[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.]
I should get up.
There was work to do, but then there was always work to do—for everyone else, at least, there had been until the night before. Last night she’d found purpose again. She had done something she hadn’t done in what felt like forever, and truth be known, it might have been forever.
And yet…
It was as if she’d never stopped doing it.
Matt held her a little closer and she sighed, nestling against his chest. He should have been up hours ago, but the long night they’d both had guaranteed sleeping in as a reality, as a given. But Hecate knew that it was morning, knew that they should both be up. He would be needed, especially if Thom was hurt, and she needed to check on Neve and the babies, then maybe on Marin, to make sure that her friend—her sister—was all right in the wake of everything.
The aftermath of a battle was sometimes harder than the fighting itself—was often harder than the fighting itself. She knew that better than most.
“You should still be sleeping,” Matt murmured into her hair. His eyes were still closed, though his breathing wasn’t the deep and even breath of a sleeping man. Hecate sighed softly, her fingertips grazing his bare arm.
“I haven’t been awake for very long,” she whispered, closing her eyes again. “But we shouldn’t stay here much longer.”
He stiffened. “What—”
I should have phrased that better. Dammit. “I mean in bed, Matt. I mean in bed.”
He relaxed immediately and a broken chuckle escaped him as he held on a little tighter. “Oh. I thought—”
“That something was going wrong.”
“Yes.”
She had to smile, nuzzling his jaw. “No. Quite the opposite, I think. In some ways, things are starting to go right.”
