When my gaze made the journey back to his face, he was staring right at me.
I tried to turn my head, but his stare nailed me in place. A wind ruffled my hair and howled in my ears as I stood with his eyes fastened to mine.
Shock distorted his expression.
He looked at me like I was a creation of his mind. And he ran a palm down his face and back through his hair as if to wipe me away.
For a few seconds longer, we remained where we stood.
Then he walked toward me, the first to break the invisible thread, with undergarments hanging from his trimmed waist. His expression was hard, a shield, and a rush of adrenaline pulled me off the cliff to create space between us, but it was too late. He was here, his body surrounding me, and I found myself staring into cold, black eyes. Ones that managed to knock the breath from me. Like deadly nightshade.
Droplets rained down his flesh. The muscles in his body flexed. His lips twitched. But he didn’t say a word. He searched my face, his eyes like two drops of ink, confusion stirring within them, drifting down to my heaving chest and bouncing back up.
It felt like my lips were held by invisible shackles, but my grip remained on the dagger in my pocket, prepared to plunge it into him if he made a regrettable move. I wanted to say something,anything, but no words would come from me. I didn’t know why I couldn’t speak. Never in my life had I been paralyzed by a moment—by a man. Yet, he was standing over me, and I could smell the fresh salt of the ocean’s waves dripping off him.
I heard my own breathing. I heard my heart beating in my ears.
I saw my reflection in his glass eyes. The crack in my expression.
I was slowly coming undone, but he remained impassive.
Then, he tore his eyes from mine and stepped toward the cave.
My spine softened. My shoulders dissolved.
I thawed from his grip into the resolute woman I’d come here to be.
“I thought you left,” I whispered, chancing to look him in the eyes again should he turn back around.
The traveler did, and his brows pressed together, leaning closer.
It was odd how his eyes squeezed closed, then opened again. Wide, blinking rapidly, almost like they were unable to focus. He started to lean to one side, and I knew something was terribly wrong with him. His foot stumbled, and he dropped a palm on the cliff beside my head to steady himself.
The tall, perfect statue is about to go down, I thought.
Would he shatter like glass or turn into boneyard dust?
Before his body failed him, I released the dagger and wrapped an arm around his wet torso to keep him upright. “You were hurt. You need to lie down.”
The man was ice-cold and heavy with his weight against me. I guided him into the cave and to the ground to lie on his back, fully aware of everywhere my hands were touching.
Faint groans rattled in his throat, and his eyes were heavy, droopy behind long black lashes. His body trembled, finally feeling the chilling effects of November’s ocean.
I pulled his head into my lap and pressed a palm to his forehead. Much like everything else about him, his forehead was cold to the touch. Deathlike.
“You’re freezing,” I said, pressing my fingers to the artery in his neck to ensure a pulse was still there because everything about him seemed unnatural.
I’d been in the ocean before during winter when it felt like rusty nails thrust into every pore. But he was breathing steadily, even with ice-cold blood circulating throughout his body.
A gentle beat thumped against the pad of my finger, and I shook my head.
“How are you so cold?” I tossed a glance at his wound.
I’d managed to heal it from the inside, and though the gash was still open and bleeding, it wasn’t infected.
I freed a relieved breath. “It’s too much, too fast. You have to rest until your body heals,” I said with his head in my lap.
He looked up at me, his wet locks soaking my dress and the cold water slipping between my thighs. A groan scraped up his throat as he gripped on to anything within reach, fingers curling tightly around my dress, shoulders curling into the space between my thighs. He was freezing and in pain, seeking warmth and relief.
