Page 136 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

‘I am so very pleased you are not in any discomfort.’ Silas’s mouth rested near Pitch’s temple, his bulk pressed in tight. ‘After all you did…’ He ran his fingers beneath the arm of the nightshirt, whispering his touch against Pitch’s skin. ‘I saw how close Edward went to the flame. I saw him touch you…right where the mark lies. I saw him…cast magick.’ Silas kissed him again and held his lips against Pitch’s hair. They stood that way a long while before Silas spoke again. ‘You are not the only one the angel has meddled with, are you, my dear?’

Pitch sighed and tilted his head, resting against Silas’s shoulder. ‘No. I am not.’

The ankou’s embrace firmed, taking Pitch’s weight so his feet barely needed to touch the floor at all. ‘When you are ready to speak of it…I will listen.’

Pitch pressed into the contours of Silas’s body, needing those far more than he did the ankou’s ears. ‘And you? Are you wounds from the Dullahan gone?’

The headless bastard with Pitch’s flesh upon his tongue. The Erlking was a fool if he thought there was any chance of claiming his prize, but if that creature laid a hand upon Silas again, the Unseelie Court would know wrath.

‘They are. And not a scar remains from your flame… Is it terrible I’m rather disappointed with that? I wouldn’t have minded a souvenir of your handiwork.’

Pitch nudged his backside against Silas’s thigh. ‘Did you expect anything less than perfection from me, Mr Mercer?’

Silas laughed against the nape of Pitch’s neck. ‘Certainly not.’

They swayed where they stood, and it was lovelier than the finest dance.

‘Tell me, how is Charlie?’ Pitch said, closing his eyes as he sank into the ankou.

‘Remarkably well, though he says he has something he wishes to speak to me about, but seems reticent to do so. I was trying to press it out of him when we saw that you had awoken.’

‘Likely he’s just going to tell you he fancies Edward. I hope you shall not be too heartbroken, my dear oaf, but it seems the pair of them formed quite a bond in the madhouse.’

Silas laughed, and Pitch savoured every morsel of the sound.

‘Apparently so. I’m glad for them both, I must say.’ If Pitch searched for sign of any jealousy on the ankou’s part, he saw none of it whatsoever. ‘Though I’ll be happiest when Charlie is away from all this once more.’

Pitch stayed silent, quite certain that day was far from near.

‘Our room is lovely,’ Silas continued. ‘The bed is ridiculously large. I feared I’d lost you in it a couple of times.’ Another kiss, another stroke of the hand. ‘But after twelve hours, I was done with sleeping. I hope you don’t mind that I brought you down here. I wanted to be near when you woke, and I thought you’d appreciate the sunlight.’ His other hand traced Pitch’s hip as he spoke. ‘It has been quite the couple of days, has it not?’

Pitch nodded. Silas lifted a hand to touch at the earring.

‘She found us, you know,’ he said.

‘What?’

Silas turned them around so they were facing the fireplace, and the hound and child before it.

‘Adamaris told me that the afternoon we left for the Fulbourn, Tilly was inconsolable, demanding to be taken to her fire man. She wouldn’t let go of the twin to the earring she’d given you.’

‘She’d forced on me…’

Silas nuzzled again behind Pitch’s ear, breathing him in. ‘Forneus turned up at the Crimson Bow several hours after we left. Can you imagine? You’d think they would have slammed the door in his face, I think Nancy would like to even now, but Adamaris I suspect understands something of what Tilly is. She said the child’s uniqueness is unearthly at times.’ Silas smiled. ‘So, when Tilly wanted the skriker allowed in, threw a tantrum until it was done, she relented.’ Silas cleared his throat. ‘He went straight to the private box apparently.’

‘Well, more the fool him,’ Pitch declared. ‘He would have copped a snout full of scents there.’

Silas chuckled, slipping his fingers between the buttons of Pitch’s nightshirt. ‘Very true.’

‘What then?’ Pitch prodded.

‘Then we found ourselves readying a carriage and taking our four-year-old daughter and an enormous wolfhound to an asylum because she would not stop crying for it.’ Adamaris stood in the doorway, far less jubilant than when Pitch had seen her last. Tugging at the black shawl around her shoulders, she let her gaze settle on Tilly, who still insisted on giving Forneus a finer hairdo.

Silas pulled back but not away and kept his arms about Pitch’s waist.

‘She has always had an affinity with nature,’ Adamaris went on. ‘She likes to sneak out in a rainstorm and sit in the puddles, climbs the highest tree in the blink of an eye and gives us heart attacks. Put an ailing plant in her room and within a day or two it would set itself right. There were always butterflies at her window. Birds used to settle on her perambulator when she was a baby.’

She inhaled and breathed out slowly. Pitch was curious as to how a dryad fae had ended up in the women’s care. Dryads were not unheard of as changelings but rare. It was a question for another time though.