Cedar Sweep you have to get what you want your own way

“Nightingale,” Arturo croons, his voice like a sharpened razor gliding sinuously over a satin sheath, and Lotte latches onto the way he makes her feel. When he touches her this way, the rest of the world seems to blur at the edges. It doesn’t matter that the feeling of being lost and disconnected from her body will return as soon as she’s alone again with her thoughts. It doesn’t matter. Lotte is a creature who lives for the moment, for better or for worse — so she debrides the scabbing flesh that formed when Dagfinn was torn from her, and sutures it to the heart her husband bares to her so trustingly. Her kiss is his chloroform.

“They are alive, and we are safe,” Lotte utters with feeling. “We have lost several, but we have gained more.” She means their children, of course, but she also means the small band from Golden Glade. She breathes deep, a quiver in her voice as she confesses, “I did not think Eirlys would live. I did not think we could ever be as happy here as we were on the coast.” A smile that trembles at the edges lights up her moonbright eyes. “But she did. We are.” Dagfinn would want her to be happy, and though she can’t give him that in full, she can do her best to trick her body into believing she is. “Hemlock has become very dear to me,” she murmurs, “and so has Sirius.” There is an unspoken note of, “Can’t we keep him?” in her tone, but she stows it and focuses on the here and the now. “Someday,” she says wistfully, “I would like to take the children — and Hemlock and Sirius — and show them the world outside our borders. I want them to have grand adventures like their mama and papa.” Lotte is not a wolf who can remain stagnant for long — she is a further flier than her name suggests and despite the long trek they took to get here, she is already itching for her next jaunt.