It felt like stepping into the hot spring several yards before he even reached it.
She had heated his skin before, but with the Blood Fever, just catching sight of her felt like fire in his veins. Seeing her bare in the hot spring made him want to take her on the mossy carpet of the forest floor, to fully drink her in.
He glanced around. Probably not a good idea if anyone else was watching. “Where are the others of your troupe?”
She turned around, her face lighting up when she saw him approach.
He remembered the moment he’d first spotted her, muttering to herself in the woods. He’d felt drawn to her then, too.
Every little thing about her caught his attention, the thick, coily ringlets of her wet hair, the sweetness of her smile, the light catching against her dark skin, her nipples pointing through the water’s surface, the way she pressed her knees together.
“Oh, them,” Bianca waved a hand as if it didn’t matter. “Re-packing their caravans. I think they’re putting together a party as a thank-you with the whole huldira thing. And since it looks like we’re not getting to our next performance on time, anyway. I hope your friends are ready to be drunk under the table. We brew our wine with poisonous mushrooms.”
He did hear what she said, but mostly he heard that they all left, and she stayed behind, knowing he’d come find her.
Tanis unfastened his cloak, folding it over a low tree branch along with Bianca’s outer layers. He kicked off his boots and sat down on the edge of the bank, dipping his feet in the spring.
She swam up beside him, and he tried not to notice too much that she was naked in the water. He couldn’thave a hardened cock desperate for her attention during the conversation they needed to have.
“How’s your face?”
He lifted his chin, showing her the freshly stitched slice that she had nicked his jawline with. She frowned, and covered her mouth in remorse.
She flicked a little water at him to disguise her discomfort. “So the whole kidnapping you plan was really…”
“Unwise,” he finished for her, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes. I promise I won’t suggest it again,” she nodded, wincing in empathy. “I just panicked, I didn’t know what to do. I mean, for Silvansakes, his name is Dhane the Bloodthirsty. I thought I might not have a troupe to return to.”
“Oh,” Tanis’ eyes could have rolled out of his head. “No. It’s. That’s a whole… it’s like a joke.”
“A joke?”
He sighed and buried his face in his hand for a moment. “If I don’t want people to find that little meadow I showed you, I’ll mark it on a map, Barren Field. And then if I know where a huldira’s nest is, maybe I’ll write that there’s treasure there.”
He was met with an unblinking stare.
“Or, with people. We name the biggest, scariest berserker you’ve ever seen, Rurin the Softhanded. A smaller, frailer man, Sildt the Bonecrusher.”
If memory served, there was an orc who left the camp many years ago, Silvertongue, who had a penchant for never shutting up.
He watched the comprehension slowly dawn in her face. He hadn’t really thought that would be the kind of thing that needed explaining, since it was fairly obvious among orcs.
Bianca slapped a hand against his knee, splashing him in the process. “You said orcs weren’t tricky!”
“And you believed me?”
She rolled her eyes and made a terribly aggrieved sort of noise, but it made him grin all the more. It made the only-just-stopped-bleeding cut on his jawline nearly open again, but he couldn’t help it. She winced in sympathy and reached to touch his face.
“I will treasure this always,” he said, lifting an eyebrow as he gestured to the cut.
It was the mark that started their bond. But maybe it didn’t mean the same thing to her. By his mother’s tusks, she had been taking names by their face value.
“Or. I mean. If you want me to, that is. You don’t have to.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Bianca asked, eyes sweeping over him with a flutter of her lashes.
Everywhere her gaze crossed lit up with heat under his skin, his heart rate ticking up. “Should I not?”
