Page 21

Dern

Many years ago on Pharenos

When I came back in from killing my first person Ormund scrubbed me clean in his big clawfoot bathtub. Back then all the phoenixes were obsessed with that style of tub. I didn’t mind it because it meant the tub was big enough for both of us to fit inside of. He washed me in cold water so that the dried blood and gore came away easily from my flesh. The coolness of the liquid rubbing circles over my skin also soothed the fit building inside me.

“I meant to say something before you seduced me with those soft, kissable lips, mate,”

Ormund said, washing my back. “I was not offended that you wanted to take care of business before we exchanged our claiming vows, but it bothers me that you call heat a fit. It makes it sound like a medical condition that needs treatment when it’s one of the most natural things that can occur. I hate that they made you feel so much shame around something as natural as that. Do you know if not for you having your first heat, I would not have smelled you to know that you are mine?”

I didn’t say anything for a long time. It was my parents – my now dead parents – that first called them fits. It didn’t feel right to hold it against them now that they decayed in the ground a few miles from where we sat naked in bloody water.

“I’m not sure shame is the word for what I felt,”

I said eventually. “It wasn’t convenient. Sometimes it was hard to find lovers. If I had my druthers, I’d have more warning that they’re about to happen and maybe some way to put them off until… I don’t know. Until I’m in the mood for them. Then--- Oh! Crap!”

“What, mate?”

he asked, looking over my shoulder and down my naked body for injuries once again.

“I’m not hurt. I… Um…”

I sighed. “You know about the slick stuff, right?”

“I know what slick is, yes,”

Ormund said slowly as if it were a trick question.

“You’re not gonna freak out, right? Some guys would freak out. I mean, it makes it all easier and—”

“It’s natural. Your body wants you to enjoy mating. Your biology really wants you to enjoy being in heat. If anyone—”

“Sometimes they thought it was gross,”

I said, blushing hard and trying not to think about how embarrassing it was whenever my would-be one nightstand reacted like I peed on him or something.

“Then they are cowards,”

Ormund announced.

“I don’t know if they were afraid of it,”

I laughed.

“Slick tastes sweet,”

Ormund said, and I made up my mind not to ask him how he knew that. I didn’t want to think about him with anyone else. He was mine. My mate. My bird. My guy.

“Mine!”

I finally snapped, a growl crawling out of my throat.

“Okay, I won’t taste it,”

Ormund laughed, and I twisted around inside the big clawfoot tub to face him.

“No, you’re mine. You keep going on and on saying that I’m yours and I reckon I am. I don’t see too much problem with that because you’ve yet to try to make me do anything I don’t want to do or not do something I really wanted to do but we have to get something straight right now.”

“Okay,”

Ormund leaned in closer as if he might kiss me before I got too riled up.

“You can give me those hungry eyes all you want but you better listen up,”

I said, pushing his long swooping bangs away from his eyes so I could stare deep into them. “You’re mine too. You’re my guy. My mate and I’m not sharing you and I’m not letting anyone hurt you.”

“No one will ever come between us, mate. I promise you that. If you go before me, I’ll follow you into fire and if I go first, I will stay by your side in whatever form is left of me. No one or nothing will ever part us again. You will be safe even long after neither of us have a body to breathe inside of.”

I kissed him hard, pushing him until his back was against the tub. He let out a startled moan that made me grin against his lips. Reaching under him, I pulled the plug on the tub and jiggled the knobs around until I found the right temperature. I turned on the shower because a bath wasn’t the best way to wash the blood off.

“And don’t worry,”

he whispered, pushing himself up to his feet and taking me along with him. “I know I’m yours. It’s always gone both ways and don’t worry no one would want to chance your ire if they saw what you did to Elke.”

“He deserved it,”

I smirked.

“He did but it was sort of hot too, mate. It was so fucking hot. You smelled so big and brave and bad ass. It was as if your magic set him on fire from the inside out and not in a good way either. Then you chopped him---”

I kissed him again under the water because I couldn’t stop myself. We scrubbed each other clean, and I made sure neither of us had any bits of Elke stuck in our hair or in his feathers. Though, by the time we made it to the bedroom, it turned out that Ormund was right. Killing my first man and exchanging the claiming vows was too much of a workout for one night. Still, I drifted off to sleep naked in his arms for the first time and it was the best night of sleep that I ever had.