“Ten whole seconds, remember. No cheating.” She kissed Alphonse’s lips again, sweetly, teasingly.
The healer sighed laboriously, as though this were some great task, her gaze following Delyth’s mouth against her palms with avid fascination. Alphonse closed her eyes, covering them for good measure.“One...Two… Three…”
Delyth took two careful steps back, then turned around, fighting with the laces of her jerkin.“Not so fast!”
Alphonse chuckled. “Fouuuuuurrrrr…”
Delyth was laughing even as she got it off, leaving it carelessly on the floor in front of Alphonse. She left her boots a few paces farther on, her trousers in the hallway to their room. Her underthings in the doorway.
What number was Alphonse on now? Should she hide? Or just sit on the bed and wait to be found? Hastily, she stood behind the door and hid behind a wing.
When Alphonse did not immediately come, Delyth lowered her wing and peeked through the crack between the door and its frame.
What was she up to? The ten seconds had surely passed. Whatever it was, she was eager to find out. She tucked her wing back over herself and smiled into the darkness.
“Ah ha!” Alphonse pulled the door away with a triumphant chortle. Delyth shivered happily at the brush of fingers down her wing and lifted it to see Alphonse standing in nothing but her loincloth and Delyth’s jerkin.
The warrior swallowed, surprised by the sudden transformation. On Delyth, the jerkin was a utilitarian part of her wardrobe. On Alphonse, it was something else entirely. She’d never seen the healer in anything so… sultry. It highlighted the shape of Alphonse’s curves. Her breasts pooled over the leather neckline, and her hair tumbled down about her shoulders.
The healer pivoted in a slow circle as if she knew exactly the sort of effect she was having on her lover. When she’d turned to face Delyth again, the warrior stepped forward to catch her with a hand at her hip, just below the edge of the jerkin.
“Vixen,” she laughed. “Gorgeous, tricky creature.”Delyth kissed her neck again, then ran the pad of her forefinger along the neckline of the jerkin, dipping slightly at the line between Alphonse’s breasts. “So that’s why you had me waiting…” Gods, her belly was tightening, her breath coming quicker.
❀
Alphonse quivered in delight as Delyth moved closer, the warrior’s fingers firm against her skin. Goosebumps followed in the wake of her tracing touch. “It was difficult to fit into the jerkin,” she murmured, smiling lazily up at Delyth, lips parting as she let her own hands roam over Deltyh’s shoulders and long, lovely neck. To push through her dark hair and then over those sublime wings. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting, Delyth...How can I make it up to you?” Slowly Alphonse pivoted, stepping back towards their bed.
“Make it up to me?” Delyth repeated, a little breathless. “I think you already have…” She followed Alphonse back until they were at the edge of the mattress, then half-fell, half-lowered them both back onto it. Gently, Delyth brushed the healer’s tawny locks away from her face and throat before kissing her again. “Gods,” Delyth groaned, “I'm going to have to find a way to make these trips for Enyo shorter. Fly faster, maybe? Get Etienne to teach me to disappear and reappear at will?”
“I’ll write to him tomorrow.”Alphonse tangled her fingers into Delyth’s hair as her lover’s lips moved southward. Each kiss felt like a little shock of sunshine, leaving her warm and radiant.
Alphonse had missed the warrior terribly. Not just in bed. She had missed their meals together and the quiet nights when the fire was crackling, and Alphonse worked on her knitting, and Delyth whittled figurines for the village children Alphonse treated.
She had missed the weight of Delyth’s arm about her waist as she slept and the smell of her rain-washed hair in the dark nights.
She had missed the way Delyth’s steady blue eyes would track Alphonse about the kitchen or the garden and the way her soft words sunk into the healer’s soul like stones in a pond.
Of course, she had also missed Delyth’s body against her own, her lips brushing against Alphonse’s and the luxurious feel of her fingers tracing over the healer's skin.
༄
Delyth found the jerkin’s ties and pulled them gently free until she could press the leather garment open. She sat up a moment and marveled at the beauty lying with her.
They had come so terribly far to get here, to live quietly, warm and happy. And Delyth had never felt so safe and cared for. Even with the regular need to leave. She sighed. It had been too long since she had told Alphonse just how lovely she was, how wonderful.
So Delyth resolved to show her.
She leaned close again to kiss her way down Alphonse’s body.“Del…” she mumbled, eyes closing as Delyth’s lips pressed against her, pausing in strategic places. Her hips, nuzzling against the planes of Alphonse’s belly, one finger slipping beneath the hem of her loincloth.
“I love you,” the healer murmured into the peaceful quiet of their bedroom.
Delyth looked up from where she’d been pressing kisses to the insides of Alphonse’s thighs and smiled, her chest swelling.
“I love you.”
The words meant as much now as the day Delyth had fist braided the hawk feather into her hair. More, even, with the rest of their lives to say it ahead of them.
Hooking her fingers into the hem of Alphonse’s loincloth, Delyth slipped the garment gently off her and kneeled on the floor of their bedroom to draw more I love yous in the skin of her thighs and the places in between.
⥣ ⥣ ⥣
The cackling of Sylvie’s harsh chicken voice jerked Alphonse from sleep. Even in her coop across the garden, when Sylvie had enough, she’d let you know, and clearly, the healer had slept too late. The sun was up, so were the hens. She sighed unhappily and flopped back down into their bed. On the
