With shelves of wood stacked in a smoke house and hot coals in a covered iron skillet underneath, they retreated to the kitchen for a hearty dinner of thick, meaty stew. Hisham was especially pleased. So pleased, in fact, that he jumped at the chance to thank his hostess by helping with the cleanup. Merrid flushed at the handsome young man’s enthusiasm and the pair settled to a pleasant discussion of meat cuts and spices.

‘This Immortal’s bad news, ain’t he?’ Ard asked, pouring water into a pot on the stove. He picked up a jar of ground coffee beans and a spoon and raised his brow in question. Llew shook her head as Jonas and Braph nodded, and Ard put three heaped spoonfuls of the coffee into the pot before seating himself back at the table.

‘For Aenuks, at least.’ Jonas sat forward, leaning his elbows on the now empty table. ‘Hard to imagine he’ll stop there, though. What do you reckon you’d do if you were stronger and faster than everyone and knew you’d live another thousand years?’

‘I’d say I’d be pretty satisfied with my lot,’ said Ard. ‘My home satisfies my needs, and I have my best friend to see me through the quiet times.’ He threw a smile up at Merrid who returned a warm one over her shoulder. ‘Stronger and faster, you say? I s’pose that’d make the farming a little easier.’

‘Ah, Ard.’ Jonas rocked back in his seat, his eyes sparkling. ‘Reckon the world would be a better place if it had more men like you in it.’

Llew smiled to think of the farmer as an Immortal. She believed he truly would be satisfied to live his extended life just as he did now.

Ard stood again, lifted the lid on the pot, stirred its contents, lined up three metal cups, and poured a measure of the rich brown liquid. ‘Cream?’

Jonas opted for black, while Braph accepted cream. Ard placed their cups before them and turned back for his, grabbing up a small box on his return. ‘Anyone up for euchre?’

‘I’m afraid I’m at a disadvantage for such games.’ Braph lifted his stump from the tabletop.

Ard’s face dropped, then lit and he stood again, going to a shelf. He returned with a board covered in ivory and black squares, and another box. ‘Checkers?’

Braph smiled. ‘Now that I can do.’

Fear flared in Llew on seeing that smile. As usual, though, anger swiftly took its place. The sight of it fired memories she wished she could erase.

Jonas stood abruptly, excusing himself and Llew. He slid his jacket on and held Llew’s for her, which she slid into gratefully. Despite the darkness outside, he gathered his hat in one hand and collected his coffee with the other. He reached past her to turn the handle. What? Was she incapable of turning a simple brass knob? She screwed up her face at him and he tipped his cap to her. She felt his hand pat her arse as she took her first step outside and bit her lip on the thrill of the touch. They shouldn’t insult their hosts, she knew that, but there were other needs that had to be addressed, too, and patience was wearing thin.

Llew’s feet crunched down the cart-way, her knuckles pressed into her trouser pockets. Jonas took a couple of skipping steps to catch up beside her. With his empty hand in his pocket, his other kept warm by coffee, he knocked her shoulder with his, enticing her to share a flash of teeth. Then he pulled his empty hand free, slid it down her arm till she relinquished her own fingers to the cold night air, and he locked his in between.

‘One way or another, it’ll all be over soon.’ He swung their hands, forcing a sense of the carefree.

‘That sounds . . . ominous.’ Llew scowled into the night, the twin green flash from the back of an animal’s eyes had her fingers tightening on Jonas’s for a moment. She schooled herself to loosen her grip. She’d lived over half a decade on her own amongst the wilderness. Llew didn’t jump at silly tricks of the night. Much.

‘It’s realistic.’ Jonas stopped and turned to her. They’d barely made it past the rear of the house. The dark alley to the underground bunker lay behind him. ‘I promise you I will give my all against Aris, and we’re gonna go in there as prepared as we can be, but I ain’t gonna pretend that a few untested munitions are gonna be enough to drastically alter the outcome.’ He sucked down a sip of coffee, glancing into the dark like they were chatting over the family finances. Grimacing at the taste or temperature, he turned back to Llew. ‘One way or another, are you prepared to spend an eternity with me?’

Llew spat out a laugh. Jonas looked at where some of her spittle had landed in his coffee. She pressed the back of her free hand to her mouth, watching him over it. ‘Was that . . . Was that a proposal, or . . .?’ she asked, the words muffled by her hand. She was lost for words. She hadn’t been one to dream of the day this would happen, but if she’d ever considered it, it had never gone quite like . . . this.

Jonas shrugged. ‘Well, I figure over the next week we die together, or we scrape ourselves up from wherever we’ve landed, fight our way out of Turhmos and, well . . .’ He shrugged again, scowling into the dark liquid briefly. ‘I just reckon it’s easier goin’ into a fight to the death knowin’ there’s somethin’ to go home to at the end. Some sorta . . . soft landin’, I guess.’

Llew dropped her hand by her side. ‘And here I thought we were coming outside so you could hurl me on the ground a few more times. For training, or . . . other reasons.’

Jonas gave her a patient look. ‘You didn’t answer me.’

And she didn’t want to. Marriage meant submission, and Llew was not ready to submit and doubted she ever would be. Quite simply, marriage didn’t feature in her plans for her future. Didn’t mean she didn’t want to be with Jonas, maybe even forever, but she would not marry. She would not submit.

Llew stepped in, gripped the rim of his coffee mug between thumb and forefinger, swung it out beside her and dropped it. The liquid dulled the metallic ring. ‘More importantly, right now, I don’t want to die with Braph having been the last man who . . . touched me.’ She gripped his shirt and swung into the dark of the narrow alley so her back was against the house. His hands caught the wall either side of her.

They stood like that for a moment, eyes locked on each other’s, both breathing fast and shallow as if they’d already done the deed.

‘What if it don’t fix it?’ Jonas asked.

‘If it doesn’t fix it then I’m in exactly the same place I’m at now. You can’t make it worse. Besides,’ she pressed a hand to his cheek, ‘I’m not dying without knowing your touch again.’ She let her hand slide down, down his neck, down his shirt, slid her fingers behind his belt and tugged his hips towards her.

His eyes flared, then he shook his head at the ground. ‘I was gonna be the better man. Show you the respect you deserve . . .’

‘You do.’

His eyes shifted across her face, but his thoughts were turned inward, like he was planning his next words carefully. He gave himself a minute nod.

‘I—’ The utterance went all to pieces around a thickening throat. He turned his head to clear it, and turned back to her. ‘I— I’d like to kiss you,’ he said, his voice trembling like he’d never been with a woman before.

Llew felt the warm glow of desire and an overwhelming urge to laugh. It was either the sexiest or the silliest thing she’d ever heard.

‘You don’t need to ask.’

‘Yes. I do.’

The urge to laugh disappeared.

The first man to kiss her, other than her father, had done it while he knelt over her in her childhood bed, his lips wet and squishy, his breath putrid. Her friend, Kynas, had initiated their intimacy with ‘Let’s practice some kissing,’ which, Llew supposed, was asking her, in a way. Kynas’s way. He hadn’t expected, and probably wouldn’t have accepted, a ‘no.’ Her first intimate encounter with Jonas had been spontaneous and what she wanted, but it had not floored her like this.

‘I’d like to kiss you,’ he repeated, more confident this time.

Llew nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said, breathless. She cleared her throat and repeated, matching his confidence, ‘Okay.’

He pushed off the wall and rested his hands on her shoulders, slid his fingers down her arms and, clasping her hands down by her sides, he brought his lips to hers. The three-point contact set Llew alight like she hadn’t felt since the afternoon of Gaemil’s ball, possibly not ever. This was different.

She had half-believed, when she reached this moment, that thoughts of Braph would flicker in her memory, diminishing, if not obliterating, her enjoyment. That wasn’t to be. Any similarity between what Braph had done to her and what she was experiencing was non-existent.

Jonas kissed tenderly at first, teasing, testing, tantalizing. He tasted of coffee, which was enough like chocolate to elicit memories of a certain afternoon. She parted her lips and he enticed her with his tongue. And just when she wanted him to taste her deeply, he bent to trail kisses down her throat and chest, peeling her shirt back and leaving her wanting even as he delivered.

Stones scuffed and a throat cleared.

Jonas straightened and they turned to face Merrid, the dull light of the cloud-covered moon illuminating one half of her, and a heavy, smoking pan held awkwardly by her hip. The heat of guilt warmed Llew’s cheeks.

‘Was coming to add some coals to the drying shed.’

Llew and Jonas shuffled deeper into the alley, fingers knitted. Jonas swept the drying shed’s door open for the farmer’s wife. They smiled friendly smiles and struggled to make eye contact with the woman, even though it made little difference in the dark.

Merrid bent to slide the pan beside the other one, stepped back, and pushed the door shut.

She cleared her throat again. ‘I know all too well that when two young people want to be together, they will find a way. I don’t know how it is in Quaver, but here in Turhmos unmarried couples are discouraged from carrying on with each other. Much as we disagree with Turhmos on some things, that is mine and Ard’s way, too, and we would ask that you respect that.’ With a curt nod, she turned to head back up the cart-way.

With the woman’s back turned, the thought crossed Llew’s mind that they could just carry on, but somehow the very fact that Merrid trusted them not to made doing so impossible. She cursed and ran after her. ‘Merrid!’

The farmer’s wife turned, a placid smile on her face.

‘We don’t mean any disrespect, but we might we dead by week’s end, and . . . he’s asked me to marry him when this is all over, so, do you think, maybe, this time, you could overlook . . .?’

Merrid’s eyes looked over Llew’s shoulder, to the darkness of the alleyway.

‘Don’t you stay skulking back there. Come out where I can see you.’

Jonas stepped up beside Llew, head down, hands behind his back like he’d been caught doing something wrong, which Llew supposed they had, but she’d never been one to understand why, given how right it felt. With Jonas, anyway.

‘You love her?’ Merrid asked, to which Jonas nodded with the same confidence he’d mustered for Llew moments earlier. Merrid turned to Llew. ‘And you love him?’

Llew froze. Love. The concept still gave her pause. To love was to need, and to need was weakness. Besides, what did love have to do with fulfilling a physical need? Even as she thought it, she knew she was deceiving herself. If this was merely about a physical desire, then it would do nothing to erase what Braph had done. What was love? Was it the garden Anya had built for them? The warning she’d sent after Llew? Was it Jonas entering Turhmos to find her after Braph captured her? Was it in risking their lives to protect each other? Maybe it was all these things, or none. Maybe it was in wanting to be together, and the heartache that arose when they were parted. Llew didn’t know, but she knew what she wanted in that moment.

She nodded.

‘Well . . .’ Merrid’s fingers looped and unlooped in the front of her skirt. ‘You know where your bed is.’ Llew nodded. ‘The men sleep in the bunker.’ Jonas nodded. ‘And just so you know, we’re all heading for bed soon.’ Merrid looked pointedly between them and they both nodded, receiving her suggestion clearly – the alleyway by the bunker was not a good place to carry on. ‘Hm. Well.’ Merrid brushed imaginary flour prints off her skirt. ‘There is . . . There is a nice stack of straw round back of the chicken shed,’ she rattled out quickly, then turned on her heels and walked briskly back up the cart-way.

Part of Llew wanted to follow the woman back to the kitchen, apologize, but a much bigger, more forceful part of her needed to do this, and if Jonas was willing . . .

Llew turned one hundred and eighty degrees, the toes of her boots making a tight circle in the loose dirt beneath them. Jonas turned a moment after and she held her hand out between them, brushing his to let him know hers was there. He gripped it.

‘Shall we?’ She gave him a sly look.

His eyes sparkled as she imagined her own must and they walked with a distinct skip in their steps past the stables and around the back of the chicken coup, where, sure enough, a stack of straw piled high against the wall.

Llew turned to face him, eager to continue from where they had been interrupted.

‘I’d like to . . .’ She licked her suddenly dry lips. ‘. . . undress you.’

‘Okay.’

Nervousness reigned as Llew stepped closer to him. Excitement, too, but tempered excitement. Somehow it felt like so much rested on this moment. Like it was the difference between her feeling like a normal human being or pleading with Jonas to kill her, kill her now, she was broken, never to be fixed.

A smile lifted the corners of Jonas’s lips as he watched her, waiting for her to make her move.

She lifted his hat and tossed it aside so it wouldn’t get rumpled, then she worked down the buttons of his coat. His deep, relaxed breathing eased her nerves.

With the jacket slid free, she started on his shirt.

Shirt off left him with his warm undershirt. She wanted to take it off, see and feel the skin beneath, but that would leave him exposed to the night’s winter chill. She peered up at him, asking permission, and he nodded. She loosened the few buttons, and he swung his arms up so she could pull the undershirt up and free, the move bringing them nose to nose, breath to breath, making a kiss a tempting next move, but she didn’t. Not yet.

She gazed down, lingering on the thick black lines that made up the gryphon rearing up on his chest. It was such a part of him and spoke of his strength and heroism, she sensed herself slip into another stage of calm.

Watching for his reaction, she reached for his belt. Whether he found all this permission-seeking amusing or not, he didn’t let it show. He nodded.

She slipped the buckle, pulled the leather through the trouser loops, then she stepped back, looped the belt in her hands, crouched, and gently laid it silently on the ground.

One challenge overcome, she stood and stepped close to him again. He shifted before her, using one foot and then the other to slide his boots loose and kick them free.

While her fingers loosened the buttons of his trousers, she leaned closer, bringing their lips to a hair’s breadth apart.

Buttons loose, she placed her hands on his hips and pushed down, sliding the heavy material far enough for him to shimmy them lower and step free.

Naked, he stood at ease, watching her.

She went to reach out to touch his skin, hesitated, cocked her head. ‘Do you mind?’

‘No.’ Again, no humor.

She placed her hand on the head of the gryphon near his armpit, followed the sweeping line as if caressing the great beast. Jonas’s jaw rippled, and he swallowed as her hand passed around his rib cage, but he didn’t flinch. She worked her way behind him, tracing the great wings that dominated his back, down, down to the wingtip below his left buttock. Unlike the first time they had been together, his skin was mostly smooth, like he’d never seen a day of battle in his life, an impression easily supported by his light frame. Certainly, muscle rippled under every inch of skin, but the fact remained he was little more bulky than Llew. Those muscles worked overtime now, fighting to keep him warm in the night air.

Llew continued around until she came to face him, brought her hands up to undo her own jacket. Still Jonas stood before her, content to watch. Jacket, shirt, undershirt slipped to the ground. She kicked off her boots, stepped free of her trousers, and stood naked before him.

‘It’s cold,’ she said. ‘I’d like to share your heat. Can I . . .?’ She smiled. It was odd, this talking about things, asking permission. Maybe it would come easier with practice. ‘Can I cuddle with you?’

‘Sure.’ He smiled, spread his arms, and stepped forward to meet her halfway. ‘I’d like that.’

She stepped into him, wrapping her arms around his waist, and his came around her, pulling her close. While their exposed skin froze, chests, bellies and arms warmed.

Jonas risked the cold to pull his head back. ‘I’d like to show you something.’

Llew let him turn her and press her back into the wall of the chicken shed.

He kissed her once, twice, then left her wanting as he trailed little pecks down her chin, throat, between her breasts.

She felt exposed, and not only to the cold. Leaning on the chicken shed wall, in the middle of Merrid and Ard’s farm, in the heart of Turhmos, she was caught in a limbo between desperately wanting to experience Jonas’s touch and a need to cover up and hide. For the moment, the want was winning.

*** For those not so interested in further details, you may like to skip and just accept that Llew had a very good time... (o:***

Jonas moved down, down and a mix of cool air and warm breath swarmed between her thighs. He planted a kiss where no one had kissed her before and Llew squawked and clamped her hands over her mouth. But she didn’t move. She waited. Warm breath blew over icy cold wetness. She didn’t know if she liked it, but she was willing to give herself the chance to find out. He didn’t disappoint, his tongue teasing, his hands exploring, but never quite delving to do more than draw out her need for more, and she wanted more. Legs desperate to part rather than hold her weight nearly buckled. She let herself slide down the wall, settling in the scratchy straw. Slowly, ever so slowly, trying to shift positions without interrupting proceedings. A sharp burr broke skin on her shoulder and she stifled a yelp. He grunted as her skin closed again, then crawled over her and took her mouth with his. He tasted funny now, and Llew didn’t know if she liked it, but she didn’t not like it all that much, not enough to turn him away, anyway. He kissed her again, and again, his hand continuing the work begun, fingers dimpling her thigh, trailing the crease where hip and leg met, making her hunger for progress. She pressed her hips up, naked in the freezing night, somehow not bothered by that, her only concern that she was about to go beyond ready and into frustration.

Jonas was still working his kisses back down her belly, too slow, too slow. She reached down, slid her fingers into his armpits, tugged lightly, trusting him to know what she wanted. A breathy laugh tickled her tummy, then cut off sharply. Had he heard someone approaching? Llew froze, listening into the dark, but could hear nothing.

She was about to sit up to see what the problem was when warm breath tickled her belly, nearly sending her into fits of laughter, but his mouth hovered over where their babies had been. It was strange, in this moment, to be reminded of something so deeply sad, but it was a sadness they shared and instead of making her burst into tears, despite the lump in her throat, it filled her heart. In the fates of their children, they would be forever connected. Shared loss. Shared love.

Coming out of whatever reverie he’d been in, he scooted up, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. She wrapped her legs about him, pulling his hips into hers and they moved together, sweaty in the freezing air, clinging tight, and still Llew wished they could get closer. Just like every other time, and yet not like every other time, not at all. The mechanics were the same, but it was a part of something so much more.