“What are you d-doing?” I demand.
“Making sure you get the heat you need,” he says, as if that will make everything all right.
My eyes flick to the dagger above my head, where I set it down when he laid me in front of the fire, and his eyes follow my stare.
“I’d rather not get stabbed for my efforts to save your life,” he says, “but I would understand. Especially after this.”
He wraps his arms around me, pulling me tightly against his chest, pinning my arms between us. My biceps are glued to my sides, bound by the iron band of his own. I suck in a breath, holding it as my body tenses, preparing itself for the need to defend, but the male doesn’t move. He simply lays still with my chest pressed against his, and my back to the fire.
The tension slowly leaks out of my body, and I will myself to draw in a deep breath, my lungs filling with the scent of citrus and cedar. His scent. My eyes grow heavy as the heat of his body seeps into mine. I feel like an icy puddle melting in the thaw and sigh deeply as my eyes close.
“Not yet,” he murmurs, his lips and a few stray locks of wet raven hairbrushing my forehead. “Stay awake just a little longer. You hit your head when you fell.”
“I’m fine,” I whisper.
“You keep saying that. I’m beginning to wonder if you even know what that word means.”
His arms loosen their hold, and he cups the back of my head, his fingers prodding the tender knotted lump I received in my fall. I pull a sharp hiss of air through my teeth and his hand falls to my back to rest between my shoulders.
“What was that thing?” I wonder aloud.
“A naiad. She guards a spring near the crossing.”
I guess that means some feaarelike the La’tari fairy stories. Though the naiads I read about as a child were benevolent creatures, beautiful and timid. Not at all like the foul thing that tried to drown me. He spoke to her, and not in the feyn tongue. I’m not fluent but I know enough to recognize it when I hear it.
“What did she say to you?” My eyes close with a weight so great I begin to wonder if I’ll ever open them again.
“She named her price for your life,” he says softly.
“What was it?” I murmur as the darkness comes to take me.
“It doesn’t matter.” His lips are so soft and his breath so warm when he whispers against my skin. “I would pay it a hundred times over.”
The words are all but lost to the void.
CHAPTER 20
THE NORTHERN WOODS
Present Day
Just a dream. I’m safe.
I repeat the words in my head, struggling to shed the bloody dreams from my waking life. It seems the reprieve of my demon was short lived. My darkness now very much at the forefront of my mind with demands of its own.
My eyes struggle to focus, and I’m flooded with memories of the icy river churning around me, forcing its way into my lungs.
I’m safe and warm and…
High flames still lick the logs of the crackling fire. The general must have been feeding it through the night. If not, it would have died out long ago.
The weight of his arm is draped over my hip, his thumb sweeping idle circles dangerously low on my belly. His breath is a rhythmic pulse, teasing the fine whisps of hair on the back of my neck, his rigid length pressed firmly against my backside.
My darkness uncoils under the attention of his caress, fightingto the surface to meet him. With every pass of his thumb, it yearns to be satisfied, just as it pushed me to find my release in the ring every morning. My stomach flutters, tensing as my core clenches and the gentle swirl of his hand falters. He rises from our makeshift bed on the floor, clothes rustling as he dresses behind me.
I remain frozen on the floor, too many puzzled thoughts rage in the crashing torrent of my mind. It occurs to me that he touched me much the same way the night we delivered the sword to the orphanage, and he’d been obviously displeased by the actions of his hand then. Telling myself that the touch is nothing more than a thoughtless fidget I breathe a little easier. Leanna taught me enough to easily excuse the warm press of his malehood in the morning. Some things, I was taught, are out of a male’s control.
The floorboards creak beneath the heavy fall of his footsteps and he lays my clothes in a neatly folded pile by my head before leaving the cabin.
