Chapter 14 #4
-Sleep, Thea,- Soren commands quietly, sensing my tumultuous thoughts, and before I can protest or tell him that I don’t need mothering from a cat, my eyes are sliding closed and sleep is claiming me for its own.
Perhaps I do need a bit of mothering from a cat.
I hear him laugh lightly within my mind and then I know nothing more.
I wake to Killian standing at the entrance of my tent. I blink in the low light from the brazier in the corner and sit up, turning the knob on the lantern beside my bed to burn brighter.
“Killian?” I ask, rubbing my eyes. It’s still night, the sky above dark as pitch, clouds gently sweeping past the stars.
“I’m sorry to wake you, I just…”
“Are you alright?” My heart races. Did something happen? Is he hurt? Is the full force of the Alliance headed our way?
“Yes. I’m fine…Actually, no, I’m not,” he adds after a heartbeat, changing his mind.
Before I know what’s happening, he crosses to the bed in three long strides and drops to his knees, taking my face between his hands and pressing his lips to mine.
I’m so shocked that I forget to breathe, but the feeling of utter relief that rushes through my entire body is staggering.
He’s here and he’s whole and he’s kissing me.
Great fucking Makers, Killian is kissing me.
His lips are cool from being out in the frigid air, but soft as he presses them so softly against my own.
Starlight bursts behind my eyes, my entire world seeming to explode.
Just as I finally find that I can command my body once again and raise my hands to grab his shirt and tug him closer, to deepen the kiss and demand that he never stop, he pulls away.
I sway, my head swimming, and I blink several times to try to clear my thoughts.
Everything happened so damned quickly, I can barely even process it. Is this even real? A dream?
“I know this is madness. I know it cannot be. But I couldn’t go another second without knowing what your lips felt like, Tess.
I needed to fucking know.” I blink, barely able to breathe, certainly not able to respond.
He has blood and dirt streaked across his cheek and forehead, splashed down his throat.
What the fuck had happened tonight? Is this blood his, or someone else’s?
But he says nothing more, only rises and walks away, leaving me gaping in the silence.
-Well, that was…interesting,- Soren says in my mind a few moments later, and I whip my head to the side to find him staring, his eyes shining like mirrors in the dim light.
“You just sat there and watched?” I hiss.
-Well, I thought it would have been far more awkward if I got up and left in the middle of it.-
“Why didn’t you wake me when he first arrived?”
I swear the cat shrugs. -I wanted to see what would happen. He stood there for quite a while, just watching you. He seemed…very serious.-
“Fucking hells,” I groan, running a hand through my hair, trying to figure out what just happened—and what to do next. I can still feel the whisper of his lips against mine and my fingers drift upward, lightly tracing my skin. Such a brief touch, so gentle…
“You know what? No. Absolutely fucking not.” I throw my legs over the side of the bed and shove my feet into my boots, not bothering to put on pants.
I do throw a coat on over my nightgown though because it seems like a better idea than charging through a war camp with my ass nearly visible through this thin silk.
-No?- Soren drawls, stretching his long legs, claws digging into his pile of furs and his tail flicking from side to side.
“That wasn’t good enough, not for me.”
He chuckles inside my mind. -There’s my daska- I straighten at that and arch a brow. -Stubborn flower. It fits you oh so well, don’t you think?-
I narrow my eyes, but don’t argue. He isn’t wrong, after all.
“Stay here.”
I stomp outside, crossing the small distance between our tents when Soren’s voice whispers through my mind again.
-He isn’t there.-
I pause with my hand on the flap of Killian’s tent. I don’t hear any movement inside and I’m on a mission, so I sigh in annoyance.
-Where is he then, you absolute ass?-
-How you wound me, my beloved bonded.-
-Soren,- I growl back, warning clear in my voice and my Gift pulsing through my body, my palms growing cold.
I can hear the amusement in his voice when he responds. -The cave three hundred yards to the northeast, just past the stream.-
I look up, finding the stars Tobias taught me to navigate by all those years ago, and set off to find Killian.
The cave is set into the face of a small rise of stone—a small mountain, I suppose?
—and I see his boot prints along the small, worn path leading upward.
Once inside, I see nothing. Pitch black darkness greets me and I wonder if Soren is playing a joke.
I grit my teeth and vow to freeze the damn cat completely when I see a tiny flicker of light in the distance.
I charge forward and find that the light is coming from a tunnel. I follow it, shouting.
“Killian Blackheart! That’s it? Really? After all these weeks, all that build-up between us, and that’s all I get?! Well, I’ve got news for you if you think you can just kiss me like that and walk out, mysterious and yearning and…”
I stop dead and gawk when I emerge into an even larger cavern, an underground spring flowing through the space and creating a giant pool in the center surrounded by a low stone wall.
Stalactites hang from the towering ceiling, covered in glowing flowers that fill the space with a soft, purple light.
It reflects off of fragments of diamonds embedded in the rock walls.
It's absolutely breathtaking, but all of it pales in comparison to the sight of Killian shirtless, knee-deep in the pool. He’s still got his leathers on and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad one.
He holds himself perfectly still, staring at me and looking uncertain.
I let my eyes drift slowly down from those intense blue-gray eyes, down his throat and over his broad chest, droplets of water cascading downward, his tattoos dark and mesmerizing.
They drift lower still, down the hard planes of his stomach and over the…
jagged, angry red line that was most assuredly a gaping wound not long ago.
“What happened??” I gasp, running forward, worry cutting through everything else swirling inside my mind. He strides out of the pool, water sloshing down his body.
“I’m alright,” he says, voice low and gruff. He inhales sharply as I settle one hand on his stomach, the other gently touching the spot on his right side, just below his ribs.
“What happened?” I ask again after I determine that the wound is, in fact, closed, looking up to meet his eyes. He sighs.
“I was overconfident and careless. It was a mistake.” When I give him a look that clearly says he’s nowhere near done explaining this to me, he runs a hand through his hair and I realize that my hands are still on his body.
I don’t move them and he doesn’t ask me to.
“I was…apprehending a scout to interrogate, assuming he was unarmed, but he had a hidden blade. He was able to get it between the plates of my armor.”
“Copeland healed you?” He nods and I frown. “But why is there still a mark then?” When he’d healed me, there hadn’t been anything to show that I’d been injured at all save the faintest pink line, and even that faded quickly. This would surely leave a scar behind.
Killian clenches his jaw. “I asked him to leave it. As a reminder.”
“A reminder?” I whisper, pulling my gaze from his and letting it trace across his chest and arms and stomach again, noting every scar.
Some hidden beneath the ink, some more obvious, but all there by design, I realize.
He chose to have these scars remain on his body if Copeland is at his disposal at all times.
“A reminder that I’m human, that I’m not infallible. A reminder of what mistakes can cost.” After a moment he adds, “A reminder that life is far too short.”
I meet his gaze again, and amusement sparks in his eyes. They look more blue than gray in the purplish light sparkling down on us, and I’m reminded all over again how beautiful they are.
“What was it you were yelling when you stormed in here, Red? Something about ‘that’s all I get’?”
“Oh.” I clear my throat lightly and my cheeks heat. “Well, yes, I…” He gives me a challenging look and I narrow my eyes. I love that he pushes me. I love that he doesn’t back down. I love that he’s playful. I love…
I shift my shoulders back and hold his gaze.
“I was just curious if that pathetic excuse for a kiss was really all you had to offer.”
He tilts his head at me slowly. “Pathetic. Excuse. For a kiss,” he repeats.
“Oh, good, your hearing was unaffected by this little skirmish you were involved in.”
He moves so quickly I barely even see it.
I squeal when he lifts me up and gasp when he grips my thighs and coaxes my legs around his waist. He moves his hands to my ass, holding me tightly against him as he walks us away from the pool.
I shrug out of my coat as we go, letting it fall to the ground and sling my arms around his neck, tangling my fingers in the hair at his nape.
He doesn’t kiss me though our mouths are so close, so fucking achingly close, and with each thundering beat of my heart, the more desperate I become.
Suddenly my back is against the stone wall and his body is flush against mine.
I gasp again, the feel of him hard against me turning every inch of me into pure fire.
He pins me to the stone with his hips and moves his hands to my thighs, sliding his palms beneath the hem of my nightgown and making me moan low in my throat.
His hands are rough and calloused, and a shiver runs down my spine at the contact.
He’s exactly the kind of man I want, the kind I need.