I glance at her hand, at how white her knuckles are, like she wouldn’t let go of that knife for anything. Setting the bowl aside, I retrieve her discarded bodice and undergarment. The heat of her attack is probably still boiling in her blood, but the cold will eventually set in.
Finally, she looks at the knife, then at me, and turns to clean her hand and the blade in the water, drying the weapon on moss. When Istep close again, she accepts the bodice but keeps the knife at her side, out of my sight.
I extend a waiting hand. “I can hold the blade for you.”
She shakes her head, tucks the knife between her knees, and starts struggling into her clothes.
“At least let me help with the laces?”
She nods, and though it’s the last thing I want to do, I sit behind her, straddling the log, and help her dress. The moment we shared has passed, and that’s probably best. We’re in the midst of a terrible situation, one where high emotions can easily twist into unbidden desires.
She held a knife to my throat and almost left me for dead, the only other person in the vale she knew to be hanging on to a thread of life. This lust—thisattraction—will lead Raina to a rude awakening once we’re safe at Winterhold. There’s so much she doesn’t know about me. My darkness and her darkness are two very different things. I’m nothing if not one big secret. Far from the kind of man she needs in her life.
Knowing that still doesn’t make me want her less.
After the last ribbon is tied, she retrieves the thigh belt, straps it on, and swaps out the old dagger for this new blade, still turned away from my sight.
She slips the dagger in her boot and returns to the log, surprising me when she tucks herself between my knees, clasps my face in her hands, and kisses me again. It’s a kiss that’s so sensual and deep I’m left breathless and starving for more when she pulls away and presses her forehead to mine.
Gods, Iachefor this woman in my bones. Like I’ve known her for an age.
“You can’t keep kissing me like that, or we might never leave this place,” I tell her. My heart races like I’m a boy again, darkness and secrets be damned. “Worse yet,” I add, “I might never learn why you hate crows so much.”
It’s a bad joke given what happened in the vale, but a moment of levity is needed.
At last, the tension lifts, and a smile tugs the corner of her mouth, though it doesn’t reach her eyes.“The Prince of the East has been following us,”she signs.“His crows have been watching.”
It takes a moment for her words to sink in, but then…
I close my eyes on a sigh, feeling like a damned fool. Of course, he has.
Of course, a prince who can command a flock of crows would use them as spies. There is, after all, an all-seeing eye on his flag.
“But it is more than that,”she adds.“He has been watchingme.”She pats her chest.
I frown, not liking the path this story is taking. “Through the birds?”
“Yes. And he comes to me when I sleep.”
My blood goes cold. “Why did you not tell me? And what do you mean, hecomesto you?”
She shrugs and taps two fingers against her temple.“He appears. In my mind. It happened just now. He asked what my marks mean and thanked me for the show, and for…”
I narrow my eyes when she pauses. “For…what?”
She glances toward her leg—toward that knife—and after a moment of hesitation, unfastens the leather strap of her dagger belt with a trembling hand.
“This blade belonged to my father. He found it on the Malorian seashore when I was very small. He was a guard witch for the Northland Watch. He called it a…”Her hands go still again, and she bites her lip, the look on her face one of internal strife.
“You can trust me, Raina.” I push a lock of hair behind her ear. “I swear it.”
She unsheathes the blade and holds it before me in one hand. With the other, she signs, “A God Knife.”
My mind stumbles around her words, maybe because I’m still torn between desire and utter confusion, but…
I look at the blade.Reallylook at it. There’s no blood covering it now. No lovely hand wrapped around its hilt. No stunning woman hiding it from my sight.
My magick, buried and held to task, wails like an animal in a trap.
