Page 18 of Commanding Flame and Shield
Over the years, he, James, and his best friend, Sam had built quite an empire for themselves. Once the firm was flush, they’d started investing in properties, primarily low-income housing and vacation rentals. He was coming up on thirty, and already had accumulated more wealth than most humans can wrap their minds around. He could’ve walked away from everything and never worked another day in his life, if it were a normal mortal length. And I couldn’t help but feel this deep-seated pride for the gorgeous man pouring his entire story out to me. He worked hard—endless hours of midnight oil. And that was something I could admire above almost any other trait. He would be a sharp asset here. Or at least, that’s what I told myself when I realized I was prying too far into his personal life.
The sound of him tossing an arrow back on the table brought me back into the moment, and I grinned.
“Take a moment. Breathe. Deeply. In through your nose and out through your mouth. Again. Close your eyes. Ask them which one belongs to you.”
He slid one eye open, smirking at that last statement. I elbowed him in the ribs, and he laughed before closing them again.
“Ask them which one belongs to you, let your hands hover along them and see which one speaks to you.”
He ran his fingers across the table and came to hover over a long bow.
“Pick it up—feel the weight of it.”
He moved swiftly and obediently, holding the bow away from himself before drawing the string. It was nearly his height, and something about the way he drew it, focus etched on his face, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I nodded. He closed his eyes and pulled an arrow from the accompanying pile—sleek, all black except for the navy-blue fletching. He felt it in his hands, turned it between his fingers, and then set it back on the table. Slowly, he let his hand drift over the assortment of tools, and his fingers stopped on a traditional wood one. He examined it in much the same manner as the first, before looking at me, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“It feels…familiar.”
I smiled and gave him another approving bob of my head. Hair still on end in the static charge of our energy, goosebumps popped up along my skin as I stepped back and watched him correct his stance and take aim. Hot damn, that bow looked good on him.
The sharp twang of the release was ended by the quick, definitive thud of the arrow in the bullseye. He turned to me, deep v between his brows, eyes disproportionately serious, and something else. Fearful?
“Alvara,” he nearly whispered, voice husky. My name on his lips wound my stomach into a sudden unfamiliar knot. “I remember.”
EIGHT
ALEC
AUGUST
The rank smell of sweat, sea and steel was overpowered by the sharp brine of blood on the air. Everything in me ached, heart booming against the inside of my ribs. Exhaustion heavy in my limbs, I cursed the weight of the armor on my body as the mud squelched below it. My fingers traced the edge of the bow, and I lifted my eyes to the rain…
“Alvara,” her name barely escaped my lips, something about the attentive way her eyes found mine, made the feel of her name in my mouth significant. Weighted. I forced my eyes closed, pushing into the images flooding my mind. “I remember…I remember it—the battle. Agincourt. We—we crossed the channel. I was an archer. A soldier. It’s as if the bowtoldme. I remember. The weight of it in my hands was so…familiar,” I stared down at the longbow in my hands. The long bow—theEnglishlongbow. I had been an English soldier, and we had taken Agincourt.
When I opened my eyes, Alvara’s cheeks glittered with tears, her hand was on her chest as though she couldn’t breathe.
“Are you okay?!”
Tears streaked her face, but she laughed—the sound as sweet as chimes on the air. The sight of that smile on her face was so intoxicating, I had to force myself to come back to the moment.I was a soldier.
“Alvara?”
She took a sharp inhale, and smiled at me again, shrugging her shoulders. “Proud, I guess,” she said uncertainly. “That’s great work, August. The first trigger is a really significant moment. Did you say Agincourt?”
“Yes—we came over the channel. I-I remember it Alvara. I remember it so vividly, like it was just yesterday.”
A great booming laugh broke the air between us, and I turned to see Aren entering the hall. While immensely intimidating, he only seemed head and shoulders taller than me now.
“Agincourt!? You were in that shit show? Damn, brother—that was quite the standoff.” He turned his eyes to Alvara. “Your calling was in the Hundred Years War, love. Judging by the trigger, I assume he served King Henry the fifth. We’ll swap battle stories soon, friend. This is great progress for one day. Unfortunately, for now, I require your sire.”
In a mind-to-mind exchange, Alvara let me know someone would be along for me, and to stay put with my bow. I loosed a handful of arrows, before a woman’s familiar, trilling voice broke the air.
“An Englishman, then?
I turned to find Aphaea walking my way, her gait somewhere between a saunter and a waltz.
“Evidently so.”
“It never gets less strange, remembering lives long past. Just so you know.”
