Ethereal

61 - Perfection

(Mature content ahead! Read at your own discretion)
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Just like they promised they would, Lucinda and Alarik took care of everything for us. Dominic and I woke up to Wren missing (I didn't panic because his unbridled excitement blooming in the back of my head told me he was more than fine) and a breakfast spread laid out in the dining room— courtesy of Alarik.

They'd left a note with the food, too, detailing in swooping, graceful calligraphy that they'd taken Wren to the shifter twins, Dania would watch over the town in their absence and our 'distraction' (one of them had added a winking face with semicolons and brackets and I just wanted to die on the spot) and that they'd left for Aspenview and would return hopefully with good news and a plan under way. Finally, they wished us well, and left us with a parting message of 'have fun'.

"Kieran, my love," Dominic said, his voice lined with a careful strain. "You're rather apt at summoning fire— could you do me the blessed honour of burning this note and then my eyes?"

"Maybe after breakfast, if you're lucky," I told him, plucking the note from his slack grip and studying it. "I'm going to frame this."

"Don't you dare."

"Or I'll give it to Maddie," I forged on. "It can be the centre-piece of that scrap-book she's making."

My beloved groaned, covering his face with his hands as he collapsed onto a seat. "If I hear about that damn scrap-book one more time, I'm going to find it, and I'm going to rip it into little shreds and sprinkle it like confetti over her porch."

As he grumbled, I settled opposite him and dove right into the food. "Uh-huh, assuming she doesn't have a spare— which I know she does in fact have for, and I quote, 'insurance purposes'."

"By the Gods," Dominic whined, taking the note once more. His eyes flitted over the card rapidly, as though double-checking it was in fact real and not some conjured nightmare. "Who taught them how to wink with punctuation, anyway? Because I certainly didn't."

We caught one another's gazes. My brows rose with taunting certainty and my beloved released a long-suffering groan.

"Nate," we both decided. Of course.

Once we finished eating, I took the note and pretended to mull over it. "I might send it away for safekeeping."

"You," Dominic decided, sending me a stern look of disapproval as he reached to pluck the note from me, "are just as bad as my parents."

I held it out of reach and rose. "I'm taking that as a compliment."

Then, as Dominic's eyes flickered with heat at my challenge, and as he slowly stood up, I turned and bolted.

I raced back upstairs and out onto our balcony, and all the while, Dominic followed close behind, warning me against my plan.

"I mean it, don't you dare!" he called lightly after me.

"Oh, Lilith!" I cooed, holding the note high above my head for the familiar to swoop in and snatch before my beloved could rip it to pieces. "Be a darling—"

In a blur, Dominic pulled my arm down, spun me round, and pressed me against the railing. He crowded in close, his eyes shimmering crimson fire and fogged with pure adoration. His lips quirked up into a teasing smile as he took the note from my slackened grip.

"Are you finished tormenting me?" he asked pleasantly, slipping the note into my back pocket and pulling me up against him.

"Mm, I've just started."