Chapter 13
Vessa
Salt and fire.
A cold oblivion.
Thunder.
What afterlife was this? Had the Elders been right? Then she was surely deep in the Pits, for she’d forsaken both gods and the Elders long ago.
“Ves.”
That voice. Thatname. Her body became suddenly aware, her brain rushing through a dozen details, trying to catch up. A sword striking true. Freezing water.Death.
But she wasn’t in the Pits. She wasn’t dead at all.
It was much, much worse.
She was naked. And pressed fully against a topless Kedar. Her breasts were smashed to his bare chest, her arms tucked beneath his at his sides. His heavy, thick-muscled arms were around her, a hand resting on the back of her thigh and another on the small of her back.
Skin to skin.
Vessa peered up, tried to pull free, and only managed to get a cramp that gripped her neck and shoulders.
“Be still,” he grumbled.
“You undressed me?” Her voice cracked and her throat burned. If she wasn’t dead… that meant he had dived in after her. How had he found her?
“It was the only way to get you warm.” His voice was huskier than usual, as if she’d woken him up, and it was so much deeper with her ear to his chest. It competed with his thunderous heartbeats. “I could have left you.”
“Well, you should have,” she snapped, but the venom wasn’t nearly as potent as she would have liked.
“Most would show gratitude for being saved. You seem unfamiliar with such a custom.”
In a span of days, he had saved her lifetwice. She wasn’t grateful, she was furious. Ashamed.
Kedar’s fingers tapped against her back once. “Do you remember anything from after I pulled you out?” The way he asked it made her feel like there was something else to the question.
Vessa tried to remember. She had a flash of Kedar making the fire bigger, of him standing over her doing gods knew what, but little else. “Just some fragments.”
His chest rose as he inhaled deeply. “I had to take my helmet off. To give you breath.”
Of course he had. Unless she had come to on her own, Kedar would have had to help. By sealing his mouth over hers.
Hadshe seen his face? Had she finally looked him in the eyes? Felt his lips on hers? She tried to conjure the image, summon it from the reaches of her consciousness, but found nothing. She was almost disappointed.
“Ugh,” she groaned. “I don’t remember seeing your stupidly precious, must-be-kept-a-secret face. Now let me up.”
“No. Your temperature is still too low. Your body, even with the help of a fire, wouldn’t be able to stabilize.”
She struggled against him for a moment, but his arms were a weight she couldn’t currently move. And, he was right. Damn him. Every point of contact that she made with him was warming, but the bone-deep freeze was still there.
If she was going to be alive, she might as well not make it any more miserable than it already was.
When she settled against him begrudgingly and growled out a Xaala insult, a purred sound of satisfaction rumbled through him.Bastard.“I bet you’relovingthis.”
A soft laugh shook him. “This is for survival. I’d do the same for any comrade.”
