“Oh gods, Keeran, that’s good,” she groaned.
Yup, every night.
“I’m glad you like it.” He smiled, his own appetite waning with every bite she took, a hunger of an entirely different nature replacing it. If she kept talking like that, he’d lose the battle with himself and have her crying his name in earnest.
Fortunately, she was too preoccupied with her food to so much as glance his way, and he tucked into his own meal. It was good, sure, but nothing to warrant the sounds she was making. Remembering the meal from the night before, he wondered what kind of food she was used to. Seasoning was expensive, and if the stores he’d rifled through in her home had been anything to go by, food must have been mainly about survival. It made sense if she couldn’t Shift— life couldn’t have been easy for her.
Regret lanced through him when he thought of all the meals he could cook for her, if he wasn’t limited to what he had in his pack. Guilt closely followed it, as he remembered how judgemental he’d been the night before, almost laughing to himself at her inability to cook. What a fucking arsehole.
Aelia scraped her bowl so clean that they probably wouldn’t need to wash up. He reached over to where she sat on the opposite side of the fire.
“Here,” he said, offering his bowl out to her. “I ate a lot on the road.”
She eyed it for a second, almost drooling with temptation before shaking her head.
So. Predictable.
“I can’t,” she started, staring at the bowl. “It’s yours?—”
“Take the fucking bowl, Aelia.” Her eyes snapped up to his, surprise mingling with just a trace of fear. His tone was soft, but he allowed just a hint of the other side of him to leak into it, the side that very few would dare argue with.
He smiled and held the bowl out closer to her. Aelia reached over and took it. Tentatively, but she took it.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” Keeran said, reclining once more onto his pack and dropping his head back on his hands, arching his neck to peer up at the stars. They offered no answers to the questions that circled his mind, a veritable vortex of confusion by this point, but he found some comfort in the familiar flecks of light.
He didn’t know what had inspired her to apologise earlier, what had gone through her mind when she’d had a whole day alone with nothing but her thoughts for company. But he was more grateful than he could ever convey for the tenuous peace that had settled between them. It was good that she’d actually listened to him, too, because he was way past the point of letting her stop him from helping her. Not now he understood her better.
If only he could unravel what the fuck he was feeling for her as easily. The darkness in him had never been this reactive to anyone he’d been with before, not even close. He felt volatile, in a way he hadn’t since he was a child, before he’d learnt how to control it.
The stars winked at him knowingly, as if privy to wisdom that as of yet eluded him. He sighed up at them before righting his neck to return his gaze to the small camp. Aelia had finished her second bowl and was elbow deep in her pack, biting her lip as she rummaged for whatever she was looking for. Light filled her face a moment before she pulled her arm free, thepoultice clasped in her hand, and she smiled triumphantly as she unscrewed the lid.
She shuffled where she sat, angling herself so he couldn’t see anything important as she lifted her top and started applying the pink paste.
Keeran didn’t let himself look, choosing to busy himself with clearing away the bowls and putting the cooling stew away for the night. By the time he was done, Aelia was trying to contort herself into positions no healthy body could ever achieve, let alone one still recovering from significant trauma, as she tried to rub the poultice into the more awkward places of her back.
A muscle twitched in Keeran’s jaw as he fought the urge to roll his eyes. The words slipped from between his lips before he could really think them through.
“Are you going to open the cuts that have barely healed, or are you going to let me help you?” he growled, letting her know the question may as well have been rhetorical.
Aelia’s hand dropped to her side, surprise widening her eyes as she stared up at him. The seconds ticked by; his expression controlled, hers an open book. He watched as scepticism, doubt and, finally, resolve flashed across her face.
“It’s only my back I can’t reach.” She narrowed her eyes as she offered the poultice up to him, a hint of her old antagonism leaching into her tone.
“It’ll be easier if you stand.” He reached past the tub and grabbed her wrist, pulling her to her feet. Aelia gasped as she came eye level with his chest.
“You could have just asked,” she grumbled, looking a little flustered as she craned her neck back to look up at him.
“Asking hasn’t got me very far with you,” he reminded her before using the wrist he still held to swivel her to face the other way, leaving her no choice but to twist on her feet. Only then did he move to take the tub from her, his fingers lingering on herskin as he did, looming close enough over her that he could smell the soap she’d used.
He watched her closely, reading her body’s reaction to his proximity, ready to step back at the first sign he’d crossed a line. Her breathing hitched as his fingers brushed over hers to take the pink salve, the movement of her chest quickening, colour stealing up her neck as a glazed look settled over her eyes.
“May I?” he asked, low in her ear.
“Yes,” Aelia breathed, and his heart somersaulted at the sound. The darkness in him stretched to its full height, a growl rumbling from deep in its scaled chest.
Keeran pulled away just enough to lift her top, the shadows from the fire dancing over her bruised skin. The cuts had all scabbed over, the skin knitting together at an inhuman rate; the poultice was working.
