What am I doing?
It was nearly midnight, and yet she had not managed to get a wink of sleep.
Perhaps Aaron has cursed me with sleeplessness.
The thought made her frown deeper into her pillow, partly because she knew it could not be true. Aaron was the sole reason she couldn’t sleep, yes, but he did not possess magical powers.
She dragged the blanket higher over her head even as her thoughts refused to settle. How could they, when the man haunting her mind was in the chamber just across from hers? Only two walls away.
Aaron had kissed her so softly that it unsettled her far more than anything else he could have done. The memory of the kiss haunted her. His heavy breaths, his dark green eyes, and the way his chest heaved against hers.
The moment had been perfect while it lasted, but then he had ordered her to forget it, as though it were nothing but a minor inconvenience.
Edith scoffed.
As if.
She kicked the blankets off her feet, her face heating in embarrassment.
She had kissed him back just as fervently. She had put her arm around his neck and slid her tongue into his mouth first. There was nothing worse than that, and the fact that she’d done it without thinking made her want to vanish without a trace.
Her gaze flitted toward the door, and she exhaled.
I ken he’s sleeping perfectly well.
The thought left a bitter taste in her mouth. She hated the fact that it even bothered her at all.
Aaron was arrogant. It was bad enough that he had trapped her in this arrangement. But now he had something else to hold over her. Something she had given to him willingly and could not take back, no matter how much she wished she could.
’Tis no surprise that he can sleep.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, sitting upright for a moment as she considered storming into his chamber. If she could not rest because of his actions, then he also deserved to spend the entire night awake.
Nay, ‘tis far too petty.
She reached for the lantern on her bedside table, her eyes falling on the folded parchments next to it. Her brow furrowed slightly.
It was all she managed to return with after Aaron had intruded into the healer’s chamber. He had taken her hand before Martin could give her the book.
Perhaps that was why she had time to think about him and his darned kiss.
I willnae allow him to distract me.
She reached for the parchments, scanning through some of the notes she had scribbled during her lessons.
She sighed. It was a struggle to keep her mind on them. She flipped the topmost parchment over onto its clean side, then went to fetch a quill and ink from her drawer.
If anything was going to quiet her mind tonight, it would be drawing.
Her lips pursed as she moved from her bed to the chair, determined to make something out of the night. She pressed the quill slightly against the parchment, tracing the outline of a yarrow.
Her hand moved with ease until it didn’t. A drop of ink fell on the sheet, and she froze, her breath catching in her throat at the image staring back at her.
She had not been drawing a yarrow at all.
She had drawnhim. Aaron.
A frustrated sound tore from her throat as she struck the ink straight across his smug face, ruining the image in a single stroke.
