She curled into a ball as hooves trampled around her, seeming to come from every direction, making it impossible for her to move out of the way.
Just when she thought she would die there, her skull crushed in by her own panicking horse, a booming voice carried over the tumultuous beating of hooves. The next moment, the horse was moved from over her.
“Aelia.” Keeran dropped to his knees next to her, the hard lines of his face transformed by worry. “Aelia, are you ok? Where are you hurt?”
“I…I’m not.” She thought she wasn’t, anyway, either that or the adrenaline was making it impossible to tell if she had any new injuries.
Another flash of light pierced the sky, and Keeran hooked a hand under her arm, hauling her to her feet.
“Get inside, I’ll fetch the horse,” he shouted and, for once, she didn’t argue, splashing through puddles on numb feet into the barn.
Keeran ran in after her, practically dragging the horse behind him, its eyes rolling as it passed through the wildly swinging doors. The moment he was through, she threw her weight against them, battling the wind to get them closed. Her fingers were like blocks of ice as she tried to slide the beam of wood into place, but after a momentary struggle, she managed to bar the doors shut.
The relief of being out of the rain was instant, the relative quiet blissful after the complete barrage on her senses for the past few hours whilst they searched for shelter. Releasing a shaky breath, she turned to where Keeran was tethering the horse.
She didn’t hesitate, moving to help him untack it on unsteady legs.
“I’ll do it, Aelia, just go sit down.” Keeran didn’t look at her as he spoke, but she could hear the irritation in his voice clear enough for her to suspect his eyes would be jet black. She ignored him; it was her horse to look after, even if he technically owned it.
She fumbled with the girth, her fingers next to useless with cold as she tried to wrestle the buckle free. It eventually gave in, and she let it swing beneath its belly, reaching up to try and lift the saddle off the horse’s soaked back.
She got it halfway off before her back spasmed and it slipped from her grip. It crashed to the floor, sending her horse skittering into Keeran’s horse, with him wedged between them. It was sheer luck that the two horses were too preoccupied with the storm still raging outside to exchange kicks over personal space, and Aelia clapped her hands over her open mouth until she saw Keeran squeeze his way out from between them.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he shouted, the barn mercifully too dark for her to see his eyes.
“Nothing,” she yelled back indignantly, her temper flaring immediately. It had always been a little too quick to surface, but these days it hardly needed any encouragement. “It slipped out of my hands.”
“It wouldn’t have slipped from your hands if you’d just listened to me.” He took a step closer, throwing his arm back at the horses behind him. “Just like you wouldn’t have been nearly trampled to death if you’d just waited for me to help you off.”
“I don’t need your help, Keeran, and if I do, I’ll fucking ask for it,” she screamed at him, stepping closer to him, too.
“Oh, you don’t? You’d have handled Shiva and his friends, would you? You’d have got yourself somewhere safe when you were knocked out cold by the Astraea after they nearly beat you to death? You’d have stopped that horse from kicking your skull in? I hate to break it to you, Aelia, but everybody needs help sometimes, so can we just stop with the brattish behaviour?”
Aelia’s blood thrummed in her ears, her anger boiling over as he dug into her oldest, deepest insecurities. So, she dug right back.
“Who are you trying to fool, Keeran? Who is this white knight bullshit really for?” She stepped closer again, a flash of lightning through the slits in the beams enough to show him glowering down at her, his black hair still plastered to his face. “Because I saw you in the woods, I saw your eyes when you so valiantly came to my rescue. Youlovedhurting them. You’re no hero, Keeran, so pull your head out of your arse and stop acting like you’ve got your shit together when you’re clearly even more fucked up than the rest of us.”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” Keeran seethed, the shadows around him seeming darker all of a sudden. She knew she should stop, knew she was being downright stupid to poke at somethingshe didn’t even nearly understand, but she couldn’t help it. The rage that had been simmering in her over the last few days erupted through her, and she was swept along with it.
“Like what, Keeran? You don’t like someone calling you out on your bullshit? Then maybe don’t go poking around in other people's. Or are you such a monster that you get off on that too?”
Suddenly, he was close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating off him.
“You think I’m a monster because I enjoyed beating up the men who planned on hurting you?” He barked a laugh, humourless and harsh. “You don’t know the half of it. But I promise you, if you keep talking to me like you have over the last couple of days, I’ll show you just how much of a monster I can be.”
“You don’t scare me,” she sneered, her anger deserting her as he loomed over her, one enormous column of barely restrained violence. He dropped his head even closer, his face mere inches from hers.
“No?” he asked, his voice little more than a growl. “Then why are you trembling?”
She didn’t trust herself to answer, didn’t trust her voice not to betray her. Because in that moment, it wasn’t fear that was making her tremble, nor was it her soaked clothes. It was his proximity, so close she was surrounded by the smell of rain and spice and smoke. It made her want to throw herself against him, to find out just how wicked that other side of him was, to let him have every vulnerable inch of her to do with as he pleased. Just as she had that night in the woods, just like she’d wanted to almost every moment since.
The energy between them shifted, the silence filled with the sound of the wind driving the rain against the walls of the barn, the tension between them as searing as the lightning tearing through the world outside. He felt it too; she could see it in theshadows of his face, the way the anger melted into something just as devastating, just as terrifying. And gods, how she wanted him to unleash it on her.
He was so close, his head dipped to nearly level with hers; if she just lifted onto her toes, she’d be able to brush her lips against his. Her eyes dropped to them, slightly parted for his quickened breaths, and warmth spiralled through her core as the urge to crush against them surged through her.
One of the horses neighed, voicing its ongoing concern as the storm rattled the barn doors with growing vigour, and the spell was broken.
Rational thought slammed into Aelia, overriding the desire that had overwhelmed her moments before. She took an unsteady step back, stunned by the force of her own emotions. Something flashed in Keeran’s eyes, and for a second, she thought he was going to pull her back to him. But it was gone almost as soon as she saw it.
