Free Shadowstorm (The Shadow World Book 6) by Dianne Sylvan Page A

Perhaps one day you will be, perhaps not. If you do, you will say so. I am your friend regardless, as long as that is amenable to you.”
    She blinked for a second. “You know, you’re not like any man I’ve ever met.”
    “That’s because, thank the Goddess, I am not a man,” he pointed out. “Now, the question I do have is this: We have in our friendship been affectionate with each other. That can change if it would make you more comfortable.”
    “No, no—I don’t want anything to change, I just wanted to be honest.”
    “I appreciate that honesty. Shall we then return to our musical pursuits?”
    “Wait, there’s one more thing I want to know…how do you feel about this? What were you hoping for?”
    “In our relationship?” He took a deep breath, which she could have interpreted a number of ways. “I find you deeply alluring, funny, kind…and of course beautiful in ways I had quite literally never seen. If you were ever to desire more than friendship I would be more than happy to oblige. Am I going to pine away for you, celibate and miserable? No. I am not a youngling given to fits of swooning. You need not worry, as I am sure you will, about hurting my feelings.”
    Miranda sat blinking at him again for a minute. “Okay.”
    When he saw her face, he started laughing—another thing she rarely saw. “You do realize you are not obligated to keep up with your husband, don’t you? Unless of course you have a scoreboard over your bed, in which case I must know how many points an Elf is worth.”
    She punched his arm. “Shut up!”
    Another laugh. Then, something in his expression changed, sobered; he stared down at the piano keys, and after a moment he said quietly, “He really does love Nico, doesn’t he.”
    Miranda nodded. “Yes. Very much. Your brother completely blindsided him. Even I didn’t see it coming—I thought if anyone ever caught his heart it would be Deven again. I mean, of course he thought Nico was attractive, and they had a connection from the beginning. Nico needed to feel safe, and there’s nobody better for the job. Then one day I finally realized it was way more than that. Despite appearances David doesn’t open his heart to just anybody.”
    “He would have to be made of sterner stuff than stone to avoid it, surrounded by such remarkable creatures,” Kai observed. “And clearly the feeling is mutual. Even with his sorrow and weakness, when Nico speaks of him, a light returns to his eyes I had feared would never spark again.”
    Miranda smiled. “That’s pretty much what happened to me.”
    Their eyes met for a moment, and thank God, the awkwardness Miranda had been feeling was gone; they could get back to what they both needed, friendship, without her being in a twist every time their hands touched.
    “Shall we, then?” Kai asked.
    The Queen nodded. “We shall.” She hiked her leg back over the bench to face the piano, and picked up the sheet music she’d had waiting there. “I wanted you to see this piece—it’s a duet I did with another musician a while back, but we did some interesting things with the harmonies…”

Chapter Three
    By the time dawn arrived, Nico had fought his way through five more pages of the Codex, and his head hurt so badly he wanted to scream.
    He barely heard the knock, but what few people ever came to see him were always welcome, so it opened and closed without his having to look up from the book’s swiftly-blurring pages.
    There were the usual sounds of someone taking off a jacket. Nico looked up and offered a smile. “Back safely, I see.”
    Stella grinned. She tossed her hooded sweater on a chair then paused on the side of the bed to pull off her rather enormous black boots, revealing striped knee-high socks that matched her fingernails. Then she slid around behind him and rubbed his shoulders, eliciting a sigh. “Glad to be back, actually. I love my dad, but all the questions are getting old. When are you moving back to Austin?