Her gaze had gone distant the second she’d seen him, into some middle space, eyes flashing with something that had nothing to do with Glynmor and its horrors.
And then she’d run. Again.
He’d followed her crashing footfalls, her gasps, the sounds tearing at him. Wondering the entire way what in the realms had happened to her. Who had dared to fucking hurt her. Why it made her feral and unpredictable. Level, until she suddenly wasn’t.
Yet another problem for another time. The litany of shite to deal with was getting longer, but he couldn’t do anything about it in the middle of the night.
Not while he was watching her break.
He slipped his belt and boots off, dropping them onto the rocky sand near a pile of linens she’d summoned, and waded in to reach her.
“Get it off, get it off,” she whispered repeatedly, a prayer and a plea.
He stopped a breath away from her trembling body, allowing only his hands to have contact with her.
“Let me,” he whispered, sliding his touch through the water along her arms to still her movements. “Let me help you.”
It was bordering on violating his earlier promise, but the tightness in his chest didn’t seem like his own. She was falling apart, and hefelt it.
This wasn’t about knowing better, but about sensing that she needed someone else to care for her. He had no idea what ghosts she’d seen out in the woods, or what nightmares had come back to haunt her. Only that he recognized thelook—one he’d seen on some of his warriors’ faces often enough.
And he held no conditions over her. She could do whatever she liked, and he wouldn’t stop her.
Brand appreciated the need for freedom, for choice. Maybe better than most, since he craved it so badly but could never have it. Not being who he was.
He was the biggest arse in Bordoroth for not seeing it. Not realizing what he’d been taking away from her, even in his panicked attempt to protect her. He didn’t need to know the story to understand it to his marrow.
Dragging his hands back up, he squeezed her shoulders, kneading, trying to lend her some of his own calm.
If it worked…
“I can’t… I can’t do it,” she rasped. “I can’t get it off.”
“Shh, it’s okay,” he crooned, plucking the soap from her white-knuckled grasp. “I’ve got you.”
He lathered up and paused, reading her body language one more time to be sure it was truly okay, before sinking his trembling fingers into the mass of her hair.
Sisters, the way she melted. She swayed into the touch, a sigh leaving her lips.
Brand had to bite back a groan at the sound, at her capitulation, at finally having her curls within his grasp.
Even when it was such a mess, it was beautiful. He scrubbed at every clump and tangle, gently loosening knots and scraping away debris. When the last of the dirt and filth was whiskedaway by the river’s current, only soaking strands of silk left behind, he still kept running his fingers through it. Kept inhaling the amber and spice that accompanied her moonlight scent.
It was working though. Her face was a mask of serenity, her limbs loose.
The sight of it untethered something within him. Visions of having the curls wrapped around him, tickling against his bare skin, flooded his mind. Had him straining against his trousers.
He wanted to step closer, press against her, feel her?—
She lost her footing and stumbled backwards into him, granting his wish. He caught her by the waist, and every good intention fled him. Brand couldn’t bring himself to move away, to leave the warmth of her. Instead, he tightened his hold and closed his eyes, every ragged breath matching hers.
Burning Solyrian, the way her curves cradled him. She was just so fuckingsoft.
Worse than the training by a mile. The water erased the layers between them, the heat of her skin seeping through the soaked fabric to burn his own.
A shock of lust tore through his body, amplified by the memory of her unknowingly drinking his blood gift in the watchtower. It hadn’t been appropriate to acknowledge it then, not with so much death surrounding them, but now…
Now, they were in a pocket of relative peace and he could admit to the pure satisfaction that had filled his veins at seeing her throat bob. Seeing her take even that small piece of him inside herself.
