Chapter 67: Summer Thrills
As though the Cauldron had decided to bless Cassian (or so he claimed), the day of his birthday was ungodly hot. Galadriel had planned on spending the day, boarded on the barge Rhys had hired out, drinking in the upscale taproom but when waiter staff offered to bring her champagne on the sundeck, she couldn't resist the idea of lounging about, sunning her skin which had become an almost sickly pale through winter. The loose cotton pants and matching cropped shirt kept her skin cool enough to enjoy the heat as she laid belly-down on a sunning chair. Mor sat next to her, fanning herself with one hand, the other balancing a crystalline flute. Even Amren had situated herself under a parasol, book in hand.
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Rhys was pissed and he wasn't afraid to let his brothers know. Despite his daemati abilities, Azriel and Cassian had been around him long enough to know how to keep him at bay when they played cards. Azriel had the uncanny skill to keep his mind clear, as if he let his shadows do the thinking for him. Cassian's rather unsavoury tactic was to project elicit pictures that Rhys had no desire of looking in on.
So, for the fifth time in a row, splayed his cards along the table in defeat. "Pricks."
The corner of Azriel's lips lifted, the quietest of huffs as he placed his down next. Cassian hooted, greedily grabbing at the gold marks they'd poured into the centre of the table. "Another round?" he asked.
"Another round and I won't have enough to pay you salaries," Rhys argued. The barge wasn't hosting just his inner circle. He'd invited enough guests that the boat had a liveliness to it. Rhys had selected them carefully—faeries that they'd met through the centuries of courtly parties and gatherings that Cassian bothered to attend. "Mor's been too quiet, which worries me."
Cassian and Azriel followed him as he slipped from his seat, Cassian pocketing his money. "Amren could've drowned her," Azriel supplied. "I heard her threaten that about a week ago."
"They probably would have wrecked the boat by now if they were fighting," remarked Cassia, then tipped his head with a second thought. "Not that I'd mind watching that. We can afford the repairs, right?"
"You can," Rhys chuffed, motioning to Cassian's pocket full of gold.
Contrary to their conspiracies, once they hunted down the second half of their group, they found them in the epitome of languid. Rhys smiled at the sight of his mate, flattened against the length of a sunbed, toes pointed inwards to each other, her cheek smooshed. The sun made her skin and hair glow something close to gold. He traced every one of her curves with his eyes, no small amount of pleasure pooling inside him as he walked closer—softly.
He laid a hand on the back of her thigh, kneeling beside the bed, smiling at the little noise that told him she was just conscious enough to recognise him. "You are going to get burnt if you stay here."
"I'll heal."
"Yes, but you don't let me touch you until you do," he said. "And I've had a terrible morning. My brothers have taken all my coin." He lifted her hand, peppering kisses along the inside of her forearm, spying the growing tilt on her mouth.
"Our coin," she reminded him. Usually, it was the other way around.
"I'll need someone to care for me in my wallowing."
Cassian had managed to pull Mor from her dozing, the pair of them along with Azriel bearing fresh flutes of wine. Galadriel rolled herself onto her side, an imprint of the bed's woven canvas on her cheek. "Baby," she grumbled. "Such a baby, needing constant attention."
Rhys laughed but didn't deny it. "Come on, or Cassian will accuse you of ignoring him."
Galadriel let him pull her up. Magic carried music from the floor below to the sun deck. They danced and drank and danced some more. When his mate was too tired, she leant her head back against his chest, pulling his arms to hang over her front as they huddled under Amren's parasol, whose stern frown was enough of a sign that her patience today was thin. Such a simple, affectionate sequence of motions, bundling herself in him. He kissed the crown of her head, tightening his arms.
Cassian swung Mor under his arm looking over the Sidra. Azriel leant against the railing next to them.
"I've never been so happy," she whispered, so low that he had to tip his head down. "I keep thinking to myself—what more could I possibly want?"
"Is there something want?" Rhys asked, hearing the inflection that suggested the contradiction in her own proclamation. "Your birthday is next week. That's still a lot of time to make something happen."
Her lips twitched into a smile. Galadriel turned, shoulder fitting under his arm. "What about you?" she said. "You've had this for so long. What else do you want?"
Rhysand had thought long and hard about his future. The gaps that had been filled in since he first conjured that image as a young boy. The friends, the crown, the partner. It felt greedy to ask for anything more when so many others had so little. They hadn't talked about the one thing he would admit craving, though. But ruining her day was the least of his desires if she didn't share the same wish. "I'm happy how things are."
"What if things change?"
"Like what?"
She looked up at him through those light lashes, derisively, as if to scold his attempts of missing the intended destination of this conversation. He scoured through her mind, grasping at her thoughts so he could be certain it was what she wanted to talk about. "I can't read your mind," she said just as he retreated from hers.
"Then just ask me what you want to."
"Children, Rhys. A child."
"Are you asking me whether I want one, or telling me that you do?"
She pushed away from him. "You are frustrating." Rhys laughed and caught her hands, so she swung back on her heels, tipping her head back towards the sky. "Both," she replied after a heartbeat.
Happiness swelled in him. "You want a child?"
"I do." She only met his eye for a moment, glancing over her shoulder as whitewash sprayed through the air, a deep whoop with it. By the sudden disappearance of Cassian, it wasn't difficult to deduce what had happened. "But you haven't brought it up so I want to know whether I should forget—"
Rhys pinched her chin, dragging her face back to his. He thought about teasing her some more but he couldn't bring himself to prolong the expression on her face. "I want that. With you. I want a child with you. I haven't brought it up because I didn't think you would be ready to start thinking of a family."
She sighed and pulled herself back into him. "I have lived a life already. I am ready for the next."
"How many?"
Her eyes shone. "I haven't thought that far ahead."
Arms around her waist, he walked her backwards across the deck. "What names have you picked out?"
She laughed, throwing her arms around his neck as he backed her against the railing. "You're too excited already. We haven't even started trying."
He picked her up by the thighs, situating her on the flat wood of the railing, pulling her knees around his hips. Over her shoulder, he espied Azriel in the Sidra with Cassian, Mor leaning over the barrier to shout down at them. The barge had stopped some time ago, anchoring in a little cove of an area where there was no water traffic.
"We could start right here," he spoke into her ear. Her chest pressed into his in response and it was only the knowledge of the public eye that restrained his hand from reaching up to cup one of those swells. The way her lips brushed the pulse point on his neck had the beat of his heart lowering down into his stomach.
"Grab her ass!"
Galadriel spun her head back, glaring down at the water far below where Rhys could hear Cassian's bellowing laughter come up from. He leaned forward enough to join her in glaring. Cassian was floating on his back, shirtless but still in his black dress pants. Azriel treaded water nearby, his lips moving but not loud enough to be heard from their spot. "If I can smell you two from down here, at least entertain me with a show!"
Galadriel entertained him with her longest finger.
Cassian only chuckled. "Love you too, Spring Flower."
He eventually convinced Mor to join them, who jumped in the water in her undergarments and Amren retreated to 'some place quiet enough to not hear their childishness.' Rhys felt the pull to join his brothers, but he'd noticed the wariness—and the longing—in his mate's eye as she watched them. They went down to the main deck where an overhanging platform hovered a few inches above the softly lapping water. He rolled up his pants to his knees, revealing the tattoos on each and sat with his feet hanging in the water, boots discarded somewhere else.
Galadriel allowed him to pull her down beside him, her legs tucked under her. "Feet in," he told her. "You've been in the sun all day and starting to overheat." It was true enough, her skin flushed, her lips chapped.
She shook her head. "I don't think so. I can go back into the shade."
He held her from running off. "Loneliness only suits Amren." He could see the rest of his family start to float to the back of the boat where they were. "You faced the Weaver alone. You can put your feet in the water."
She stared down at the dark waves lapping against the boat's edge. He felt the panic swirling through her mind, building like a storm.
Cassian swam closer. "Afraid to get wet?" He sent a splash their way but Rhys threw up his hand, the water spearing outwards as it hit the invisible shield he made. Cassian's lips parted, eyes softening as he took in Galadriel's tense form. Swimming closer, he treaded in front of them, grabbing the edge of the platform to keep him near. "Lie on your stomach."
Galadriel looked to Rhys. Rhys looked at his brother then back at her. Tipping his head, he let her make the decision, but the motion was an encouraging one. Lifting her chest in a movement that suggested she was taking a steadying breath, Galadriel shifted herself until she lay stretched on her stomach, propped up by her elbows against the platform's edge.
Cassian lifted his other arm from the river, water sluicing from the tanned skin in little beads, his wings glistening in a way that made Rhys want to let his own out free. Taking one of her hands, Cassian gently pulled it down to him until her fingertips broke the surface. She was stiff and did not smile when he did. Laying a hand on the low of her back, Rhys stroked his thumb along her spine.
As soon as Cassian let her hand go, she pulled it back and sat up. Eventually she agreed to put her feet in the water, the hem of her flowing pants dampened. "Think you could get in?" Rhys asked softly as Cassian swam back to the others. At her lack of answer, he threw his shirt off and slid himself into the cool river. He knew better than to grab her ankles, but carefully let his fingers drift over her already wet calves.
"I don't know how to swim," she reminded him, her voice cracking as if the shame was breaking her apart. But Rhys had seen the memory enough to know that it wasn't the lack of skill that kept her arms tight to her stomach. It was the emptiness, the nothingness of water. Over and over, each time he saw it in her dreams, the desperation was always relieved the moment she had felt Azriel's hand clamp around her arm as he dragged her from the hole.
"Hold on to me."
Tentatively but surely, she let him put her hands on his shoulders, leaning her right over the edge of the platform until it was only his kicking feet that held both their weights. Even with the space still between them, he could feel her heart beating a speedy rhythm, her nails biting into his skin.
She pushed off, sinking to her mouth, feet wildly thrashing about between his before he could push them both back up. Grappling at him, Galadriel wound her arms around his neck, legs around his waist, a little, hoarse sound of fright catching in her throat.
Stretching an arm across the span of her back, the other curving beneath her, he pressed a firm kiss to her cheek. Her eyes closed over, lips pursed to control her breaths, already shivering as if in memory of that frozen lake. He talked to her, slowly floating them further away from the boat towards the others, keeping her back to the barge so she couldn't see how far they were from it.
"We can do many things in the water," he murmured into her ear, hand slipping beneath her cotton pants, smoothing over the mounds below, as Cassian had so elegantly suggested early. He felt her huff against him, chin lifting from the crook of his neck. "Why don't you try treading by yourself?"
Her legs tightened in absolute protest. She managed to stay out there with them for a few minutes, but Rhys found his arms suddenly empty after a stray splash came their way. Looking to the barge, he found her back on the deck, towel in hand, shaking her head at him. But it was a larger step than she had taken in two hundred years, and he was proud.
Azriel drifted over, eyes pointed in her direction. "Is she alright?"
"Fine, Az." Rhys smiled. "She's fine."
Ah, the calm before the storm.
Enjoy :)