My swallow was thick, and I couldn’t hide it in these close quarters. For the first time, something salty tinged the back of my tongue. As with Hart’s other emotions, I recognized this for what it was: his fear. He feared my judgment. He was scared of my reaction. I honestly couldn’t say what my reaction would have been had I learned the truth from Hart himself, but I knew it was mine to have nonetheless.
“You should have let me decide. I put my trust in you, Hart, and you never did the same with me.”
Carl tapped two times on the wagon seat. The signal we approached the gate. Hart’s teeth ground together as he tucked away his response.
Unfortunately, I found myself desperate to hear it.
14
Should the worst happen, should the Champion fail, there is another way.
— WHAT MAKES A CHAMPION OF ORDER
HART
She’d finally asked a question, finally started this conversation, and instead of continuing it, we were frozen in silence. My body wrapped around hers, hidden in the false bottom of the merchant’s wagon while Carl spoke to the gate guard. Ember pressed further into me the longer we waited. The fact that she used me as a shield from whatever might come had impossible thoughts running through my head.
“We need to check your cargo,” the guardsaid.
The next sound came when Carl hopped down from the wagon to lift the tarp. I wasn’t worried. Carl had snuck youngleaf and other illegal imports into the city this way for years. He’d never been caught. Still, it was unclear how desperate my father was to find us.
Ember scooted closer, and the taste of her anxiety was tart on my tongue. My hand that rested on her hip fell across her stomach. She unclenched minutely as it did, like the band of my arm securing her brought comfort.
“Open this,” the guard said.
Carl climbed onto the wagon and took his time opening one of the boxes of wheat he transported. He must have stood directly atop us now.
The guard prodded another crate. “That one, too.”
My breaths were even in an attempt to reassure Ember. She drew shorter and shorter breaths, though they remained quiet. I didn’t know how to help. The flavor of her anxiousness only grew stronger. The guard must have asked about another box. I missed what he said as Ember twitched in my arms, nearly flailing.
I rolled her toward me to evaluate her expression. The tartness built to the bitter taste of her fear. Her wide eyes showed the same panic, but she gritted her teeth in an attempt to stopper any noise in her throat. With a sharp jolt, she pointed toward her ankle.
The press of her against me was its own torture, but I couldn’t find what frightened her. This couldn’t be nerves from the search. She flinched again. The jab of her finger toward her ankle was more aggressive this time.
Carl and the guard reviewed another box of his cargo—at least, that’s what the movement of their voices indicated. I needed to check her ankle before it pushed her to voice something and got us caught.
My arm around her stomach tightened, holding her in place, and I made eye contact with her before pulling her leg toward my hand. She twitched again, but the panic in her eyes, her fear on my tongue, was the same as before I reached for her. It had to be from whatever pained her, not my wandering hands.
Her fierce brown eyes pleaded with me to move faster. I caught her ankle in my grip and pulled the length of her skirt aside. Another full-body spasm sent me searching for something—anything—on her skin.
Even in the dark, confined to our hidden compartment, I found the rodent. The little beast latched on to her ankle with its teeth. Quicker than the rat could flee, I grabbed it and snapped its neck. We couldn’t risk it whining in my hand and drawing attention to our location.
Ember’s eyes shut as my hand smoothed back and forth over the irritated skin. I sought to reassure her more than anything, to tell her the pest was gone and that her body could relax. While only moments ago she’d been taut like a bow string, now she seemed to liquify in my arms.
I let my fingers trail up and down her ankle again—proof she was safe, at least from the rat. The rush of adrenaline that had overtaken me in an effort to protect her subsided, and something smoky coated my mouth.
The taste of her lust was impossible to ignore. I pushed away the satisfaction that I had stoked it, even as I felt my lip curl into a smirk.
Goddess, I hoped she couldn’t see it.
I pushed away the haze her lust always brought and tried to think rationally. My finger stroked the teeth marks of the rodent’s bite. I should really heal her. Who knew what diseases the pest brought?
With a final attempt to school my features, I turnedher toward me for a silent conversation. My hand remained against her skin, but my gaze jumped back and forth between her face and where I gripped her, yet to take.
I must have conveyed my question. The sting of the bite was still fresh, I was sure. She worried her lip and nodded.
While I wished I had more time to celebrate her acknowledgment of our connection, I needed to take her lust before it cooled. The smoky taste only grew the more I crowded her. I didn’t give myself time to wonder at it before I dropped the shield I’d learned to hold between us whenever we touched.
