Rules for Spies

10

Although they'd slept in different bedrooms, Azriel still reaches for Gwyn when he wakes up. Dawn is gray outside the window and outside the cocoon of his blanket, the bed is cold. He changes quickly into his armor and finds her seated on the couch, already in her leathers, her body curled around a book. One of the romantic novels he bought her at the bookstore weeks ago.

For just a second, she doesn't realize that he's watching her, and he tries to memorize the way she looks: her auburn hair bright and sleep-mussed, her ocean eyes darting across the page, her full rosy lips twisting with whatever emotions the book has roused in her. He also notices the violet shadows that surround her eyes, the lingering pallor on her cheeks.

"You woke up early," he says, walking toward her. Enjoying how easy it is to bend and press a kiss to her lips, the smile she offers as he pulls away.

"I don't always sleep well. But I had a good book." She tucks her thumb inside the pages.

"What if I held you? Would that help?"

He's surprised at how easily the question rises from him, he who hesitates endlessly with the females he desires. But his mate only lifts her face up toward him, as if he's offered her an extravagant gift.

"I might wake you up."

"I don't always sleep well, either. You'd have company."

"And if you had to watch me read a romance novel?"

"I'd be happier if you read it out loud."

She blushes and rises from the couch, leaving the book behind as she walks toward the kitchen. Emerie has stocked her cabinets with tea and coffee, and the House provided them with bread and butter, and Azriel will have to find them meat at some point, perhaps whatever vegetables can be found at some remote outpost, but in the meantime they ease into the day together, Gwyn reluctantly sharing the plot of her romance novel, which she says isn't nearly as smutty as the books the House provided. He files these facts away as he finishes his coffee and outlines his plans for training.

"Rhys likely won't make it today, so I thought we could go over more advanced dagger maneuvers and stealth in the morning. Then this afternoon I want to teach you how to bear up under questioning or torture."

She only nods, wiping the crumbs from her lips.

"You don't have any questions?"

"I don't think you're actually going to torture me," she says matter-of-factly. "And couldn't I use my powers?"

"You can't rely on your magic completely. Sirenic compulsion has been known for long enough that there are ways to nullify it, available to the very powerful or very rich. But generally yes, you can use your powers. Or your dagger."

"Remember that I'm also very stealthy," she says, her lips curling as she mocks him.

"You're stealthier than Cassian," he clarifies. "You're not stealthier than me."

She crosses her arms over her chest.

"Prove it."

An hour later, they're in the Illyrian wilderness, running through the trees as Azriel tries to listen for Gwyn's footsteps behind him. They'd scrapped his plan in minutes after she'd implied that she could beat him in a contest of stealth. At the time, Azriel had thought that putting himself in the lead would make it easier for him to protect her from the monsters that lurk in these woods, but for the past twenty minutes of a sprint that has not left behind so much as a broken leaf or crunch of snow, her own silent tread has made him increasingly nervous.

At least whatever might hunt her would probably be louder, he thinks, ducking under a low branch and drawing in an even breath as he powers himself up the mountain, his ears alert and his wings tucked tight against his body.