Through the Ever Night (Under the Never Sky #2)(13)

He traced the line of her spine with his thumb. Everything about her was graceful and strong. She drew back and met his eyes.

“This …” He was going to tell her that this was how they should’ve come together, days ago in the woods. This was what he’d thought about all winter—what he’d missed. But he couldn’t get past the way she felt, or the way she was looking at him.

“Yes,” she said. “This.”

Perry bent and kissed her lips. She curved against him, her sigh a warm drift against his cheek, and then nothing existed beyond her mouth and her skin and the feel of her body against his. They didn’t have long. People nearby. He could barely hold the thoughts in his mind. She was everything, and he wanted more.

At Roar’s warning whistle, he froze, his lips on her neck. “Tell me you didn’t hear that.”

“I heard it.”

Again he heard Roar’s signal, louder this time, insistent. Perry winced and straightened, taking her hands. Her scent was wrapped around him. The last thing he wanted was to leave her.

“We’ll get your Markings done before we go. And about hiding things between us … let’s drop it. It’s killing me not being able to touch you.”

Aria smiled up at him. “We’re leaving soon. Can we keep it up just until then?”

“You like seeing me suffer?”

She laughed softly. “The wait will be worth it, I promise. Now go.”

He kissed her once more, then tore himself away and ran up the beach, weightless over the sand.

Roar watched him from the top of the beach with a grin. “That was beautiful, Per. It was killing me, too.”

Perry laughed, smacking him on the head as he jogged by. “Not everything’s meant for your ears.”

He found Reef up the trail, stalling Bear and Wylan, who’d come in search of him. As they walked back to the compound, Bear spoke of the trouble he was having with a pair of farmers, Gray and Rowan. Wylan chimed in with petty complaints every dozen paces, his voice sharp and angry, as always. No matter what Perry did or said, it was never good enough for Wylan, who’d been one of Vale’s most devoted followers.

Perry listened with half a mind, doing all he could to keep himself from smiling.

An hour later, he sat on the roof of his house, alone for the first time in days. He dropped his arms over his knees and closed his eyes, relishing the cool mist on his skin. When the breeze died down and he breathed in deeply, he scented traces of Aria. She was in Vale’s room now, inside the house. Laughter drifted through the crack in the roof beside him. The Six were playing a game of dice. He could hear Twig and Gren’s usual banter. Auds both, they talked constantly, always arguing, competing over everything.

Lamps flickered around the compound and smoke drifted from chimneys, mingling with the salt air. This late in the night, only a few people were still about. Perry lay back, watching the Aether light sift down through the thinner patches in the clouds and listening to the volley of their voices across the clearing.

“How’s the baby’s fever?” Molly asked someone.

“Dropping, thank the sky,” came the answer. “He’s sleeping now.”

“Good, let him rest. I’ll bring him down to the sea in the morning. It’ll open up his lungs.”

Perry inhaled, letting the ocean air open his own lungs. He’d grown up under the care of many, much like the baby they spoke of. As a child, he’d crawled up into the nearest lap to sleep. When he’d had fever or a cut that needed stitches, Molly had nursed him back to health. The Tides were a small tribe, but they were also a big family.

Perry wondered where Cinder was but knew he’d come back on his own, just as Roar had said. When Perry saw him, he’d lay into Cinder for running off, and then he’d find out what happened in the cookhouse.

“Perry!”

He sat up in time to catch a wadded blanket, tossed from below.

“Thanks, Molly.”

“Don’t know why you’re up there, and they’re all warm in your house,” she said, and bustled away.

But Molly did know. There were few secrets in a tribe this small. Everyone knew about his nightmares. Up here, at least, he could pass the sleepless time by reading scents on the breeze and watching the play of light through the clouds. Such a strange spring, with a thick blanket of clouds always above. Much as he feared the Aether, part of him would have felt better if he could see it now.

Brooke fell in step with him as he left the compound at dawn, her bow and quiver over her shoulder. “Where you heading?”

“Same place you are,” he said. She was a Seer, and one of the best archers in the tribe, so Perry had given her the task of teaching everyone in the Tides how to shoot a bow. Her lessons were near the same field where he was meeting Bear.

Their walk was awkward and quiet. He noticed she still wore one of his arrowheads on a strip of leather around her neck, and he tried not to think of the day he gave it to her, or what it had meant to both of them. He cared about her, and that would never change. But it was over between them. He’d told her so over the winter, as gently as he could, and hoped soon she’d see it too.

As they reached the eastern field, he found an argument already nearing a boil: two farmers, Rowan and Gray, who wanted more help in the fields than Perry could give them. Bear stood between them, massive, yet gentle as a kitten.