Terena woke with a start. She was nestled against something warm and hard. Her hand rested on a muscled forearm and for a panicked second she thought she’d foolishly bedded one of the drunkards at the gambling den the night before.
What the fuck was in that sweet the seer had given her?
Then she remembered Daris, and she stiffened. Turning her head slightly, she felt his warm breath fan her neck, and she shivered.
What the fuck?
She moved her head back to better view his profile.
Aye. It was, indeed, Daris.
Carefully, Terena lifted Daris’s arm and slid away. As she inched closer to the edge of the bed, he mumbled something and she froze. Long seconds passed before she felt safe enough to move, slithering out of the bed. Turning, she looked down at his face shrouded in shadows in the bedchamber’s gloom.
How had this happened? One minute she was in the gambling den with the blonde witch, Cassandra; the next shewas in a strange room and Daris’s sword was on a large bed. After grabbing it, she’d heard someone coming toward her. Finding Daris on the other side of the blade was not something she’d been prepared for.
How long had she thought of their reunion, what she’d say to him? What he might say to her? She was still very wounded over his betrayal, but a part of her could not stop thinking about him. Her traitorous heart would soften and make her relive memories of him before everything turned sour. Her hunger for him had not abated, obviously. But she hadn’t thought she’d jump right back into bed with him before hearing him attempt to explain away his involvement with Lerek’s murder.
What the fuck was wrong with her?
Terena moved on silent feet to the doorway where a scattering of clothes lay cold and forgotten. She picked up her breeches and tunic, frowning at the missing buttons on her pants before glancing at the bed. How the fuck was she supposed to get back to Ermanel now? Would Croak even still be there? Did Rydon know what would happen?—
“Will you not even say goodbye?”
Terena went rigid, hands on the flaps of her pants. Without turning around she answered, “I didn’t wish to wake you.”
“Coward.”
Heat flashed through her body. Turning slowly, she glared at him. He was sitting with his back against the headboard, one knee lifted beneath the covers, his arm propped on it. She was glad of the shadows, for they hid her body’s response to him as he watched her.
“I need to go,” she mumbled, gripping the front of her breeches closed. She swore under her breath when she couldn’t find her hair tie. She let out an impatient huff. “The others will wonder where I’ve gone.”
“They do not know you’re here?”
“One does,” Terena laughed.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
Terena reached down to grab her sword belt when Daris’s fingers closed around her wrist.
“Don’t go,” he whispered.
Terena looked up, his ruined eye uncovered, the scarred brow scrunching with his other brow.
“Stay with me,” he added.
“This was a one-time thing,” she muttered, yanking her wrist out of his hand. She rose, ducking her chin as she put on her belt. “It will not happen again.”
“Really?” He scoffed. “I have no say in it?”
“No, you don’t! I’m an idiot when it comes to you. Gods, Daris! You took my sister! Why would you do that?”
“How else was I supposed to get you to come back? To listen to me!”
“So you kidnap a defenseless young woman?”
“You know I’d never let anything happen to her.”
