“Not yet.”
But it’s close enough that I will make it.
The trees thin and I am sure I recognize this area. I pause and scan the ground, looking for familiar footprints. It doesn’t take long for me to find the boot prints of my fellow warriors and then the prints from the boots that her people wear.
I lift my gaze from the ground, and in front of me is the river.
“Tell me that safe to drink,” she says.
It’s moving freely and swiftly at this point. Even if it wasn’t, I would drink it and suffer the consequences of being wrong gladly. I set her on the bank. Then strip off my shirt, my boots and socks, and finally my sword and pants.
Then I wade into the river. The cold wraps around my skin and I almost dive beneath before remembering the whisperer. Instead, I swim with my head above, reveling in the cold as if I can quench my thirst by absorbing the water through my skin. I turn and walk back, scooping up handfuls into my mouth.
Ruby is still on the shore. She hasn’t even taken off her boots.
“Come on,” I call to her.
“I can’t swim.”
That is a serious problem, but not when I can solve right now.
“Take off your clothes and bring the water skin.” I wade towards the shore to meet her.
She kneels and removes her boots and socks, then strips off her shirt and pants, but she leaves her underwear on as if I haven’t already seen her naked.
“Take it all off, Ruby. I need to see you.”
She stares at me, and I wonder if she will argue with me about this small thing.
Finally, she nods. She peels off her underwear, and she steps into the water. Her lips part as she gasps from the icy bite of the water.
The cold has done nothing to diminish the hardness of my meq. It juts up out of the water. Perhaps that is what is terrifying her.
She walks towards me cautiously, holding the water skin. “It feels wrong to be bathing in the water we’re about to drink.”
“Don’t drink from downstream.”
She is unsteady on her feet, so I offer her my hand. She takes in, her fingers gripping tight. I fill up the water skin and then hand it to her. It’s only then she drinks. She stops herself before she empties it, as if she knows that too much, too soon, will only make her sick.
She closes her eyes. “Nothing has ever tasted so good.”
“That’s not true. You taste much better.”
She opens her eyes and glances up at me. Her gaze travels over the markings on my chest and shoulders and along my arms. “Have you been hard the whole time you carried me?”
“Yes, but I had no will to make use of it before.” I needed all my energy to make it to the river. Now we are here, my body seems to have remembered it is in rut and wants to continue what we started.
Does she want to continue?
“We can rest today, right? Eat and have a proper sleep?”
“There’s no shelter and no blankets.” Nothing to give my mate. If we were with the others, I could at least offer her a blanket.
“We haven’t had either of them so far. I’m sure we can make do.” She rubs her arms and shivers. “Any chance you can make a fire so I can warm up?”
“Will you stay naked?”
Her lips turn up and there is a heat in her eyes that I want to see more of. “I believe you made a promise about licking me until I begged you to stop.”
