Page 27

27

ADELLUM

I pull Harmony closer against my chest, her back pressed to my front as we lay tangled together on the riverbank. The soft rushing of water provides gentle background noise to our breathing. Her hair smells of meadowmint and sunshine, and I bury my nose in it, inhaling deeply. Five years of emptiness—of cold beds and hollow victories—and now she's here, solid and warm in my arms.

"Missed this," I murmur against her neck, tracing lazy patterns across her stomach. "Missed you."

The setting sun casts long shadows across the clearing, turning the water to liquid gold. My wings curl instinctively around us, enclosing Harmony in a cocoon of soft gray feathers. Protection. Possession. Mine.

She shifts, turning to face me, her hazel-green eyes studying my face with that quiet intensity that first drew me to her. There's something there—a question unasked, a confession lingering. I brush my thumb across her cheekbone, waiting.

"I need to tell you something," she finally whispers. "About why I left."

My muscles tense involuntarily. This moment—this exact moment—has haunted my dreams for five years. The why. The thing that stole her from me. My fingers find the blue crystal geode in my pocket, squeezing it hard enough that the edges bite into my palm.

"Tell me." My voice comes out rougher than intended.

Harmony sits up, drawing her knees to her chest, putting distance between us. I hate it immediately.

"I saw you. With her. That day in your gardens." Her words come out fragmented, each one cutting like glass. "The xaphan woman with the silver wings. I saw you kiss her."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I jerk upright, wings flaring out behind me.

"What?"

"I was coming early to surprise you. But I saw you with her instead." Harmony's voice is steady, but her fingers twist anxiously in her lap. "I thought... I thought I was just your human plaything. Your dirty secret until you found someone more suitable."

Fire erupts through my veins, rage and heartache colliding into something primal and shattering. I pace to the water's edge, hands clenched so tightly my knuckles blanch white. Five years. Five godsdamned years of agony—all over nothing.

"Lilleth kissed me." I whirl back to face Harmony, the words torn from my throat. "I didn't kiss her. I pulled away the moment it happened."

She just nods. "Sior told me. I don't think he meant to but earlier, he told me, and I realized how wrong I was."

"Sior was pressuring me to bind with someone appropriate. Someone of 'my status.'" I spit the words out like poison. "He arranged the meeting. I only agreed to get him off my back." I drop to my knees before her, seizing her hands in mine. "And because a part of me wondered if you might be better off without me."

"Adellum—"

"I went looking for you. That same day. When I couldn't find you, I searched the estate. Then the city. Then every road leading away." My voice cracks. "I searched until my wings gave out and I collapsed. Night after night after night."

A tear slides down her cheek. I catch it with my thumb.

"I dreamed of you every time I closed my eyes. Your face. Your voice. Your laugh." I press my forehead to hers. "Those dreams kept me alive at first. Then they started to poison me from the inside out. The wanting. The not knowing if you were safe. If you were happy. If you were even alive." I stare deep into her eyes. "You have to know there was never anyone else for me, Harmony. Only you."

"I'm sorry," she whispers, her hands coming up to cradle my face. "I never should have doubted you. I saw one thing that scared me, and I ran, thinking you could never actually choose me."

"I loved you then, little bird." I curve my hand around the back of her neck, holding her gaze with mine. "I love you now. I will love you until the stars burn out and the universe collapses into nothing. There has never been anyone but you. There never could be."

Harmony's eyes flood with tears, her hands trembling against my skin. "All this time? Even after what I did?"

She might have driven me crazy, but nothing would ever be unforgivable for her. I can't even blame her after how most xaphan treat humans. I just hate I didn't know, that I couldn't have proven to her that she was it for me.

I'm hoping that over these five years, I have.

"All this time," I confirm, voice rough. "Every moment. Every breath."

She nods, tears gathering in her eyes, and I brace myself. She doesn't seem relieved, and I immediately wonder how I can reassure her when she speaks.

"Adellum, there's something else." Her voice catches, a tremor running through it. "Something I've never told anyone. Something I could barely admit to myself."

A knot forms in my throat. I've already lost five years—what more could she possibly have kept from me?

"Tell me." My voice comes out hoarse, my hands instinctively finding the crystal in my pocket again, grounding myself.

Harmony takes a deep, shuddering breath. Her fingers twist together in her lap, knuckles going white.

"Brooke is yours."

I stare at her, blinking slowly. I knew she was xaphan, had hoped deep down, but…I had convinced myself the timing was wrong. I had believed this whole time that someone had taken a part of Harmony I wanted to belong to me.

"What?" The word barely makes it past my lips.

"Brooke is your daughter." Tears slip freely down Harmony's cheeks now, catching the last rays of sunlight. "I didn't know I was pregnant when I left. By the time I realized... I convinced myself it was better this way. That she'd be safer without you knowing."

My wings flare out behind me, a reflexive response to the storm building inside me. My daughter. My daughter . The little girl with those silver eyes—my eyes—and that shock of pale hair. The child who summons golden sparks from her fingertips when excited. All this time... she's been mine.

"I was wrong." Harmony's voice breaks, her shoulders folding inward. "I was hurt and scared and stubborn. I told myself it was to protect her. From the life I thought you'd chosen. From a world that would see her as less because of her mixed blood." She reaches for my hand, hesitant. "But I was really protecting myself. From loving you. From admitting how much I still wanted you."

I go utterly still, my mind racing backward through every interaction with Brooke. Her curious eyes following me. The way she instinctively reached for my hand. Her delighted giggle when I helped control the sparks dancing from her fingers. How had I not seen it? How had I missed something so profoundly obvious?

"She has your smile," Harmony whispers. "Your temper too. She gets these little creases between her eyebrows when she's thinking hard, just like you. Obviously your eyes and your magic."

My chest constricts, pulling tighter and tighter until I can barely draw breath. I had every intention of making her mine, but I truly am her father.

"I thought she couldn't be mine." The confession rips from me. "When I first saw her, I thought you'd moved on, found someone else. It nearly destroyed me, but I still—" My voice breaks. "I still wanted to know her. To protect her. To be something to her, to be her father in some way."

Harmony's tears come faster now, her entire body trembling. "I'm so sorry, Adellum. I tore us apart. All of us. I've denied Brooke her father. I've denied you your daughter."

Something shifts inside me, plates of rage and hurt sliding against each other, threatening to tear me apart. But beneath it all, a deeper current—love for this stubborn, fierce, maddening woman. Love for the daughter I'd known for weeks but not recognized as my own blood.

I pull Harmony into my arms, crushing her against my chest. My wings wrap around us both, trembling with the force of my emotions.

"I loved her when I thought she wasn't mine," I whisper fiercely into Harmony's hair. "And now—gods, Harmony, I want nothing more than to be her father. To be with you both. You and Brooke are everything to me."

Harmony clutches at my shoulders, her face pressed into my neck. "I never stopped loving you," she confesses, voice muffled against my skin. "Not for a single day. I hate myself for tearing us apart based on one misunderstanding, but I want you to know that I see how I messed up. I hope you can forgive me, Adellum."

I cup her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me, to see the truth in my eyes. "We can't get those years back, little bird. But I'm not going anywhere now." My thumb brushes away a tear on her cheek. "And I won't let you go either. Not ever again."

"Promise?" she whispers, eyes searching mine.

"With everything I am." I press my forehead to hers. "You, me, and our daughter. Together."