Sera stopped in front of the door and listened for a moment. She heard nothing, so she tapped lightly and let herself inside the predominately blue bedroom. She smiled at the sweet scene: Ayden slept on his back beside Tess in her small bed, their slender bodies tightly entwined and naked with the blankets pulled up to their waists. They looked and felt so peaceful; it felt like a shame to wake them.

Sitting on the corner of the bed, Sera touched Ayden’s ankle through the quilt and shook him gently. His eyes fluttered open, but he saw Tess first; he gazed at her with adoring hazel eyes and smiled as if remembering something very pleasant. Sera’s smile grew wider. She was thrilled for them—it was about time they got together. “Good morning,” she whispered in a light, singsong voice. Ayden looked at her and blushed. She giggled softly, and that woke her cousin up.

Tess glared, then closed her eyes again. “I think we need to get a lock,” she muttered.

“She’d probably just come in through the window,” Ayden teased.

“Yeah,” Tess grumbled, “she’s annoying like that.”

Sera laughed. “Stop being a brat, and be happy to see me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tess said as she rubbed her face and sat up. Her stomach growled. She was always hungry, the result of her consistently high energy level. It was amazing that she settled down enough to sleep. “I’ll be happier to see you after I have food.”

“Your mom’s up with Gavin. She made breakfast,” Sera told her, and Tess wrinkled her nose. “Oatmeal. It looked edible.”

“All right.” Tess leaned over to kiss Ayden. “You want anything?”

“No thanks.” He started combing his fingers through her dark chestnut hair. “Your hair’s a mess,” he murmured.

She smirked. “And whose fault is that?” He just grinned, and she kissed him again before getting up and pulling on pants and a blue t-shirt.

Sera watched Ayden’s face as he followed Tess with his eyes until the door closed behind her. Sera sighed. “I’m so happy for you,” she said, practically bursting from all the feelings inside her. Between the joy of her friends’ union and her own bliss at finding love, she was filled with wonderful, heady emotions.

Ayden sat up against the headboard, ran a hand through his short, brown curls, and smiled. “Me, too.”

“I bet. So, is it all as amazing as you thought it’d be?”

He blushed again. “You know, I’ve wanted to be with Tess for years, but I don’t think I really knew what to expect.” He stared through the window beside the bed, feeling a little sad for a moment as he thought of something, then took a deep breath. “We both changed when we left home, with… everything that happened. We… I don’t know, grew up a bit, I guess. It changed how I see her. When I look at her now, I don’t see the girl who’s my best friend, I see the woman who’s my everything,” he said feelingly.

“That’s beautiful,” Sera told him. “Like a line at the end of a story.”

He looked back at her. “Just before the ‘happily ever after’ part? Hmm. Guess some people do get that.”

She beamed at him. “Yes, and I’m so glad that you get it.” She sighed then. “Okay, between the two of us, I’m feeling way too much,” she said, laughing softly.

His eyes narrowed. “Something’s going on.”

“Shh. I’ll tell you when Tess gets back.”

“Okay.”

“So, has everything gone back to normal around here?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “Aside from Tess finding a new way of wearing me out.”

“Oh, poor Ayden,” she teased.

He grinned. “Yeah, I’m absolutely hating it.”

“Hating what?” Tess asked as she reentered the room. She kicked the door closed and sat on the bed, pushing Sera off. “Get a chair, this bed’s too damn small.”

“Yeah, only big enough for one,” Sera said, grabbing a chair from the corner of the room and pulling it over. “All those years of sleeping on the floor,” she added, smirking at Ayden.

Tess stuck her tongue out at her cousin. “What were you hating, Ayd?” she asked, then took a bite of the big chocolate chip cookie that she had decided was breakfast.

Sera giggled. “You wearing him out.”

“Oh, is that what that face means?” she asked him in mock seriousness. “I’ll be sure to not do those things to you anymore.”

He leaned forward, grabbed her waist, pulled her over so that her back was against his chest, and wrapped his arms around her. “Never,” he whispered.

She chuckled and leaned her head back, smiling when he kissed her cheek. “You know what I’ve found out?” she asked, looking at Sera again. “He’s stronger than I thought he was.”

Sera bit her lip. “Speaking of strength,” she said, her tone suddenly serious, “I want to tell you both something, and I hope you’ll be happy about it. The gods know I am.” She sighed a bit dreamily.

“She’s in love,” Ayden said against Tess’s neck before kissing it.

Tess smiled. “I’m seeing that. Who is he? Did you meet him in Port Vallyn? Is…” She suddenly gasped, and her face fell. “It’s him, isn’t it?” she asked in a tone that said she would expect her cousin to do something so stupid.

“Who?” Ayden asked.

“Matt,” Tess whispered in shock.

Sera nodded.

“Matt?” Ayden repeated incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”

“Sera…” Tess said. “He’s… I don’t think you know enough about him.”

“Like what?” Sera challenged. “That he’s extremely strong? Or that he’s rough and aggressive? That he’s prone to violent feelings and selfish behavior? Maybe you’re worried that I don’t know that he’s treated women like disposable objects in the past, or that he’s just been an all-around bad guy.”

Tess frowned, obviously not expecting that she would know all of that. “And he smokes,” she put in.

Sera laughed. “I know. I know a lot about him. More than you,” she said seriously. “I know how he feels.”

“Does he… does he love you?”

Sera smiled. “He doesn’t know that he does. He doesn’t even know what that word means, really. And it’s buried in a lot of confusion right now—but it’s there.”

“As if he could love anyone but himself,” Ayden scoffed.

Sera shook her head sadly. “But he’s never truly loved himself. I don’t think anyone’s ever loved him. And right now he feels self-hatred."

“Good,” Ayden spat.

“Ayd,” Tess said quietly, “regardless of anything else, he did save me. He’s not all bad.”

Ayden’s jaw clenched. “I think I’m hungry after all,” he said tightly as he got up and pulled on pants and a shirt that matched Tess’s. Being a healing cleric, Sera wasn’t at all bothered by his nudity. She was used to seeing patients at the temple.

Tess sat against the headboard and sighed as she watched him leave. “It’s still a sore spot,” she told her cousin when the door closed.

Sera nodded. “It’s still fresh. Not too long ago everything was different. Mathias was different.”

“You didn’t know him before,” Tess pointed out.

“But I know he’s changed,” Sera told her. “With the birthmark gone, all of Malluk’s influence is gone. I actually wouldn't let myself be alone with him if that weren’t the case. A month ago my words wouldn’t have done much good. But he can finally see clearly, his conscience is unclouded, and he’s in a lot of pain right now. He has to live with his past—with the new realization of how much wrong he’s done. He doesn’t need anyone else to hate him. He needs people to love him for a change.”

“Ayd’s just worried, like I am, that Matt will…” Tess hesitated.

“Just say it.”

Tess took a deep breath and set the rest of her cookie on the side table, suddenly not so hungry. “Well… he’s just really strong, and that night we were together he was incredibly rough. I had bruises everywhere, fingerprints. He wanted to hurt me, he liked hurting me.” She sighed. “And once I found out who he really was… he became so hard, cold, and very mean.”

Sera nodded understandingly, then asked, “But if he’s so bad, then why don’t you hate him? Why do you still care about him?”

Tess considered it for a moment, and then sighed again. “There were little things that made me think there was someone else behind all his hardness, behind the anger. He tried to let me go—tried to save me from ever going to the temple in the first place. Then he let me sleep with him the night before the sacrifice—not like that,” she added quickly. “He could have just thrown me back in the dungeon. I don’t know… before I found out who he was, I liked him. He was an ass sometimes, but he was fun, and just… kind of cool.” She shrugged. “And even after… there was just something in his eyes sometimes that made me believe he was still that guy and that he wasn’t completely bad.”

“You were right,” Sera said. “There’s a beautiful person inside him, but it’s buried under anger and isolation.”

Tess grew instantly sad. “He feels alone?”

“Very much, more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Curse of Malluk. I thought that was probably why he said he thought Malluk felt lonely,” she said, remembering. “Because he feels lonely himself.”

Sera felt her cousin’s sympathy for him, and was glad that she still cared. They could be friends one day, she thought happily. He needed friends. “Yes,” she agreed. “So don’t worry about me. He won’t hurt me. He doesn’t think he even deserves to touch me. It’s like he’s lived his whole life in a dark cave, and then you helped him find his way out. But now the light hurts—it’s all unfamiliar to him. He understands violence and hate, but nothing of compassion and love. He’s a wild thing, an abandoned kitten that claws and bites because it doesn’t know any better.”

Tess shook her head as her emotions turned from pity to worry. “He’s not some helpless little animal, Sera,” she said fervently. “You won’t just get a few scratches while you’re trying to tame him. He’s more like a tiger—brutal and deadly.”

“I’m not trying to tame anyone. But love breaks through to all living things, big or small. And regardless of anything else, I love him,” she said with unwavering devotion.

After a long moment, Tess finally sighed. “Either he’s the luckiest man in the world, or you’re the stupidest woman.”

Sera smiled as she moved to the bed and hugged her cousin. “Thanks. It’ll turn out well, you’ll see,” she said confidently.

“I hope so. But if he hurts you…” Tess warned fiercely.

“I know. But he won’t.”

__________

Sera’s father took the news even worse. Her mother said nothing—she just felt sad and worried while Cael paced, which was something he never did. Being half-elf, he had the calmness of the elves; he always stood a bit too still, never fidgeted like a typical human, and definitely never paced. But he was pacing now, and Sera felt his anger as she waited for him to speak.

He finally stopped. “No,” he told her firmly, running a hand through his hair—another thing he never did. “I do not care what connection there may be. You cannot be with this man.”

“I know that Mathias has a bad past,” Sera said, “and that he has been known to be dangerous, but—”

“You know nothing,” her father cut in sharply.

“And how much do you actually know?” she countered.

“I know his kind, and I knew his parents. The same blood flows in his veins, the same evil. There was not an ounce of good in Kieran, and his father was no better. Xavien may have been pathetic and weak, but he was still a horrible man.”

“Then why did you save their son?” she challenged.

“That was a mistake I should not have made.”

She shook her head. “It was because you knew there was good in him. He risked his life for Tess; he almost died for her. Someone like Kieran could never have done that. And now that he doesn’t have the mark, he—”

“No one has ever been released from their ordination before,” Cael said interrupting her again. “We do not know if it means anything, if it means he will change at all.”

“But you told me on the ship that there’s hope for him. And I know there is,” she said earnestly. “I can feel him. He feels guilt, he hurts. He can change now—he will change. This is the beginning of a new life for him, but he can’t do this alone. He needs me. He needs someone to love him, and I do, no matter what you or anyone else says.”

Cael said nothing, but she could feel his violent emotions, and she shook her head at him. “If you hurt him, you hurt me. And if you… if something happens to him…” She swallowed, not wanting to say it. “Then I’ll never forgive you.”

Those words, words that she had thought she would never say, brought tears to her mother’s eyes. “Sera,” Lotus said softly, “don’t say that. He’s your father.”

Sera sighed as her eyes filled with tears too. “I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t want to, either. And I’m sorry to make both of you worry about me, but this is my path, and I’ll stay on it, no matter what.” She walked the few steps to her father, touched his cheek, and looked up at him imploringly. “Dad… please trust me. I will be okay. He won’t hurt me.”

Cael’s feelings were tormented as he took her hand and kissed it. “If anything happens to you—if he harms you, even the slightest bit—I will kill him,” he promised fiercely.

She struggled to cover up the fear she felt at his threat. She knew her father could do it, she didn’t think there was anyone who could actually stand against him. Cael was a great fighter, quite possibly the best. He had been fighting for over fifty years and, being half-elf, his body was still strong and agile. And he was also a ranger, with the power of nature behind him.

Sera pulled every bit of confidence and love she had to the surface as she held her father’s gaze evenly. “He won’t hurt me,” she repeated firmly.