Risk and Reward

Chapter Four-Give and Take

I meet Mor at the gate and she brightens instantly at the sight of me. "Care to venture back out into the cold for a drink?" Her smile slants as she turns to loop her arm in mine before pulling me back down the street.

"Only if you buy the first round." She conditions and I nod with a smile curving up my lips.

"Deal."

We go to Rita's, Mor's favorite place and the one where she can almost completely be herself. It was a gift in itself when she took Feyre and I here to tell us we both knew her secret. The three of us make small outings without the others to her safe place and I know how important we all consider it. We both receive a few appraising looks from the clientele and I smirk at the fact. "So, you've been doing this for nearly five centuries. What the hell do I get Rhys?" I ask after we've settled down with our drinks.

Mor laughs, bright as a flame even with the cold snowy city in the window beside us. "Struggling a bit?" She teases and I sigh while taking a sip of my drink. "Well, sorry. Can't help. I'm not great with gifts in the first place and what good ideas I had were gone the first hundred years I had to get everyone something." My head tilts back to feel the chilly breeze coasting by before I groan and Mor giggles. "Have you at least figured out the perfect gift for me?"

My eyes open and a smile is tempted onto my face at the ease in which she brings levity. "You're easy," I tell her and actually mean it. Mor's gift came to me quickly and it didn't take me long to hunt it down. I only hope my instincts haven't driven me horribly wrong and given me a false sense of confidence.

Mor blinks before a smile brighter than the sun blooms on her face. "I'm not sure if I should be insulted that I'm not mysterious, but I'll admit I'm curious now."

My head instantly shakes as I sit a little straighter. "By the Mother, please don't put high expectations on it. If you like enough to not throw it out, I'll be more than pleased." We fill the air with soft laughter and I'm so incredibly glad that she's remained my friend.

Azriel still has his moments when we're all together. Moments when he'll stiffen when I show him affection in front of her or the instant when she enters a room and he pulls away from me. It had stung in the beginning, but I lavished upon him the same understanding and patience he constantly gives me. It rarely happens now, but Mor still hadn't come to stay at our house for longer than a day. I hadn't pushed either of them on it. Something was between them for hundreds of years. They'll sort it out in their own way.

As if reading my thoughts, Mor pokes my leg under the table. "What have you gotten for that mate of yours?" The words still send lightning skittering through my veins. Mate. My mate.

I heave a sigh and shake my head. "I have so many ideas for him and oscillate between thinking one is better than the other. I'd like to give him the world, but honestly don't think he'd even like it that much."

Mor grins and shrugs a shoulder. "Feyre's having the same problem. Maybe it's a mate thing." She tries to soothe and succeeds a little bit. "Funny that this is your problem when I heard you jumped for Devlon's throat the second you got the chance." Her eyes sparkle as she raises her mug of hot chocolate towards me in salute. Her grin is hard not to return as I wrap my hands around my own cup. The cold doesn't bother me as much as it once might have, not after feeling the true ice of that pit in Hybern.

I shake away the memory and take a deep breath of the clean, outside air. "I'd do it again too. Even though Rhys and Cassian might ground me for months next time." In my gut, I know that if it wasn't nearly Solstice I most definitely would have been.

"Already planning a next time, Kaira? We've been a bad influence on you." Mor teases and my smile slants. Her expression grows a little more serious and I sigh.