Page 49

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

“Supper smells good.” Haera kicked the mud from her boots and left them at the cottage’s back door, which they’d finally replaced.

“What are you cooking?”

Madeleine was just removing a tray from the oven.

“Lamb chops.”

“From the farm?” Haera was only joking.

Madeleine could be sentimental about the livestock.

She said it was hard to eat something whose face she’d seen.

“Yep.” Madeleine met Haera’s surprise with a smile.

“Just got our shipment from the butcher. I bought rosemary at the provisions store. They should come out nicely.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Madeleine Laurent?” Haera asked, rehearsing a phrase she’d heard on television.

It seemed appropriate.

“You know, I’ve been wondering that. Want to pour some wine? There’s a bottle in the fridge.”

They’d never had wine with dinner before.

Haera was still dodgy on the social cues of alcohol.

It could mark a celebration, as if Madeleine’s decision would both make them happy.

But everyone had gathered in the pub after Jonathan’s funeral too, so perhaps they’d both be sad.

Her stomach had been in knots all day.

Madeleine had been running errands and working in the office while Haera tended to the livestock.

Haera knew why: Madeleine needed space between them so she could think.

What if she’d thought herself right off Jorsay forever?

Then—then Haera would survive.

Somehow. Jonathan would want her to, and her mother wouldn’t, and she’d be just as happy to honor one and spite the other.

It’d be heart-wrenchingly difficult, that was all.

They sat down to dinner.

As usual, Madeleine briefly prayed.

When she finished, Haera said, “Do you pray to the Great Mare now?” When Madeleine looked startled, she clarified, “You’ve seen her, but you’ve never seen your God. I assume you pray to the one you know is real.”

Madeleine huffed out a soft laugh and snapped her napkin into her lap.

“That’d be logical, wouldn’t it? But no. I still ask God to bless my food. I don’t know if I could eat otherwise. It’s too ingrained.”

Haera frowned.

“That makes it sound like a bad habit, not a good one.”

“I wouldn’t say so. It makes me pay attention to my food and reminds me to be grateful that I have some. Even if I’m questioning a lot of things, I don’t believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”

Haera had never heard that phrase.

The resulting mental image was so arresting she couldn’t reply.

“Anyway, never mind that.” Madeleine began to slice her meat.

“I went to the Sunrise Café today, to thank Arjun and Jeremy for sending us that food.”

“I was going to send a note,” Haera protested.

“It just takes me a while to write them. I told you I wanted to do that myself.”

“I know,” Madeleine said quickly.

“You still can. I went because—well, I wanted to talk to them. The food was just an excuse.”

“Why would you need an excuse to talk to them?” Haera asked in bewilderment.

“They run a business, and they talk to people all the time.”

“I meant an excuse for myself, I guess. Not for them.” Madeleine sighed.

“I haven’t been around gay people much. Although Jonathan…” Her voice trailed off.

This conversation was getting harder and harder to follow.

“What about Jonathan?”

Madeleine shook her head.

“Never mind.” Then she popped a piece of lamb into her mouth.

Maybe Madeleine didn’t want to talk about it, but it wasn’t hard to pursue her train of thought.

On the night he’d died, Jonathan had shed tears when Haera had asked him if he’d ever consummated his bond with Asgall.

It hadn’t occurred to her that he might prefer males in general.

He’d certainly never told her.

Her throat grew thick.

Thanks to Madeleine, she knew how such preferences could make humans feel lonely and ashamed.

If Jonathan had felt like that for so long, and lived with it in silence, never sharing it with anyone—even her?—

“I’m glad you talked to those men,” she blurted.

“What did they say? Did it help?” Then she shoved a piece of lamb into her own mouth and chewed.

She’d make that lump in her throat go away.

And it did taste nice.

Cooked meat wasn’t half bad when prepared correctly.

“Uh, it might have. They gave me an idea. I was hoping you’d hear me out.” Madeleine sounded a little unsteady on the last few words, and she reached for her wine with a deep breath, as if bolstering herself for whatever she was about to say.

She took a long drink and looked Haera in the eye.

“So. I can’t stay on Jorsay, and you’re not ready to leave. That’s a problem, right?”

I can’t stay.

The words crawled down Haera’s spine, and she couldn’t hold back a shudder.

Hopefully Madeleine didn’t notice.

“You’ve decided to go, then?” she asked in a low voice.

Madeleine set the wineglass down and began turning it in circles, her fingertips on the flared base.

It scraped against the table’s wooden surface.

She kept her eyes on the pale-yellow liquid within as she said, “I have no choice. I have to go back—I can’t just abandon my responsibilities. Including my job.”

The lump in Haera’s throat expanded to fill her lungs and stomach.

She shouldn’t have taken that bite of lamb.

She had to know something.

“Tell me, is that an excuse to go? Is it that you don’t want to stay with me, but you’re saying it’s about your job? I’d rather have the truth.”

Madeleine’s head snapped up.

She said firmly, “It’s the truth.”

That was good, but it didn’t help much.

“So does that mean you care about your job more than you care about me?” That sounded needy, pathetic, but there didn’t seem to be any other way to interpret Madeleine’s reasoning.

“ No! ” Madeleine sounded so forceful that Haera nearly jumped.

“I care about you more than I knew I could care about anyone since I lost my family. I’ve learned I don’t have all the answers, and maybe I never will. But I meant what I said last night. I love you.”

They stared at each other.

Madeleine’s expression was open and earnest, as if she was willing Haera to feel her sincerity across the plates of lamb and glasses of wine.

“I meant it too,” Haera managed.

“But if you’re leaving, then how?—”

“We should do long distance,” Madeleine said.

Haera waited for a few more words to end that sentence.

They did not. She said uncertainly, “You’re going a long distance. What do you mean?”

“I mean a long-distance relationship.” Madeleine leaned forward until her sweater almost touched the roasted potatoes on her plate.

Her eyes were alight now, her earlier reticence gone.

“I mean you and I stay together even though we can’t be together physically all the time. I feel silly for not thinking of it before, like it’s got to be all-or-nothing.”

Haera’s head spun.

“How could we be together without…being together?”

“We’d call each other. Every day if we can.” Madeleine tapped her fingertips against the table’s edge in an anxious, arrhythmic beat.

“I’d want to talk to you every day. Hear your voice.”

Talking—yes—but what about embracing?

What about kissing, holding hands, and having sex?

They couldn’t do that if Madeleine lived in America.

Madeleine seemed to read her mind.

“We’d see each other as often as we could. I’m good at saving money and finding deals. I’d come here every summer and on longer holidays, and you could visit me too.”

Visit?

Haera had never considered that she could leave the farm for a little while and then just…

come back. As an Each-uisge , she’d been bound to the sea by nature and to Orkney by habit.

Madeleine’s eyes sparkled like morning dew on pastures.

“Lancaster isn’t exciting, but I don’t live too far from Philadelphia. We could even go to New York, or take a trip somewhere else—somewhere with mountains, maybe. You’ve never seen mountains, right? There’s so much I want to show you. And you’ll love Becca.”

Love wouldn’t come so easily to Haera as it did to Madeleine, even as a human.

She was prepared to like Becca, however.

This solution might not be the worst?

At least it was better than Madeleine leaving for good.

She gnawed her bottom lip.

“And—we’d do this for the rest of our lives?”

The words’ significance didn’t hit her until they were out of her mouth.

She’d spoken often of wanting to be with Madeleine.

She’d never said, specifically, that she wanted it to be for a lifetime.

Madeleine might think it was “too soon” for that as well.

Haera would never be human enough not to want her forever.

“No, I wasn’t thinking that,” Madeleine said.

The cold lump returned to Haera’s throat tenfold.

She clenched her hands in her lap so they couldn’t do something wrong, like reach over the table and haul Madeleine into her arms, plates and glasses be damned.

Her old instincts whispered, Make her stay.

Make her your own.

That wouldn’t do anymore.

Madeleine must choose, and it seemed she had.

Haera bowed her head.

“No, no.” Madeleine sounded alarmed.

“I mean eventually we’d be together all the time!”

Haera raised her head again, as if a puppeteer were moving her with strings made of hope.

Her eyes went wide. “We would?”

“Good grief, yes.” Madeleine sounded incredulous, as if Haera was supposed to have known this already.

“I don’t want to fly back and forth, and see you only every few months, for the rest of my life.”

There the words were.

Madeleine had released them into the wild, and there was no taking them back.

The intent look on her face suggested she knew it too.

“So how long would we be distant?” Haera asked hoarsely.

“You mentioned multiple summers. Two years? Three? Or—or ten, or?—?”

Madeleine shuddered.

“Lord, not ten. I couldn’t stand to live away from you for so long. I’m not getting any younger, and…” She trailed off and winced.

“And neither am I,” Haera finished.

“There’s less time.”

“You probably still have more than I do. I spent so much of my life hiding from myself. Then you came along, on the beach that night, and you changed everything. You changed me .”

Madeleine reached across the table, palm up.

Haera seized her hand without thinking twice.

It was warm, firm, and slightly damp.

Madeleine must have been nervous about how this would go.

“I think I made you more yourself,” she said.

After all, Madeleine was no more or less courageous, resolute, and stubborn than she’d been six years ago.

She was just trying to be happier in her own skin.

So was Haera. “You did the same for me.”

A look of wonder crossed Madeleine’s face.

“If that’s true—oh, sweetheart, what a gift. What an amazing thing.”

Haera gasped.

She and Madeleine had never used endearments before.

Was that allowed now?

If so, Haera needed to choose a suitable one for Madeleine.

People in romantic relationships did that.

Humans did that. She’d lost so much, but right now the cottage was crowded with things she’d also gained, from words to wisdom.

“No more than two years,” she said.

Though even that seemed like an eternity.

“That’s long enough for us to figure out everything about ourselves, isn’t it?”

A soft laugh escaped Madeleine.

“It looks like some things about you will never change. That’s weirdly comforting.”

“ Well? ”

“Yes.” Madeleine squeezed her hand.

“Two years. And then we’ll close the distance.”

“You’ll come home to me.” A disconcerting thought occurred to her.

“Or would I move to America?”

She couldn’t imagine doing that, at least not now.

But if Madeleine wanted it—if it was the only way they could be together all the time—then she’d manage.

Anything was possible as long as they were together.

“I want us to want the same thing,” Madeleine said gently.

“We don’t have to figure that out tonight.”

Haera thought about it and nodded.

“Because we’ll try both places and then decide. That’s a good plan.”

“I can’t wait.” Madeleine’s voice cracked.

Her eyes looked wet again, and a flush covered her cheekbones.

“To show you everything—go places with you, see things through your eyes—everything’s going to look new.”

Haera knew how she felt.

She’d grown used to living on the farm, but when she’d taken Madeleine on the tour, it was as if she was seeing it again for the first time.

She hadn’t known time could collapse and expand that way, just because of who you were with.

It was Madeleine’s turn.

Whenever Haera visited her, she’d get to do the same thing.

And Haera would be able to do things she’d never thought she’d be able to do.

Leave the North Sea behind, get on a plane, and?—

And—

And fly .

She’d watched aeroplanes so many times, including the little hopper that flew between the islands.

It didn’t come to Jorsay, and on the rare occasions she’d had to leave, she’d taken the ferry.

That had seemed right anyway, since the closer she was to water, the stronger her human form was.

The stronger it had been .

No longer.

Her human body knew other joys now.

Judging by the flush filling her face, Madeleine was thinking about them too.

“So what do you think?” Madeleine’s voice cracked again.

“Will we do it? If—if you’re all in, so am I, I’m—I’m all in, Haera, I…”

Haera’s hands shook.

Not with fear. She knew this feeling all too well.

If she let her hands move, they would grab.

She was barely breathing.

“I love you,” Madeleine whispered.

“You asked. I said yes. It’s true.”

Haera’s heart began to race.

She didn’t bother trying to slow it down; she couldn’t.

She could only race alongside it.

“Good,” she said.

Then she shot up from her chair so fast it fell over.

She held Madeleine’s hand as she rounded the table and dragged her to her feet too, while Madeleine looked at her with wide, wild eyes.

“You love me,” Haera said.

For the second time, it wasn’t a question.

Madeleine’s lips parted, but no words came out.

She only nodded, flushed and panting.

“You want me.” A familiar feeling surged through Haera, hot and relentless and powerful .

Enough of her old nature remained for her to understand whale song.

Enough remained for her to feel this way too.

Human or not, love or not, she had to claim what was hers.

Madeleine nodded again and grabbed the front of Haera’s shirt.

Familiar shivers ran through her body.

She’d trembled for Haera ever since she’d lain half drowned on the beach, and she’d wanted it then too.

“You…” Haera bent her head.

“Need me.”

“Ye—” Madeleine began, and then gave the word’s last letter to the kiss.

This hadn’t changed either.

When Haera plundered her mouth, looking for treasure, she found it.

Madeleine’s soft lips opened for her, and she pressed closer, begging for more without words.

Her hips already moved restlessly against Haera’s own.

Haera grabbed her arse.

It fit perfectly into her hands.

So did all of Madeleine.

Judging by how she groaned, Madeleine agreed.

Where to? The bedroom, of course, where they’d lay claim to each other again.

Haera gasped, “Let’s go.”

“Just a second.” Madeleine whimpered the words against Haera’s mouth.

“Oh please, I just need a second. Give me—give me your—” She grabbed the side of Haera’s thigh.

“This. Like before, when we were—outside, do you remember, like then?—”

She meant the alley, when Haera had nearly had her beneath a window before someone had interfered.

Haera had been ready to murder whoever had pulled Madeleine from her arms.

Nobody was here to stop them now.

She snarled, “I remember.”

Madeleine spread her jean-clad legs, and as she’d done on that night, Haera wedged her thigh between them.

Madeleine went up on her toes and rubbed her hips back and forth, making tiny noises in the back of her throat.

“Just for a second?” Haera whispered.

“You just need this for a little while?”

“Please—” Madeleine moved faster.

She pressed down harder.

Haera met her by pushing her leg forward, and Madeleine groaned.

“Just some pressure, just a little bit, please…and then…”

Haera seized Madeleine’s hair, tilted her head back, and hissed in her ear, “And then you’ll be ready for my fuck?”

Madeleine grabbed Haera’s shoulders.

“Oh!”

“You’ll be ready for me”—Haera grabbed Madeleine’s arse again with her free hand and pushed Madeleine forward—“to give it to you hard?”

“Ah!” Madeleine pressed her face against the side of Haera’s throat and clutched her harder.

“S-so crude?—!”

“Ready for me to hold you down on our bed.” Haera was getting tunnel vision.

Soon, Madeleine would be the only thing she could see.

Thank the Great Mare, some things never changed—she could love, but she could hunger too.

“To take you there, fill you up?”

She could see it now.

Madeleine, naked and sprawled beneath her, hair tumbled over the pillow, her skin flushed and damp.

Her mouth open as she begged for what she’d get.

Now, it had to be now.

Haera turned to the bedroom.

“I can’t wait,” Madeleine gasped.

Her hands dove between their bodies.

It took a moment for Haera to realize Madeleine was unzipping her own jeans.

Her vision whited out.

As Madeleine fumbled with the zip, Haera shoved her sweater and shirt up, revealing her bra; she pushed the bra up too, until Madeleine’s breasts bounced free.

Madeleine cried out as Haera pushed her to the nearest wall.

“Please, I?—”

Haera shoved her jeans and panties down her thighs…

and stopped there. “Hold up your shirt. Hurry!”

Madeleine obeyed her, gasping.

Haera stepped back just enough to look her up and down.

The sight made her moan.

Madeleine held her shirt and bra up over her breasts, which were full and flushed.

Her jeans and panties stopped mid-thigh, revealing her thatch of dark hair as she exposed herself to Haera in the middle of the kitchen.

“You shouldn’t look at me like that,” Madeleine gasped, which were fine words for a woman who lifted her shirt even higher.

“It’s shameless.”

“So are you,” Haera said hoarsely.

“Offering me the only parts I need.”

“Oh!” Madeleine turned her head away, even as her legs parted as far as they could before her jeans stopped her.

“I-I’m not like that!” Her hips rolled forward, giving the lie.

“Please, I can’t wait, do something to me!”

“Ah, never fear,” Haera breathed.

Her mouth was wet. So was something else.

“I will.” She stepped forward, crouched, and feasted.

As Haera sucked her breasts, Madeleine arched up into her mouth and cried out again.

“Oh God, oh God! It’s so much!”

“Too much?” Haera nipped the tip of one tight nipple.

“I should stop?”

“No. No. More, please—” Madeleine shuddered.

“H-harder?—”

Haera gave it to her harder.

She sucked one breast, and then the other, going back and forth while Madeleine writhed and begged for more, hips circling frantically, as if hunting again for pressure between her thighs.

“Enough,” she gasped.

She grabbed the back of Haera’s head, sliding her shaking fingertips into Haera’s hair.

“I need—below?—”

Haera licked her nipple and growled, “Not in bed.”

“No. C-can’t wait. Can’t?—”

“Turn around.” Haera seized her hips.

“And brace yourself.”

“You’re going to…from behind ?” Madeleine sounded shocked.

“From behind.” This had been in her reading too.

They hadn’t tried it.

She always looked in Madeleine’s eyes when they made love, and tonight should have been the perfect time for that—a tender seal on their pact?—

But Haera would never be a tender creature, and she knew Madeleine didn’t want her to be.

That would explain why she was already turning around and bending forward so she could place her palms against the wall.

She spread her legs as wide as she could again, just wide enough to expose the waiting space between them.

Her lips were swollen, her flesh was pink as a rose in bloom.

And she was wet. Haera could see it.

She could practically smell it.

And she could definitely feel it, as she plunged two fingers straight into Madeleine’s dripping slit.

“ Ah!” Madeleine shrieked at the wall.

She went up on her toes and then thrust backward, hunting for more of Haera’s fingers.

She got it. Haera braced her own feet on the ground and moaned as she began to thrust. The angle was different.

She couldn’t go in as deeply, but when she curled her fingers she stroked Madeleine in a new way, and it had Madeleine scrabbling at the wall with her short nails.

“Filthy!” Madeleine gasped.

She thrust her hips desperately back on Haera’s hand.

“You’re just—oh!—taking me like?—”

“Like I should have taken you at the start.” Haera’s own hips were moving, as if they could find some satisfaction too, but nothing was there.

No pressure to ease her own ache.

There was only Madeleine’s wet, tight heat around her fingers.

“On that beach, in those nun’s clothes.”

She never would have, obviously.

Madeleine had been half conscious with a concussion, and Haera had barely understood the urge to kiss her, much less do more.

But she’d learned much about the power of fantasy, reimagining a thing until it happened in a different way that turned you on now even if it wouldn’t have then .

Now, Haera could imagine claiming Sister Madeleine that night, fucking this sweet place between her legs until she swore she belonged to Haera alone.

“Oh, yes,” Madeleine sobbed, so she must understand it too.

“I’d have been yours.”

“You’re mine now. ” Haera leaned over Madeleine’s bent body, pressed her face into the back of Madeleine’s neck, and drove her fingers in deeper, until Madeleine could do nothing but squirm on them and wail.

She was clenching already, on the edge from Haera’s rough words and rougher touch.

Give it to her, Haera thought, and throbbed so hard she moaned aloud.

“You’re mine no matter where you go. Mine no matter how far apart we are.”

“Yours, yours, yours,” Madeleine chanted.

Her thighs were shaking.

She was on the edge—she just needed a bit more, and then this tight little hole would convulse around Haera’s fingers?—

Haera snaked her free hand around Madeleine’s body until she found her breasts.

She took one nipple between her fingers, and rolled it, and pinched, at the same time she sunk her teeth into Madeleine’s neck.

Madeleine’s body went rigid.

Then she shouted, “Oh my God !” as she throbbed around Haera’s fingers, coming so hard that if Haera curled her fingers and went faster, right here, right now…

Warm liquid squirted around her hand, splashing her wrist while Madeleine screamed like a banshee and curled her own fingers hard enough to scratch the paint.

Then Madeleine collapsed forward, nearly knocking her head into the wall before Haera caught her about the waist. She wheezed, sounding as if she were trying to talk but couldn’t.

Haera ought to ask if she was all right, but she couldn’t manage to speak either.

She could only place her sweating forehead between Madeleine’s shoulder blades as she clung to her and slid her fingers out.

They were so coated that strings of fluid trailed between them.

Madeleine whimpered and managed to turn her head.

Her hands were still pressed to the wall, although the depths knew how much work they could do to keep her upright.

“Oh…oh, Haera, my Lord…did I, again?”

For answer, Haera showed Madeleine her coated fingers.

Then she pressed them against Madeleine’s mouth.

“You’ve tasted me.” Haera’s voice sounded as if it had been dredged up from the bottom of the ocean.

She pulsed between her legs as desperately as if she’d been waiting to come for hours, not minutes.

She needed Madeleine’s touch, but first…

“Now taste yourself.”

Madeleine must still have been wrecked from her climax, because she opened her mouth without protest. Haera pushed her fingers in, past another pair of soft lips, into another sort of wet heat, and sobbed when Madeleine eagerly licked her own juices.

Haera yanked her fingers away.

Her hands shook and she could barely breathe as she unzipped her own pants.

Even the pressure of the zipper nearly finished her off.

No, she couldn’t—she had to wait?—

“My turn?” Madeleine asked breathily.

She still looked dazed as she turned around, as exposed as ever, but relaxed and flushed with satisfaction.

“My turn to give it to you?”

“Yes,” Haera choked.

She was nothing but one long, hungry throb between her legs, and she couldn’t live like this a moment longer.

“Hurry, give me your…your…”

Madeleine’s full mouth gleamed as she licked her lips.

“Pants down. Not off. Same as me.”

Then, as Haera watched, she stripped off all her clothes and went to her knees.

Haera stared at her breasts again, fully exposed now, along with her shoulders and arms and all the rest. Madeleine smiled beatifically, looking far too serene for a naked woman who’d just gushed all over the place.

“Remember how I told you about my dream?” she said.

“How you knelt in front of me?”

How could anyone forget a thing like that?

Madeleine had dreamed of Haera kneeling before her, offering her mouth just like…

like…

“Now I’m going to show you what you did,” Madeleine said.

She leaned in, and it was her turn to grab Haera’s bare arse as she buried her nose in Haera’s curls.

She didn’t start slowly.

She didn’t tease, as she often liked to do, with a gentle beginning.

Instead she found Haera’s clitoris and rubbed the flat of her tongue against it, fast and hard and firm as any finger?—

Haera grabbed her hair and dug her nails in.

She went up on her toes, threw her head back, yelled, and came.

Oh, thank the depths.

Thank the Great Mare.

Thank God. Thank everything that might have been involved in shaping this moment of all moments.

Haera wailed her release like a prayer and surrendered herself to what was too much, and not enough, to bear.

Eventually, the balance tipped toward “too much,” and Haera had to tug Madeleine away.

She moaned at the loss, and Madeleine’s eyes glowed up at her with pure delight.

She licked her lips.

“I wasn’t the only one ready for it, was I?”

“Shut it,” Haera groaned.

With little effort, she hauled Madeleine to her feet and into her arms. Madeleine laughed softly and held Haera in a tight embrace.

It was enough—just—to tether Haera to earth.

Her hair was damp with sweat and smelled wonderful.

Haera inhaled it deeply and savored the press of Madeleine’s naked body.

She must gather these impressions, as many as she could, before Madeleine left.

She wanted to ask right away, How long until you come back?

But Madeleine wouldn’t know yet, and it’d wreck the mood.

Best not to.

Madeleine intuited it, though, judging by how she ran her hands soothingly up and down Haera’s back.

She kissed the underside of Haera’s jaw.

“I’ll always return to you,” she whispered.

It turned out Haera didn’t need her former strength to carry Madeleine to bed.

She yanked her pants back on and swept Madeleine up into her arms.

This seemed to put Madeleine into some kind of overjoyed swoon, but when Haera lowered her to the bed—admittedly, with an effortful grunt—she came back to herself.

“Oh gosh. We never finished dinner.”

“We will. I’ll have what you cooked for me.” Haera lay atop her, putting her weight on her elbows.

“I won’t waste a bite of what you give me.”

Madeleine’s eyes glazed over again, which was wonderful.

In that moment, her nose was irresistible, and Haera playfully bumped the tip of her own against it.

Madeleine laughed. “Glad to hear it, but I’ll be giving you a lot. Sure you’re up for all of it?”

She sounded as if she were joking.

She wasn’t. A little wobble at the bottom of her voice told the tale.

Haera said, “Do you think I’m up for less ? What’s worth wanting, if not everything?” When Madeleine’s forehead creased—meaning she was about to make a principled objection—Haera touched her mouth.

“The secret lies in wanting the right things. You’ll see.”

Madeleine’s eyes grew wide and wondering.

She cupped the back of Haera’s sweaty neck and rubbed her thumb there.

Haera closed her eyes in pleasure.

Made to be touched by you .

“The Catechism teaches that the existence of angels is a truth of faith,” Madeleine said quietly.

That got Haera’s eyes open again.

She frowned. “I’m not an angel. I never was. And now I’m human.”

Madeleine pulled, gently, until Haera’s forehead pressed against her own.

Haera’s eyes fell shut at the sudden, solid reassurance of her.

Madeleine slid her other arm around Haera’s waist and held her close once more.

“Every angel is, I think,” she said.