Valley of the Shadow: An Elemental World Novella by Elizabeth Hunter

Author:Elizabeth Hunter [Hunter, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Recurve Press LLC

Chapter Seven

Natalie woke to the feeling of soft lips kissing along her bare shoulder. Her head hurt. Her body hurt. And her shoulder really hurt.

Whaaa?

Oh. Right.

It was still dark out, but just barely. A golden lamp shined a half light on the room. She looked over her shoulder to see a pair of deliciously bare shoulders and a familiar dark head.

“George?”

He smiled against her skin, and Natalie breathed an internal sigh of relief. Smiling Baojia meant he wasn’t pissed off about the tattoo. Smiling Baojia meant that her world regained alignment.

“It’s beautiful,” he whispered. “Really, Red, I love it.”

“It’s the moon phases when—”

“When you told me you loved me the first time.” He kissed the skin under the crescent moon on her right shoulder. “The moon the night Jake was born.” He tapped the second. “When Sarah was born.” He ran his fingers over to the fourth moon on her shoulder, the full moon. “And a full moon for when you turn.”

Could she love him any more than she already did? It didn’t seem possible, but he kept proving her wrong. “You remember the moon on all those dates?”

“Of course I do.” He bent down and kissed her shoulder again. It still felt raw, but his lips were soft. “Those are the most important nights in my life. I love it.”

“Glad you’ll be able to see it every night for the next three hundred years?”

He slid over to her side. “I only get three hundred?”

Natalie turned to face him and blinked away tears. “I really love you.”

“I really love you.” He frowned. “I’m sorry I haven’t dealt well with all this. I’m trying—”

“I know. And I know you don’t like change. This is a big one, maybe the biggest we’ve ever been thrown. But everyone keeps telling me I’m doing the right thing. And since I’m super emotional right now, I just decided to listen to them and not myself. That way if anything goes really wrong, I can blame my friends.”

He smiled, and the corners of his eyes creased. She reached over and traced the small lines that marked the geography of his face. She knew every inch of him. Every quirk and corner.

“Trust you to make a joke about all this,” he said, “when I’m doing my best not to go crazy.”

“It’s not a joke.” She put her fingers on his chin, watching his profile. “It’s nothing even close to a joke. Do you think I’m not scared?” She blinked hard.

Baojia turned to look at her. “You’re never scared.”

“I’m scared to death.” Natalie swallowed hard. “But I’m more scared of leaving you and the kids. Or getting so sick I want to die. I don’t want that. I don’t want to even get close to that.”

He traced his finger around her lips. “You will always be hungry. You’ll always crave blood. You’ll learn to control it, but it will always be there, sitting in the back of your mind, like an addict craves a drug.”

“The way I crave you?”

He turned to her and took her lips, kissing her hard.

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