Rynn stood a few yards to the right, wet from the light snow falling and catching on his body. He wasn’t even trying to block it with his air. She could only see his profile, the faint light from the moon casting shadows across his face, bringing out the sharpness of his jaw as he stared up at the sky. Flecks of white snow clung to his hair and glowed silver under the stars.
“Rynn,” she said softly.
He barely turned his neck in her direction.
“I’m not with Hamil. He’s—there’s nobody back home. Not anymore.”
His eyes finally met hers, confusion and a hint of somethingmoreswimming in the gray pools before it vanished.
“And…my family’s safety may not be the only reason I’m staying here,” she said, taking a hesitant step toward him. “It turns out I’ve grown rather fond of you elementals and your cocky attitudes.” Her attempt at humor was poor, considering her heart hammered so loudly she was sure he could hear it.
He turned to her fully and stepped in her direction, a mask hiding his emotions. “So, Hamil is not your…”
She shook her head, a hint of a smirk pulling at her lips. He took another step.
“And you truly want to stay here?”
She nodded.
Another step.
His chest rose and fell, his dark eyelashes glistening with drops of fresh snow.
“With me?”
The way he said those two words, with such quiet hope, made her unsure if she was even breathing anymore. “With all of you,” she corrected him as she swallowed, taking a step back and hitting the stone wall beside the cave entrance.
He moved even closer until almost nothing separated them. She tilted her head to look into his eyes and found his previous coldness replaced with a playful edge she’d never seen in him. His eyes drifted to her mouth.
This was uncharted territory.
It wasn’t like they hadn’t been this close before. She’d been wrapped in his arms for hours the night he slept in the bed with her after the dark god had threatened her family. But that had been under the guise of comfort, of safety and protection. He usually didn’t touch her unless it was out of necessity, to calm her nerves, or keep her out of harm’s way. And he certainly never looked at her likethis.
She swallowed again, hard, her eyes involuntarily running along his chest, mere inches from her own.What was she doing?This man was like nobody she had ever met before. He cared for her and eased her troubled mind, while simultaneously tapping into her confident and untamed side. He frustrated her to no end, caused her heart to stutter and heat to flood her body with just one look.
But he wasn’t human. What could even come of this—whateverthiswas? It was a dangerous game to play with an immortal being.
A brisk rush of wind came and swept more cold sleet onto her chapped cheeks. Rynn reached up to move a lock of her hair that had been blown out of place right as she blurted, “Would you like to play cards?”
He smiled and tilted his head slightly.
“There is nothing else I would rather do,” he responded after a moment. Backing away, he took her hand and brought it to his lips, brushing a single kiss over her knuckles, before leading her back inside the warm glow of the cave.
Somehow, she didn’t think that was true.
Isla was glad she’d picked up the deck of cards on one of their first outings to the market in Krill. It had been a good way to break the ice and pass time in the evenings she and Rynn spent together, and was apparently a good distraction when she didn’t want to face the complicated thoughts churning in her head.
A standard deck was forty-eight black cards, with four sets of numbers one through ten plus a king and queen card in each set. This particular deck had hand-painted cards with delicate touches of color against the normal black: one set had gold numbering, another burgundy, then lavender, and royal blue. Isla had been obsessed the second she’d seen them, even if they were rather costly.
Throughout their time in the cave, Rynn and Isla had played a variety of games, some both of them knew and some that one had to teach the other. Tonight, they stuck to a simple game of Fool’s Run, where cards were played in sequential order and the objective was to run out of cards first without the opponent knowing.
The two of them played the first round without speaking much. The icy storm and shadowed darkness outside the cave had emboldened them, forcing them to come out of their comfort zone and toy with lines that had not yet been crossed. But now that they were back in their warm, fire-lit bubble, they retreated to the safety of quick glances and awkward silences.
At least this time, it was no longer an angry tension that thickened the night. It was a different kind of tension altogether. And Isla wasn’t sure which was worse.
“So,” she started, shifting under the blanket that was wrapped around her. “How about a question for a question? That worked well the last time,” she said, thinking of their first full day together.
Had that really been ten days ago?In some ways, it seemed like it had been only yesterday that she was traveling to Krill to check on her father. And yet, she felt as if she’d known Rynn far longer than that.
