Page 2 of Dare Not
“You want to be… alone?” one of the midwives echoed, glancing between me and the baby. “If you’d like some quiet bonding time—”
“Alone,” I repeated in a louder voice. Was that such a complicated request? “I want to bealone.”
“Of course,” Valor agreed quickly, pressing a kiss to my sweat-covered temple before ushering everyone out of the room. Chance and Creed walked out with the baby, and I supposed I’d need to remind them later about watching their emotional responses. They only had to experiencemyemotions, I had to experience it from all four of them. The least they could do was to be considerate of how they were feeling for my benefit.
I was too uncomfortable to move into a more respectable position, so I remained on the slippery but waterproof tarpaulin covering the bed, leaning back against the pillows with a thin sheet thrown over my legs for modesty, resenting both the indignity of childbirth and the fact that I didn’t even have a son to show for it.
How many times would I have to do this to get a boy? It had been nice in the beginning. Everyone had treated me with such care and excitement when they found out I was expecting, but pregnancy was far more miserable than I’d expected it to be, and my bonded hadn’t truly appreciated how much I’d suffered.
Why was Anesidora punishing me? I’d done nothing to deserve this.
“Anesidora, Sender of Gifts,” I began, tempering my anger and keeping my tone even. “GreatMother. I thank you for safely delivering me through the trial that is childbirth. I cannot understand why you saw fit to give me a daughter, but I suppose I have to trust that you know what you are doing and it will all make sense in time. It would be a kindness of you not to bring her soul bonds into her life during her teenage years, so she can at least be a daughter to me for that long,” I added bitterly. I’d met Valor at age sixteen, and we’d moved into the flat underneath my parents’ home in Saskatoon while we finished high school. I’d barely spent any time with my family from that point on. “Perhaps you aren’t really listening and this is all in vain. To be an agathos is to sacrifice, after all, to be a woman, even more so—”
The baby made a shrieking sound from whatever room it was they’d taken her to, and I glared at the closed door at the intrusion into this moment of peace between me and my goddess.
“She’ll learn,” I muttered under my breath. “Someday, she’ll make a simple, straightforward request that goes ignored, and she’ll know what it is to truly be an agathos woman.”
I blew out a long breath, getting my prayer back on track.
“While I consider pregnancy and childbirth to be an unpleasant and degrading process, I pray that you will ease my suffering by giving me sons from now on. I trust that you will do what is right and just, Anesidora, and only ask that you consider what a wonderful mother of boys I would be, and how well I would raise them to follow your light.Láthe bio´sas.”
Chapter 2
PresentDay
“Youaremine.”
Grace’s words hung in the air, too good to be true. I’d waited for so long,wanted, wondered, and here I was. Grace was mine.
My head spun with the overwhelming crush of emotion, of relief. Or maybe it was something else because my head was spinninga lot.
Grace climbed off Riot’s lap, chewing the inside of her lip as she slowly approached me, glowing in the lamplight. Fuck, she was pretty. Even prettier than I’d thought based on the pictures and videos I’d seen—golden brown skin, shiny black hair that hung halfway down her back, a delicate heart-shaped jaw, and full soft lips that seemed in contrast to her solemn, world-weary eyes.
Opal eyes. Agathos eyes. They were a strange swirl of teal and lavender, flecked with gold. The same odd combination of eye colors that had glared at me in hatred these past few months while I defended my town and my kind from the angry agathos who’d raged against us. The same colors that my mother had probably seen before she died.
She’s not like them. It’s not the same.
Right?
Grace lifted her hand as though she was going to touch me, but froze in place, hesitating.
Not on my fucking watch. Wariness of agathos aside, I was going to make sure Grace knew she could touch me whenever she wanted. I wasdesperatefor it. I closed the gap between us, the ground feeling weirdly unstable under my feet, and lightly cupped her elbow, running my hand up and down her arm, relishing the feel of her silken skin beneath my palm.
Moving slowly, giving her time to tell me to fuck off if she wanted to, I moved my other hand to her hair, brushing my fingers through it and baring her neck to me. Agathos weren’t big on tattoos, so it didn’t surprise me to see all that bare skin, but fuck if I didn’t want to put my mark on that blank canvas. Would she let me?
Riot watched us from the bed, leaning back against the pillows, his entire body my practice ground for working with color. Bullet was downstairs, inked in tarot cards he’d seen in his visions that he’d only entrusted me to execute.
Grace and Wild had to wear my ink too. I needed that to happen, it was essential to my being.
“I want to kiss you,” Grace whispered. “I want it so much, it’s a little frightening. Is that okay?”
“That is the best thing I’ve ever heard.” I closed the distance between us instantly, brushing my lips urgently over hers. I needed this like I needed oxygen, and I didn’t care that I was probably coming off embarrassingly eager. Iwasembarrassingly eager.
Grace didn’t hesitate, softly sucking my lower lip into her mouth, running her fingers through my hair, and holding my head firmly in place. It was more assertive than I’d expected her to be, but maybe she needed this as much as I did.
Though, maybe it wasmedoing that. To be a Philotes was to be a walking aphrodisiac. I hadn’t expected my gifts to work on an agathos, but there was a definite hum of energy between us, a sexual chemistry that felt tangible. Maybe I was just romanticizing things because Grace tasted like sweetness and felt like a dream, and there was nothing wrong in the world while my lips were against hers.
No, life felt perfect. Wondrous. Warm and fuzzy and sort of hazy around the edges.
