He looked ill. From drink? Perhapsthatcould explain my lack of memory.
Yet I did not feel sick.
My focus traveled across his well-toned chest to where a pair of short drawstring breeches hung scandalously low at his narrow hips. My gaze snapped up, heat building across my face, and that was when my thoughts on the subject of the nearly naked man sharply diverged.
I felt very strongly that I should not be staring at this objectively beautiful specimen of a man while he was clearly ill and in such a vulnerable…state.
And yet…
I’d woken in his bed. That fact carried a strong implication that I’d already seen this very sight. Experienced it. Likely, I’d studied it closely, and not in academic pursuit.
The flush in my cheeks drifted down my neck, beneath my thin night garment, as if gravity were ardently tugging at it.
The facts added up to an obvious conclusion—anintriguinglyprovocative one—and—
I blinked, and the face staring at me changed. The room disappeared.
“Amber!”
The man grins at me from across a narrow alleyway, bright sunlight bleeding from between two buildings to set his blue eyes alight. Only he isn’t a man yet. He is a boy. Fourteen years old. I know that, like I know I can claim the very same number of years.
I am nearly grown, and I have better things to do than follow Wilder down an alley on the edge of town to watch him prove that he can charm the alewife into giving us a sample of her latest brew using nothing but his beguiling face and a few well-chosen words applied to his mischief like grease to the wheels of a cart. I have better things to do, yet there I stand, captivated by my friend’s boyish charm and—
“Amber?”
“Wilder…” I murmured, and despite the familiarity of his name on my tongue, no further understanding blossomed. He looked familiar, and some latent memory painted him with the brushstrokes of a beloved brother, and yet he wasnotlooking at me like a brother.
My body’s reaction to his proximity—to his relative undress—wasnotthat of a sibling.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Have I…Have I made a hopeless mess of this?”
I had no answer for him. I had no answers for myself, and with each passing second, the weight of my own nescience seemed to push me a little further toward the cliff’s edge of true terror.
“Do you want me to go?” Wilder bent over on the opposite side of the bed, and when he rose with two crumpled pieces of clothing, I understood. This wasnothis room.
It was mine.
Which meant I should have recognized my surroundings.
I indulged another look around the space, noting the candle on the bedside table, the small hand-carved wooden box, and…
From somewhere beyond the room, a bell chimed, and its heavy, repeated toll sent a familiar bolt of urgency ringing through my legs, which suddenly turned me toward the corner. I reached, with no true intent, for a garment I hadn’t noticed before where it lay draped over the arm of the green chair.
Intriguing!My limbs were responding to the familiar chime with actions they were clearly accustomed to taking, even though my mind had not caught up with this routine. Though my brain refused to tell me where I was.WhoI was, beyond my given name.
Amber.
“Who—” I stopped to clear my throat. It felt sore and scratchy. “Who are you?”
Confusion washed over Wilder’s expression, leaving it blank like beach sand beneath a wave’s retreat.
A sharp knock echoed from the far side of the closed door, and my head swiveled in that direction as a deep voice called from beyond the room.“Amber?”
Wilder flinched at the voice, scurrying to find the opening in his tunic as his other garment fell to his feet again.
“Amber? I’m coming in. We need to talk,” the voice said plainly, firmly.
The door creaked open before I could formulate a response.
