Elfhome

48: KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR

Sacred Heart was a humming beehive of activity but in a happy, peaceful way. There were sekasha laughing in the gym as they taught Blue Sky some wicked looking moves. The young lovers were in the dining room, practicing music with Moser’s band. The smell of something rich and spicy wreathed the whole place with bounty.

Tommy had brought his younger cousins to help with the rebuilding on the stated theory that it was better for them to meet people outside his family instead of being hidden away like something shameful. And yeah, that was one reason. But it gave him a good excuse to be in the building.

Once he was sure his cousins were under Cattail Reeds’ artistic supervision, Tommy slipped unnoticed upstairs to the third floor and moved cautiously down the hall to the end room where he knew Jewel Tear was staying. The door stood open, seeming to welcome all comers, but he had heard that Jewel Tear had been quiet and withdrawn. The elves were giving her space to put her ordeal behind her.

He wasn’t sure of how she would react to him, but he wanted to see her again. He told himself that he was a fool — that she had made herself clear days ago — but want was eating at him.

She was at the window, looking down into the backyard. She wore a dress obviously by Cattail Reeds. It was a flirty splash of bright yellow that only came to midthigh in the front but trained down in the back nearly to her bare feet. Seeing her there in the light did all sorts of strange and painful things to his insides.

She put her hand to the glass and smiled radiantly at someone in the backyard. Tommy’s insides twisted hard with jealous anger. He ghosted forward, needing to know whom she was waving at.

Spot was in the backyard with Baby Duck. The little elf female had crowned him with dandelions as brilliant yellow as Jewel Tear’s dress against his black fur. They had the chickens in their laps and were hand-feeding them while Baby Duck talked earnestly to Spot.

Tommy breathed out as surprise and relief punched him hard in the gut.

Jewel Tear turned and saw him. Her eyes went wide. She glanced to the door standing open.

“It was open.” He really hoped she wasn’t going to scream. Things could get messy if she did. He tried not to think of all the sekasha down on the first floor.

Jewel Tear ran to the door and shut it.

He had expected her to run out into the hall and stood there confused as she locked the door quietly.

“Stupid,” she hissed as she hurried back to him and pulled him away from the window. “We have to be careful not to be seen together.”

“Gods forbid we be seen,” Tommy sneered.

“They’ll kill us both if they catch us.” She caught his head and pulled him down to a hard desperate kiss.

For several minutes Tommy couldn’t think coherently as his hands discovered that the dress rode up when she wrapped her arms about his shoulders and his fingers had access to bare skin.

“Who — who will kill us?” he finally managed.

“The sekasha. The domana are forbidden to take lovers outside of their Hands.”

At the faire grounds they had been surrounded by nearly fifty Wyverns. She had acted so distant and dismissive that even he believed there was nothing between them. He breathed out a laugh at his own naïvety.

His fingertips brushed higher, and his brain stopped working again. “You’re not wearing any. .”

“They said your cousins were coming to help. I knew you would be brave enough to seek me out.”

“Oh,” he said and then realized what that meant. “Oh! We’ll have to be quiet.”

She smothered her laughter against his mouth.