In Iron Stars (The Ancients' Bargain Book 2) by V.T. Hoang

Author:V.T. Hoang [Hoang, V.T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Morning light crept over the foot of the bed from the window in the adjacent wall. Iza stared at it while it illuminated the forms of Cas and Saoirse under the bedsheets. They were still asleep. Iza had taken the middle, always the resident heat sink, and for the first time in weeks, she felt suitably warm. Cas had an arm draped over her waist while Saoirse held her hand. Iza’s heart twisted at that. She had always been too warm for Saoirse to tolerate at night for prolonged cuddles. So they’d just held hands while they slept. How that habit could have survived eighty years was a mystery, but maybe some things were eternal.

The sweetness of Saoirse’s blood still lingered. Iza had never forgotten the taste, like rain poured over the sea. It was at her tongue, bringing memories with it that were probably best left to history, but she had always been so weak for Saoirse. Her heart ached in a way it hadn’t for decades, the way it hadn’t since they’d parted. They would have to again. This was just sex. Saoirse had been clear about that with her ground rules. Iza wasn’t going to fight it, if only because she knew there was no point. Saoirse couldn’t be convinced of anything once she made up her mind. She was probably protecting herself anyway. Her life really wasn’t built to accommodate romance, and asking her to uproot her entire existence for a relationship she probably didn’t have confidence in was a tall order.

This was for the best, wasn’t it? These decades apart had proven that they could live without each other. Iza would just continue on with her life, as it had been for the better part of a century. So why did dread keep building in her? Why couldn’t she stop thinking about that lonely hospital room where a colleague told her the news that irrevocably altered her understanding of life and love?

Iza didn’t know what to believe. She knew biology. Her expertise as a developmental biologist and then eventually a geneticist had made her one of a handful of people in the world who were true experts in pretern physiology, and if she knew anything from her years, it was that there was always something new to explore. Life did what it wanted. Strange intersections of chemistry and evolution and genetics produced unpredictable results all the time.

By most understandings of lycan neurology, Cas shouldn’t have been able to desire another person like this, and he hadn’t until he’d truly gotten to know Saoirse. Iza knew, too, that his affection had started before he’d experienced siren allure. He’d admitted to having his protective instinct triggered when Saoirse fell in the lake. It stood to reason then that a mated wolf could still experience infatuation while their ability to feel sexual attraction was repressed. That would have implied that his feelings went deeper than just attraction, but he probably wasn’t ready to explore that just yet.

And gods only knew what was happening with Saoirse.

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