“Do you know mythology?”
She shook her head as her neck craned her face to the sky.
“Orion was a great huntsman that Zeus placed into the stars as a constellation after a scorpion stung and killed him. The scorpion constellation—Scorpius—will never be in the sky at the same time, as they chase each other around the world.” Over her shoulder, his pointer finger shifted up and down. “See how those three stars make a belt? His head is up there. And coming off the belt are three stars that are his sword. On either side are his legs. One arm is held high, the other holding an animal hide. On that side, Taurus the bull is snorting, charging him. Those two have always been my favorite.”
She chuckled. “I don’t think I’m seeing what you’re seeing.”
“Come over here.” He set his hand on the small of her back and ushered her to the wide wooden chaise longue. “Lie down.”
Her eyebrows cocked at him.
“Trust me. It’s easier here.”
She sat, then stretched her legs long onto the chaise. Talen squeezed in next to her, careful to not bump her left forearm and the splint, and then slid his arm under her head for a pillow as they both reclined flat on the bench.
Far too intimate, yet she couldn’t excuse herself. She had barely two slips of cloth on her skin and he was so warm in the chilly air. And smelled too good, something that always unsettled her, how she so liked the scent of him. How it made her chest tighten every time she was near him.
His body next to her a rock of strength, the whole of him a haven. A solid, begrudgingly accommodating haven from the pain and the turmoil her life had become. She didn’t want to leave it. Leave him.
“Now look.” His left arm went up toward the sky, his forefinger wagging towards a clump of stars. “There is a V-shaped star cluster, that’s the bull’s snorting snout. You follow those to the left and those are his horns, ready to impale.”
“That is a snorting snout?”
“If you use your imagination, it is.” The cat jumped up onto the chaise and picked its way to a spot in between Talen’s calves. He let it paw at his trousers for a moment as it nestled in, then continued. “We have a cat and Orion has a dog, Sirius, there, the brightest star in the sky. And here is a nice trick—from that star on the belt through his arm you can draw a line to the south.”
“These stars guided you on the sea?”
“Aye.”
“You’ve seen faraway lands, haven’t you?”
“I have.”
“I wish you could remember the time before the ship.”
He stiffened, his bicep clenching under the back of her head. “Does it even matter, Ness?”
“No. No, I guess it does not. We are where we are.” Her right hand flicked up toward the sky. “What other tales are up there in the sky?”
“Too many to count. I spent years listening to grizzled old sailors speaking of the stars.”
She pointed upward in the sky to a bright star. “What’s there?”
“You just found the north star in the little bear, a tale of its own.”
The odd rasp in his voice suited the air about them, nothing but the dark and the stars above them. Low and gravelly, and lulling her to sleep with tales of bears that saved Zeus from his father.
Sleep with only one thought on her mind.
She’d never felt safer.
{ Chapter 15 }
Ness nudged open the door of Talen’s study slowly, letting the door creak on its hinges as she peered into the room. Two large windows at the back of the chamber lent moonlight to the space. This floor was off limits to her. But this was necessary and she would be quick.
Seven days of wandering between her room and the rooftop terrace and Ness was near to going out of her skin. For as much as Gilroy held her in a tight cage at Whetland Castle, she’d been free to walk the grounds, and she’d had her maid, Gertie, to talk with.
Verity was sweet, ever attentive, and Ness was happy for her company, but the hours when Talen was not at the townhouse stretched long, and she could only read for so long, day after day.