This was the moment when someone with heart might murmur something soft. Might touch my shoulder. Might say they were sorry. I knew he could see me clearly in the dark.
But Dorian only sat still, silent.
At last, after a long pause, he said, “You should sleep.”
I nodded, surprised to feel the weight of exhaustion pressing down all at once. Despite the cold, I dropped onto my side and curled in tight, head on my arm. “Do you think we’re safe here?”
Dorian stood. He towered above me from this angle, more shadow than man. “We’re safe.”
It was a lie. But I was still grateful for it.
He stepped toward the cloak strung over the thorns and lifted one edge, tugging one edge taut, the pale moonlight gilding the straight lines of his shoulders.
“Are you going to sleep?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, not looking back.
I wondered if that was a lie, too.
I fell asleep with the image of him standing like that burned into my mind. Silent, watchful, his black hair silvered by moonlight.
Somehow, I dreamed. Just one dream.
In it, I swam beneath a frozen lake, shattering ice with my arms, trying to reach a shore that never drew closer.
I woke shaking hours later, my teeth chattering. Dorian was still at the alcove’s edge, exactly where I’d last seen him.
He turned toward me in a slow crouch, his movements careful. The back of his hand pressed lightly to my cheek. He made a low, guttural noise of disapproval—it reminded me of the noise Isa the nurse would make when she treated my cuts and scrapes.
“I c-can’t s-sleep?—”
“You’re freezing.” He stood and disappeared from view.
Then I felt him behind me. The weight of him settling close. A hand came around my shoulders and drew me back, firm and steady.
I tensed, instinct flaring. For a breath, I resisted.
But his warmth was drugging. And his strength was absolute—especially now, when my limbs trembled from the cold. I let him pull me in, let him align my spine with his chest, let his body wrap around mine.
Heat bloomed down my back, through my legs, curling into my fingers. It was almost as wonderful a feeling as that day my mother had lifted me onto her shoulders. But different. Not better, but necessary.
From near my ear, his voice murmured, “Sleep. Morning will come soon enough.”
And I did. I slept the rest of the night without dreams.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When I woke,the sun had risen; across from me, blood-hungry hedge thorns glinted in the light. I lifted my head.
The alcove was empty. Dorian’s cloak still hung from the thorns.
I sat up, my chest tightening. He was gone?—
The cloak shifted, and a hand swept it aside. Dorian stepped through. “Thought I heard you wake.”
I let out a slow breath. “Where were you?”
“Scouting.”
