I started running to reach the cave faster.
“Be careful—the rocks are wet,” she warned.
My thoughts exactly as I’d been tracking her down after waking to find her gone. I was certain I’d find her fallen with her head split open.
I opened my mouth to say, “foolish girl,” again but thought better of it, as we’d just reached the cave. In a moment I’d set her down and those nails of hers would have access to my face.
Ducking in out of the downpour, I carried Raewyn to the back of the cave and lowered her from my shoulder. Then I quickly moved to the other side of the crackling fire, out of clawing range.
Luckily Auspex fires kept burning until you put them out, because we were both drenched. Even I was cold, so Raewyn must have been.
“Take off your clothes,” I said and began stripping off my wet boots and riding breeches.
Raewyn’s hand went to the neck of her dress. “What?”
If she’d been wearing pearls, I swear she would have clutched them.
“You’re shivering,” I said. “You’re not going to warm up if you keep that sopping wet dress on.”
Her mouth hardened, and her fuming eyes narrowed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve seen plenty of shifts, my lady. Believe me, yours is nothing special. What Iwouldn’tlike is to have to tell my brother that all I managed to deliver to Waterdale was a frozen corpse resembling a human he once knew.”
Removing my wet jacket, I dropped it to the floor then stripped off my shirt, which had been protected from the elements and was still dry. I reached over the top of the fire and offered it to her.
She stared at my warm, dry shirt like it was a live viper.
“Well?” I said.
Raewyn’s honey-brown eyes flickered up to meet mine. They were filled with confusion.
“You… you’re giving me your shirt to put on?”
My tone was patient, as if I was speaking to a four year old. “It would appear that way. Do you want it or not?”
After another moment’s hesitation, she snatched it from my hand. “Thank you. Now turn around.”
Giving her another eye roll, I did as she asked, busying myself with hanging my wet garments from protrusions in the rock wall while she changed.
“I don’t actually smell bad, do I?” I asked because I couldn’t help myself.
Women usually commented on how appealing my scent was, but maybe we didn’t smell as good to humans as we did to fellow Elves.
And Ihadbeen riding all night, battling Dryads, sleeping on a cave floor, and hadn’t bathed since yesterday.
The same could be said of Raewyn, but she smelled every bit as delicious as she had that first night at the ball.
“What?” she asked.
“You called me a malodorous beast. But I don’t actually stink—do I?”
I heard a loud exhale amid the rustle of clothing.
“You are impossible, fishing for compliments at a time like this. Okay, you can turn around now,” she said. “Will you hang mine, too, so they can dry?”
When I turned back around, the breath caught in my throat. Raewyn still stood on the other side of the crackling fire, wearing my shirt.
And only my shirt. In her hand were both her dressandher shift.
