Only when I saw both their chests rise and fall could I breathe again too.
Chapter 11
AMAIA
When I woke, it was to dim golden lighting and the scent of light, earthy smoke. My vision was blurry when I peered around the unfamiliar room.
No—a home.
The bed I was lying on was in one corner of a much larger room. A simple kitchen—a warm stone hearth and a small table—was on the opposite wall. The floor was peppered with a plethora of soft multicolored rugs of different patterns and types of threads, to soften against the stone.
I saw a door, a small window beside it, which showed a starry night, clear and bright. Next to the door was a riding tether, a sheathed sword, a pair of thick, muddy boots.
My body ached fiercely. It felt like I’d been pulled apart, my muscles and tendons and bones stretched to the extreme, only now I was shrinking back into myself.
I remembered Samryn falling, a clear vision in my mind’s eye, and the racing panic as I’d sprinted toward him in the dark woods. I remembered the pain—therot—and then I remembered…Alaryk.
Struggling to sit up in the comfortablebed, I saw that a thick quilt had been laid over me, the material soft as silk, keeping the chill away. I thought at first there might’ve been a fire going in the hearth I’d spied beside the kitchen, in the middle of a lounging area, but no. The smokiness I smelled was coming from a little glass pot on a round wooden table with spindled legs beside the bed. It looked like a pot of blue ash on first inspection, but in the middle there was a tiny ember that was smoking, a wisp of smoke rising into the air.
My head was pounding as I pushed my body up, but even that winded me. I’d woken up in this state only a few times in my life, but I recognized the lingerings of my heartstone magic. A gift and a curse, perhaps.
For a moment, I thought I might be alone in this strange dwelling. But then I froze when I heard the telltale splash of water, coming from a room off the lounging area, which I couldn’t see.
A skipped heartbeat later, a thin, gossamer curtain was spread and I saw Alaryk stepping through it.
Naked.
Well, nearly. He had a drying cloth wrapped around his hips, tied in a neat knot like a sarong, as water droplets from what I assumed was his bath rolled down his bare chest.
My swallow was loud. The ends of his long silver-white hair were damp, turning nearly translucent. His blue eyes, gleaming in the low light, tracked to me as my own dipped down the surprisingly stunning line of his body in disbelief. The scar trailing over his jaw shone silver in the light.
A warrior’s body,I couldn’t help but recognize. Only Alaryk was much larger. Rippling muscle led to a tightly packed abdomen. His shoulders were impossibly wide—if anything, his riding clothes made him look smaller than he truly was.
And he was halfway across the room.
When he walked toward the table in the small kitchen, I saw a carafe of what might’ve been water or wine. He poured itinto a goblet—wine—and took a sip as he regarded me over the rim. My tongue was still stuck to the roof of my mouth, tracking him like I would a dangerous, wildpyrokiI was trying to tame.
When he drained the contents of the goblet, his hair fell back from his chest, and I saw a flash of metal. His dark nipples were pierced through. Suddenly my face flamed, remembering the conversation I’d had at the feast last night.
Had that been last night? How long had I been recovering?
Another clink came. He filled another goblet from a metal spigot in the wall, the hinge squeaking when he turned it off. Then he finally approached me, and I straightened in the bed.
I was still wearing the dress I’d worn to the feast. One of my only dresses I’d stuffed into my travel pack when I’d left home. The hem was covered in mud and forest grime, stained, but thankfully notoff.
I thought of what Ethrisha had told me with twinkling eyes during the night of the feast. That Alaryk had many lovers…and here I was in his bed, even though I knew nothing had happened.
But it still begged the question…
“Why am I here?” I asked when my tongue finally unstuck itself from the roof of my mouth.
Alaryk peered down at me, close enough that I could feel the heat of his naked body, radiating off him like a crackling fire. His gaze tracked to the little pot of blue ash, as if ensuring it was still lit. The blue nearly matched his eyes.
“You’ve been sleeping for two days,” he informed me.
My belly twinged in alarm. Had I missed the hatching?
“That didn’t answer my question.”
