Chapter 6 - Kalla #2
If his story was true, then he and his band of rebels had come up here to kill their princess. She’d obviously escaped, which meant she was still on her way to the capital and more guards might follow. All things Thorn would want to know.
I’d done what I’d set out to do in a matter of heartbeats. I should have felt victorious. Proud at the very least. Ready to sink my fangs into Jael’s neck and give him the oblivion he clearly craved. I should have wanted to do my duty, rid our territory of this non-vampire, and go home.
Instead, I ladled stew into a wooden bowl and set it on the small table beside the bed. “Let me help you sit up so you can eat.”
Keeping my touch gentle, I set my hand on his shoulder and swallowed the whimper that threatened to slip through my lips at the warmth of his skin. So much warmer than a human mortal, as though the sun were hiding inside him.
I slid my fingers over his back, taking note of the muscles between his shoulder blades and the raised marks of yet more scars, until I had a solid enough hold on him to support his weight.
Maybe it would have been wiser to step away for the sake of propriety—and my sanity—but I couldn’t bring myself to leave.
Even with all the warnings and practicalities screaming at me to put distance between us or do my duty and kill him, his warmth, his presence, his newness, was a gift I didn’t want to let go of.
I kept my place at his side and watched him reach for the food, relieved that his attention was so fixed on the bowl that he didn’t notice the way I took in the bare skin across his ribs, the flex of his biceps, the twitch of thick muscles along his shoulders.
I swallowed around my dry tongue, then frowned when Jael set his bowl down after a single bite.
“Not to your taste?” I asked.
“It’s fine.”
For the first time, I caught the way he skimmed the truth. Although his reply came smoothly off his tongue, I spotted the faint curl of his lip and the subtle shift of his pupils.
“As you said, we don’t eat a lot of food,” I explained, “so I’m not great at making anything special. But it’ll stick to your ribs and give you the energy you need to heal. Assuming you want to.”
His faint hesitation was answer enough, and I made up my mind right there. If he refused to eat, I would kill him. It would be clear he had no interest in living. If he took the bowl…
Duty screamed at me to act. What did it matter if he wanted to live? He was a stranger in our territory looking to start a war. His brokenness was irrelevant. Those lost, desperate stares into the abyss meant nothing.
The curl in his upper lip grew more pronounced, but he reached for the bowl and forced down mouthful after mouthful, hiding a grimace with every bite. And I… I was relieved. Relieved that he cared enough to keep breathing.
What was I doing?
I grasped at the excuse that he might have more to tell me—any reason to keep him alive a little while longer.
While he ate, I stared at his scars, the symbols etched into his flesh. Now that he was sitting up, I noticed more along the lines of his shoulders, at least another twelve, bringing them to a total of nineteen, and had to wonder if they were connected with his desire for revenge.
Jael finished his meal and handed me the bowl. “You were right. I needed that.”
Taking it as the closest I would get to a thank you, I acknowledge it with a “You’re welcome.”
“It needs some leffis leaf.”
I frowned. “What’s that?”
“A common enough plant. Looks sort of like a feather. Adds a peppery flavour to the broth.”
We sat in silence for a while, and I felt strangely comfortable.
All my life I’d been told that strangers were a threat.
We had to kill them on sight because their first act would be to try to kill us.
But so far Jael had made no attempt on my life.
On the contrary, the first thing he’d done was to offer me his.
It wasn’t that I doubted Thorn’s concerns.
I knew what the dangers were, knew how recklessly I was dangling over the fire.
And yet, in Jael’s company, I felt refreshed.
I’d found something novel and unexpected for the first time in my life, and it was as exciting as it was terrifying.
“You’re not going to ask?”
Jael’s quiet question startled me out of my musing. “Ask what?”
“Why I would have plunged two countries into war for my personal revenge?”
I searched his expression for guilt, for grief—for any sign that he was trying to play me. His face was devoid of emotion, his eyes empty pools of hard green glass, but I doubted the blandness was real.
“I assume you had your reasons,” I said.
And I assumed those reasons would be nothing I could bring back to the fury to justify my crime of not killing him.
He scoffed. “That’s a generous outlook.”
“You were willing to die for your revenge. It tells me that whatever you suffered was bad enough to give up everything to get back at him. No one becomes a rebel unless they’ve been pushed to the breaking point.”
He stared at me, his lips parted, and I smiled back, hoping it hid the turbulent, traitorous feelings roiling inside my chest as well as my curiosity about a dozen other subjects I would much rather have discussed. “Get some more rest. Tomorrow we’ll see if we can get you up and walking.”