Kiromir 60

My anxiety felt higher than it had ever been in my entire life. Fear rolled off of me worse than it did in Point Pleasant at the height of my Mothman episode. It came in waves, and I had to concentrate on keeping it stifled down. I had to remind myself that I was in charge and led my people to safety. I couldn’t have done much else. Even as we set up the tents, I kept my mind calm and corralled the unbound into enjoying the songbirds as they would any other clan, to preserve normality. As expected, I didn’t see nearly the same amount of sneaking and coupling, maybe one or two seeking comfort, but nobody felt safe.

My thoughts never strayed far from Niala, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the text Gaff sent. I knew they’d be safe; they had to be. Thanus believed it, and so did Krell. They had more faith in them than I did.

I felt a form come up behind me—warm, imposing. I didn’t like it when people hovered over me, but Thanus didn’t bother me. Tenderly, his hand slid into the back pocket of my jeans with a hook of his thumb. I froze at the public display of his affection and encouragement.

“You get your tent set up yet?” I fretted. “I haven’t had a chance to set up mine.”

Thanus raised a brow, closing in on me. “I set up our tent.” His voice thrummed low in my ear, and the hand in my pocket tugged possessively. It didn’t feel raw, sexual, or thrilling like the first time. It felt pleading. He felt as scared as me, and he wanted comfort as a bondmate. Our desire for more went beyond the mana, the flesh, the fevered need of binding. It went straight to our hearts that sought to fill the emptiness.

“You two swans done crooning at one another yet?” Letti’s voice rang out. Her crude swearing could wake the dead, but her baby became so used to it that it was practically a lullaby.

Thanus lifted his free hand to give her the finger.

“If I didn’t have Mesin occupying my hands right now, it’d be a ‘back at ya’ situation, boy.”

“Dimal ok?” I had my composure; my voice and my cheeks weren’t on fire. At some point, I just became immune to Letti. As upset as I had been about this morning, I appreciated it more than she’d ever know.

“We’ve got Mesin and all our shit. The youngins all got out and are here. We didn’t lose anyone.” She saw the looks on our faces and went still.

“Who?” All color left her. Letti knew about the feds and the raid, and She knew things were bad, but not how bad.

“Niala and Gaff.” My voice cracked, succumbing to the fear.

“We’ve got intel they’re still alive, but we can’t go search for them at a rendezvous yet.” Thanus filled in for me. I started to like this connection we had. The shrill tone of her voice laced with a distinct lack of foul language. My ikris twitched as her anger flared. Letti claimed Niala like her own. She’d taught Niala how to braid her hair, how to use wildling swears, how to use human obscenities, and on so many occasions, had helped her dress and groom her wings. Letti had done well to fill the hole in her life of a mom.

Niala was the straw that broke the camel’s back when it came to Dimal and her binding. Letti wanted to be with the wanderers permanently because ‘Niala needs a fucking mother, and you lot of derelicts ain’t got a damned clue how to raise a sweet little girl.’ Incidentally, she also taught Niala how to spit.

I could barely register them speaking. I’d done my job as flock leader. My people made it out safe. I just had to keep telling myself we only lost two, two out of hundreds. It didn’t matter what two we lost; We’d find them.

Letti left before I realized it, and the insistent hand in my pocket grew warmer. I thought he had done something weird with his fires, but the tender warmth ached of its own accord. I could have sat that way forever. His insistent tugs at my pocket carried me away, though. The night sky loomed, and I had nowhere else to be but bed, anyway.

True to his word, Thanus set up a tent for us. We didn’t have mats or sleeping bags, only soft straw and a few thick blankets. It would do for now. The scent of the straw dominated the confined space, and the earthy notes felt calming.

Once in our tent, I pulled off my shoes, left them by the flap, pulled off my shirt, and rolled into the ‘bed’ he’d made for us. I paid no mind as he pulled in next to me, wrapping an arm over my chest. I liked it there as his arm wandered my upper body, and his large hand came to rest possessively over my waistband. Then, with a flick of his fingers, they split open, and my mind screamed.

“Thanus… No!” When my eyes met his, he laughed. His warm expression curled into a soft tilt of his lips.

“Do you sleep in jeans often?” He chuckled at me with an impish glimmer, not heat left in him for that.

“Almost always. If someone’s banging on my door, I don’t have time to put on pants. So I sleep in them,” I exercised caution because Niala didn’t need to see me running around in my shorts.

“This is ok for now,” he told me before kissing my shoulder, but his hand still wandered, exploring me with innocent brushing fingers above my hips. He made up for lost time—lost touches. What I thought he wanted versus what he actually did…

“I want to see it,” he said with a fistful of my waistband.

Color shot through my face immediately, and I recoiled a little. “I’m not ready!” My voice went sharp and desperate.

Thanus withdrew from me. He searched my face, confused. Now, his went bright red. “I just wanted to see my binding mark!”

I looked at him, the same Thanus I’d known, beside me, wearing far too little for my liking right now…or too much; I couldn’t decide. My eyes traveled his firm form and laid upon his sigil. My bondname, ‘Mir,’ marked him. I rubbed over mine through my pants. The innocence of it warmed me. I could put my clothes back on quickly because I needed this as much as he needed me, and I let the denim be kicked to the floor.

He traced my marking with his finger. The scabs felt strange under his touch, and it throbbed under gentle pressure. Every pang sent a note of song into my heart that made my eyes water. I ached in ways I didn’t think possible without fire. Was this what it was like to be bound? My thoughts carried me into a soft reverie as our hands explored our markings. The burns would heal soon, and the fevers would come.

Two might bind, their hearts sing, and their fires meld, but until they united as one in the flesh, the binding wasn’t whole yet. If you waited too long, the fevers set in. I wasn’t ready for flesh. I didn’t know what I wanted from it, what I expected. I just wanted Thanus’s mouth on mine and the solid assurance of him against me. I pushed my chest to him, and I took my liberties with the hungry kisses I wanted to give. I loved the feeling of his stubble, the taste of his tongue, the smell of his ault. Then, he brought his hand to the side of my face, holding me for a moment until the spice of him enticed my face to follow his wrist, inhaling the cloying scent of ozone and earth, drawing him up against me to sit up. A want and need in me that I couldn’t define grew in me until I unlaced the leather bands on my wrists.

Reading my intent, he folded his wings free and shuddered. So there was ‘Thanus,’ my friend, and the Thanus at the mercy of my hands. I moved behind him and let my wrists glide over his hackles. Where I had made noises before the last night, now he did.

Roving my hands, I knew his wings like my own since we’d grown up together. I’d spent too long staring at their beautiful form, not realizing what I wanted. When my wings came out, so did his. His grey stood out as the calm to the storm in my own. They were lighter, solid things, and every streak my oil made over them brought out the subtle milky hue to them, indicative of us, the wildlings. Nobody, save for myself, my mother, or someone being paid, had ever touched my wings, and even then, only for grooming.

There Thanus quivered, his breath heavy, body shaking as I moved my fingers between patches of shafted feathers to tease the down beneath. He reached for our blanket, struggling, and held it tight to himself, burying his face in it as I heard the short syllables of pleasured noises.

I liked hearing him like that, at my mercy. I felt I had regained my command, stepped beyond the left of my marking. It drove me to touch more freely, to oil down to his wingbases, the skin of his back. He was mine, all mine, and I felt possessive then as I pulled his wings back to tackle the insides of them. This was beyond grooming. This was bliss, and I could hear he thought so too.

I liked his noises, and wanting more, I lit my fire over my fingers and plunged them into his wings, letting the mana flow into him like melding. His back went rigid, arching. His entire body shook as his wings jerked in spasmodic twitches. I’d never felt anything like it as I looked at his face and saw the same tears that pooled in my eyes the night before. So I stopped, slowly letting the fires trickle down.

“Mir,” he panted as he turned to kiss me once more.

“En til dir sooth sul kin,” he said in a low rumble, my words, begging for my fires. I saw something I hadn’t seen before, mana on his lips, a spark of his fire, and when they touched mine, they flowed through me.