Page 24

Forgetting Tris, I draw in closer to him, to his words.

Sleep clings to his reddened eyes as turns his chin to his shoulder, not quite looking over at me, but an inviting gesture still. “He might order to you naked if you wear something like that gods-damned dress again.”

I tilt my head as I study him, the low set of his lashes over golden eyes, the muted shine of them, the pout of his full mouth, and I realize he’s a bit of a grump in the early hours of the phase.

Tris bustles up to my side. She sets down a copper mug full of steamy, fresh coffee. The fragrance of it is an instant hit that swells my insides with a relaxing flutter. It lures me into a creaky chair.

Keeping a false sense of safety, I sit two chairs down from Dare. He could kill me so easily from this distance, a lazy swipe at my neck for my throat to bleed and thump in his hand. Yet the distance eases me all the same.

A comfortable quiet is fast to drape over us like a heavy blanket. I keep the rim of the copper mug pressed to my bottom lip and force polite sips, not the greedy guzzle I ache for.

The clangs and clatters of breakfast being prepared on the other side of the kitchens overpowers my gentle slurps of coffee.

Dare is entirely silent, a statue perched on the edge of a farmhouse table, and his unflinching stare fixed on the small window up the wall. He watches the occasional pair of boots cut through the dim shadows of glowjars and lanterns on the street.

At this angle, I catch slight movement from him. The only sign that he’s alive, not a frozen figure, not an ornament: Hands clasped between his spread legs, he runs the pad of his thumb over his palm.

Stuck in a trance, he runs his touch over and over his palm, a patch of soft skin that’s smudged with black ink.

I frown on the dark stain for a beat before I realize what it is. A sketch of some kind, a small sun shape that he’s drawn onto his hand.

“Thinking of a tattoo?” I ask and keep my tone light, because Dare is as unpredictable as any hybrid, more so than any dark male, his changeable nature as dangerous as any battlefield. Seems it’s even less predictable in the early hours of the phase.

Dare dips his head slightly. He looks down at the inky drawing on his pale hand. His thumb pauses on the edge of the sun sketch.

Long lashes lower with a lazy blink. He shakes his head. Tousled curls fall into his face.

“I dream it,” he says after a beat, and the roughness of fresh sleep thickens his voice.

He dreams of the sun.

My mouth puckers in thought.

Maybe he dreams the sun because he isofthe sun. No matter how drawn to the life of a dokkalf he is, he is hybrid, he is both—and he belongs to the light as much as he does the dark.

But then, my thoughts are wiped clean and declared untrue when he adds in a barely-there sigh, “I miss her.”

I blink at him.

My startled stare pierces into the back of his head. His dark tendrils are unruly from whatever deep sleep he was sucked into during the Quiet.

I lower the empty copper mug to the table.

‘I miss her.’

Such a private thing.

Words spoken from his heart, perhaps even his soul. But more than the words was the defeat in his voice, and his demeaner that now appears more defeated and sad than tired.

I almost think he didn’t mean to tell me that, like he forgot who else is in the kitchens with him.

I force a hard swallow and push aside the empty mug. I hope Tris notices and refills it.

My voice is soft, afraid to spook him, “Who?”

Silence. That’s what comes in answer; silence.

Even in the farther edges of the kitchens, no clatters, no clangs, no hissed orders or whispered bickers.