Kiss me, he whispered in her ear, smoothing her long, ebony hair away to touch his lips to the shell of flesh.
Eden’s lips seared across his, then she answered his prayers, kissing him in every variation until he was breathless. She kissed him and held him for a long time and they stood, enveloped in each other’s fiery and gentle heat. Without thought, Acier whispered his last command–his last request–aching inside and out, against her petal soft lips.
He whispered once more.
Love me.
This innocence was his idea of intimacy? Such simple requests, so sweet and simple, Eden’s heart ached. She wasn’t even sure that she was capable of loving. Of all God’s creatures, only humans were given the ability to somehow understand what love was in their own way.
“Walk me home, Acier,” she told him quietly, kissing the shell of his ear as he had her own. “I live in a small cottage on the outskirts.”
He didn’t want to move, didn’t seem capable of letting go of her, for a long moment. Heaving a sigh, his warm breath rustling her hair, Acier disentangled himself from her, then bent and retrieved her hat and coat. Dusting snow from the things, he redressed her without a word, then led her from the Circle and into the quiet darkness.
The small cottage was rather shabby, its windows darkened and lined with snow. Three snow-covered stairs led to the front door without preamble. The cottage was surrounded by the stone ruins and rubble of the old sanctuary, buried partially in the snow.
Acier briefly wondered why she lived so far from town. A few feet behind her little cottage yawned the dark abyss of a jagged cliff face. It looked out into nothingness–dark, endless, foggy nothingness.
Eden walked slowly up the stairs, then turned back, her raven’s hair flying over her shoulder.
He hadn’t followed her.
Acier stood at the bottom of the stairs, his hands tucked tightly in his pant’s pockets. “I won’t go any further than your door.”
A faint smile curved Eden’s lips. She tugged her coat over her shoulder. “How chivalrous. Might you give me one more kiss?”
Eden leaned down the stairs, hanging onto the doorpost. The curtain of her ebony hair fell forward, warmth flowing from it. Her eyes closed. Drawn by a magnetism that was hers alone, Acier took the step that closed the distance between them, meeting her halfway. He savored her kiss, trapped somehow in a dark world created only when their lips touched and he felt both their hearts beating at once. Or maybe it was only the night and cold around them that made him feel that way. Maybe it was the wintry night that made him think he smelled roses and rain and sunlight whenever she was near. Her fingers brushed along his jaw line.
Against her lips, he rasped, “I got it when I was little, cut by my father’s saber.”
Eden kissed the light ridges of the scar, inch by inch.
She shifted. Something soft, fluffy, and delicate pressed into his hand.
“Keep this.” Her voice was barely above a murmur against his lips.
“What is it?” he murmured back, unable to open his eyes for a second.
Acier finally looked down at his hand. Lying in his upturned palm lay a long, ash gray-white plume–a feather nearly as long as his forearm. It was warm and smelled of Eden.
“Keep it always. Good night, sweet prince,” she said, then turned from him and disappeared inside her dark little cottage.
Acier touched a hand to his lips and stood there a long time, staring at her door.