Page 23

PRACTICE DOESN’T MAKE PERFECT BUT SOMETIMES GOOD ENOUGH

Severath

S everath’s breathing technique was not working.

He’d been performing it all morning—well, trying to anyway.

But each attempt failed to find him the peace and stillness that naturally existed in the moment between inhale and exhale.

That was when he would loose an arrow—steady, keen, quick—but nothing seemed able to still his heart or unscramble his mind.

Even as he sat unmoving beside Ember, watching her lips silently form the sounds of the letters she studied, restfulness refused to find him.

Truly, he had been a mess since the morning he’d woken to the softest touch he’d ever felt traced across his chest. While moonlight washed over the hand that was stroking him, the warmth of another body curled around his inspired a delight he didn’t know could exist. He had the brief and mad thought then that the last few weeks, months, years, had all been his own nightmare, and he was finally waking to the caress of his soulbonded.

But then Ember had screamed, and those who were soulbonded didn’t scream in one another’s faces or demand they “get out” of the chamber they slept in together.

At least, he was fairly sure they didn’t, not that he’d ever spent long enough with a mate to really know.

He was also fairly sure demons didn’t develop bonds with humans since they probably couldn’t be reciprocated, but that was a thought he was unwilling to have in its entirety.

What he did know for sure was that he’d been an utter fool—a fool for taking advantage of her weakest moment and a fool for letting her apologize afterward.

Ember had forgiven him, though, and she had even smiled, as curious as that was.

He knew he deserved none of her attention, but in the last week she had given him more of it than ever, and while it gave him every opportunity to observe and assess her—perhaps too closely—it also gave him an imagination.

Severath had never really been taken by fancy—that ability had been absorbed in the womb solely by his brother—but lately it seemed all he was capable of, especially when he was staring at Ember’s lips .

Did she enjoy his company as much as he enjoyed hers? Was she truly growing comfortable in his presence or was she simply forcing herself? When their time together was up and she was free to roam Heck as she pleased, would she…would she consider visiting him still?

The questions ran in his mind over and over, but they never formed on his tongue.

Instead, he let the strange knot in his stomach grow, ever tightening until it almost snapped the night she had been kind enough to grind down the sharpest parts of his broken horn.

All of it went into reports, of course, because he had once again given her a weapon, and she had once again not used it to murder him or escape.

Though, he may have left out the part about Ember squeezing his shoulder between her breasts or pressing the heat between her legs to his elbow. She probably wasn’t even aware.

But of course he was aware, as vigilant as if he were leading a squadron through the Dreadmoor.

Each of his senses woke in that way he so infrequently allowed, something like a need to hunt, to identify and capture prey, yet not quite.

He was keenly attentive to each of her movements, her breaths as they fell over his ear, but her scent was distinct.

Unlike scouting the Dreadmoor, he wasn’t drawn to the essence of fear when Ember was so near, but to something entirely different.

It was that human aroma that made him feel as if he were the one being stalked.

His heart pounded not in pursuit, but in becoming prey himself.

He took another breath as if he were pulling back an arrow, but it failed to quell anything, least of all his desire to hunt her with his cock rather than his bow.

A knock at the door had him on his feet and pacing away from where Ember sat in the parlor, a welcome distraction as he was just beginning to imagine her running through the Veilwood, chasing after him like a wild, starving animal.

Thankfully, the three young faces grinning up at him from the stoop completely blotted that thought out of his head.

“Whoa, you really got fucked up.”

Severath grimaced, and that was all it took for Rasmos to stand a little straighter and shut his mouth. “Your mother does not want you speaking like that.”

“Yeah, and it’s rude,” Amrian added, sneering quickly at Rasmos and then pouting at Severath. “But he’s kinda right.”

Severath rolled his eye, and the smallest of the demon children, Bazzie, chimed in too, all three complaining over one another that he had not had his lunch in the old training yard beside the barracks in almost three weeks, and they were worried he was never coming back.

It was inevitable, he supposed, that he would have to face the demons of Heck again down one horn, one eye, and half his ego, but he hadn’t expected the smallest of his acquaintances to show up on his doorstep, and especially not shouting at him for going missing.

Surely they should have been hounding Rand or Garion in his place.

But then they all hushed, black eyes going wide as they crowded closer together on his stoop. Severath glanced over his shoulder, and Ember stood there awkwardly, hands behind her back.

“You’re the murderer,” said Bazzie, little green face staring up at the human in utter awe.

Of course they knew he was harboring a supposed criminal, the whole city probably knew, but this was no way for Ember to be introduced to the citizens of Heck. Severath’s grip on the door tightened, but before he could shut it, Ember stepped right up beside him.

“I sure am,” she said so cheerfully Severath was struck still.

“You’re a lot shorter than I thought you’d be.” At thirteen, Rasmos was already Ember’s height, but he lacked any kind of restraint when he spoke.

“That doesn’t matter,” cried Bazzie, significantly smaller than all of them.

“Yeah, but I heard she killed a really big human,” Rasmos said as if it were some kind of challenge. “So I didn’t think she’d be so skinny.”

“I heard she killed a demon,” Amrian added much quieter.

Bazzie threw her arms skyward. “I heard it was an ogre!”

“It was actually all three.” Ember used a tone Severath hadn’t yet heard then, playful and cold all at once.

“No way.” Rasmos sneered, a tiny point to his fangs sliding down while the two girls began to giggle, catching on. “You’re just a human.”

“But you know what they say about humans.” Ember traded a quick glance with Severath, lips turned up mischievously. “We’re all vicious, bloodthirsty monsters.” She bared her blunted teeth, and in one quick move, grabbed Severath’s arm and bit down on his biceps.

He recognized the game immediately, feeling no pain but feigning that she had torn through his flesh like a rabid ostoran.

The children shrieked, and the two laughed even as Ember remained attached to his arm.

He pretended to pull away, and she dug in, pressure from each finger as they wrapped around his forearm, and then her teeth as she kept him in her grasp.

Severath fell still when she released him, watching as she wiped daintily at her mouth and letting her show the three she hadn’t even broken his skin.

A thing she would never do , he thought. But maybe if I asked…

He shook his head, cutting through the noise of the children by clearing his throat. “All right, enough. What do the three of you want?”

“We want to practice.” Rasmos held up his bow, still eyeing Ember warily.

Severath hesitated, trapped there on the threshold as he looked from the eager group to the human, whose eyebrows had climbed halfway up her forehead. But then she nodded, reading the question on his face, and relief spread through him.

Perhaps the truth was that he did miss seeing the three of them play outside the barracks—just a little . And more importantly, their skills would suffer if they didn’t practice properly, inevitable if he wasn’t around to correct them. “Go to the back garden,” he said, and promptly shut the door.

“I’ll stay inside,” Ember said just as quickly, stepping back as he turned to her.

“You don’t—that is, do you want to?”

She shrugged, and her features twitched in a way he couldn’t quite read. “I don’t want to scare them.”

Severath snorted. “Those three are fearless. Stupidly so.”

She tipped her head. “And you?”

“I…” He rubbed his arm where she had bitten him. “I think I may need some assistance.”

Rasmos, Amrian, and Bazzie were already causing chaos when the two traversed the house and exited.

Amrian had declared herself the better shot because she hit her targets dead on center, and Rasmos argued back that he was superior because his arrows went significantly farther.

Bazzie, who was too small for a bow and hadn’t yet learned to properly control her powers, had climbed the buckthorn tree and was hanging precariously from a branch with a vine of her own making.

“Shooting at a distance is important,” Severath stressed as he collected Bazzie and placed her on the ground. “Otherwise, why choose a ranged weapon?”

“See?” Rasmos stuck his dark red tongue out.

“But being able to hit your target and avoid your comrades—or just hit your target at all—is also quite important.”

Amrian huffed, still only eleven and with the patience to prove it. “Yeah, but which is importanter?”

“There is no importanter—er, more important. Archery requires an understanding of the bow, constant training, and honing your natural skills. Amrian, you let nothing go unnoticed and have a keen sense for disturbances that even those far older than you do not. If you conceal yourself while you scour the battlefield, you could pick off your target before it even knows it’s in danger.

Your aim is some of the most impressive I’ve seen at your age. ”