Ready to attack. Ready to fight. Ready to protect.
He turns to me, sweeping over my form with a gaze that feels tactile. “Hurt?”
“No. Just… winded.”
He crosses the space between us in two strides and crouches. The movement is fluid, silent, once again impossibly graceful for a male of his size. He reaches out, hovering a large hand over my shoulder, then pulls back, his fingers curling into a fist.
The air between us is so damn thick.
Not just because of the danger. Not just because the mountain tried to eat us.
Because of before.
Because ten minutes ago, covered in slime and terror, I almost kissed him.
And he almost kissed me.
The memory of it is louder than the water dripping nearby. I can still feel the ghost of his breath on my lips, hot and smelling of spices. I can still see the way his pupils blew wide, swallowing the red, the way his grip on my thigh shifted from saving to claiming.
You are bad.
The words echo in my head, sending a delicious shiver down my spine.
Sarven inhales sharply. A deep intake of air that snaps me back to the present.
“We… rest,” he says, his Drakavian clunky and thick. “Short rest. Then… spring.”
“The spring mouth,” I agree, though the idea of moving again makes my legs want to stage a union walkout. “We have to get above the contamination.”
He nods, then sinks down onto the stone opposite me. His legs are sprawled out long, and in the narrow tunnel, his feet are only inches from mine.
Silence stretches between us, and it’s not the comfortable silence of the main cavern. This is charged. Electric.
I look down at my hands.
They are filthy. Covered in cave dust, sweat, and smears of the red muck from when I grabbed at the wall during the fall. The red stain has dried into the creases of my palms, looking disturbingly like dried blood.
A wave of nausea rolls through me.
“I need to wash,” I whisper, rubbing my thumb uselessly against the stain. “I can’t get it off.”
Sarven’s gaze drops to my hands. His lip curls slightly, a flash of white fang against golden skin. He hates the red rot as much as I do.
He reaches for his waterskin, then hesitates, realizing he doesn’t have it. Every skin in the main cavern is in quarantine. And that’s why this mission is so important.
He lowers his hand with a frustrated growl.
“Soon,” he promises. “Clean water… soon.”
I nod, hugging my knees to my chest to stop the shivering. The fever is getting worse. The cramp in my belly has alsoreturned. With both hammering me, the world tilts slightly to the left.
“Hey, Stabby?” I ask, voice quiet.
His ears swivel toward me. “Mih-kay-lah.”
“Back there. In the rot cave.” I swallow hard. “You said… you said I was safe. Always.”
He goes very still. His eyes lock onto mine, intense and unblinking.
