“Yes.” He agreed, but he could not move. His vision blurred, so he closed his eyes and let her fill his senses.
She shifted again, bracing her hands against his shoulders and pushing fruitlessly. “Rentir.” The exasperation was plain in her voice.
“Please. Just… a moment more.”
With a sigh, she subsided.
“I thought you were going to die,” he whispered. “I’ve only just found you, and I thought…”
At that, her body softened against him. Her arms wound around his back, and one hand began to pet him. A purr revved within him at the gentle touch. He rubbed his face over the column of her neck, mingling their scents together. That made the world feel a little more right to him.
“I cannot bear it,” he said, unable to stop himself. “If you die, I…”
“I’m alive.” She murmured the words into his ear. Her breath tickled.
“I have done everything except keep you safe. I should have let Lidan take you.”
“You’re not responsible for me.”
He laughed bitterly. “Nor should I be. I am not worthy of the responsibility. I have proven as much time and again.”
“Rentir.”
Reluctantly, he drew back to look down at her face, expecting to find reproach on her delicate features. Guilt twisted in his gut at how sunken and dark her eyes had grown.
Her hand slid between them and smoothed over his cheek as she offered up a small smile instead of scorn. Her blue eyes danced back and forth over his face. They harbored a sadness he’d seen in his own gaze often enough. Why was it so much more painful to see it on her?
She leaned in and pressed her lips to his cheek for a long moment. He didn’t understand the gesture, but… he liked it. He closed his eyes and focused on the point of contact until she drew away.
“We have to move,” she said again.
Reluctantly, he released her. She braced herself against his shoulder and rose uneasily to her feet. The mud sucked at her oversized boots as she stepped back. Her hand pressed to the wound at her abdomen as she cast her gaze around the forest.
“You’re in pain.”
She gave him another tight-lipped smile. “I’ll hold up. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 19
To her credit,Cordelia made it a few minutes before Rentir was forced to pick her up again. Her body was shutting down on her. She wasn’t dying—not yet—but she was weak, pitifully weak.
She thought the stab wound might be giving way to infection, hot and relentlessly throbbing as it was. Her brush with drowning hadn’t helped the situation. On top of that, the breeze that had been refreshing before her surprise dip in the river was now keeping her body from regaining the warmth she’d lost in the frigid water. She couldn’t stop shivering, and she knew it was scaring Rentir. He’d given up his jacket already, but the wet fabric wasn’t doing much to help.
As much as she resented her reliance on him, she was grateful he was so willing to bear her weight. It wasn’t in her nature to rely on others. Her mother had trained that out of her young, having learned the hard way what could happen when you allowed yourself to depend too heavily on a man. The intention behind the lesson had been to ensure her survival in a world that wasn’t made for her, but in the end… Cordelia couldn’t deny that it had made her paranoid and closed off. That had kept her alive, but at times it felt like a half-life. She’d neverbeen able to open up enough to enjoy connecting with another person, even other women.
She looked up at Rentir’s strange face. His big, green eyes were so expressive. Right now, they were flinty and focused, scanning restlessly over the forest as he carried her.
“That was quick thinking back there,” she remarked, unable to stomach the silence.
He glanced askance at her.
“Jumping into the river. It was using infrared technology, wasn’t it?”
“Infrared?” he echoed, frowning.
“Uh, measuring heat as a source of vision?”
Understanding lit in his eyes. “Ah. Yes, that is how it operates. It cannot see well through the water.”
