the touch on my neck, I was surprised.
I turned.
Looked up.
And Tanyn gazed down at me.
“She would have loved you,” he whispered.
I sob tore out my throat, and I collapsed into his body, my arms rounding him.
His did the same to me.
Tight.
“Comm us when you’re in Abyssinia. We’ll fly over. Have dinner.” Standing on the landing platform, the soni-jet loaded up behind us, waiting for Tanyn, Hurley and I to embark, Zyra was holding me and talking in my ear.
“Okay, when Mira sorts everything, I’ll let you know.”
She pulled her head away but didn’t let me go.
“Also, we want to come to Nocturn. See your gallery.”
I smiled at her. “That can be arranged.”
“I’ve never been to Nocturn,” she said.
“Well, you’ve got an in for a VIP tour of Spikeback Castle,” I bragged.
“Oh Lilith! I’d love that,” Zyra exclaimed.
“Female,” Manny grunted. “Let her go. The pilot doesn’t have all night for you to gab.”
Zyr glared at her husband then turned back to me, rolled her eyes and griped, “Males.”
I smiled at her again and gave her a squeeze.
We released each other and I went to Manny for a hug.
He engulfed me in his arms and this time I got the squeeze, and it was tight.
He let me go with a pat on my shoulder and a, “See you soon, lass.”
“You will,” I confirmed.
“Baby?” Tanyn called.
Not even drunk, I went right to him.
He took my hand, we sent one last wave to Zyra and Mangold then walked up the steps, holding hands, Hurley following us into the jet.
The pilot came in after us. The door folded up. We settled in, sitting next to each other, taking off hats, coats and gloves and buckling in.
We took off.
Just a note, the Grenadiers stayed behind. They were Manny and Zyra’s detail, and only Tanyn’s when he was there. And since I learned that day at lunch the soni-jet had military capabilities, including stealth, cloaking and armor, and our pilot was a Red Lance (the aerial form of a Grenadier), my detail would meet me on Aleksei’s platform in Nocturn, and Tanyn’s would meet him at Berg Castle.