Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Under the Night Willow
Icouldn’t believe my eyes. Was I drunk enough to hallucinate?
Darion and I ran out of the Last Lantern with smoke billowing behind us. There were bruises on his face, but he wore a smile that said he couldn’t be happier to see me.
“How?” was all I could say.
“Later.”
“But…you’re alive. How did you find me?” I asked as we ran along. “Was that you watching me from outside the bar?”
“Later.”
He dragged me into the first alleyway, and we weaved through the maze of streets—left, then right, then left again. Boots clomped behind us, but with each turn, they got fainter.
“Down here,” Darion said, descending a flight of stairs that ended at a closed front door. It appeared to be the entrance to a basement dwelling, but it looked as if it had been years since the door had been opened.
Darion put his index finger to his mouth, and we waited in silence. Minutes passed. The road above was quiet.
Even with adrenaline coursing through me, my brain was still fuzzy from ale. I put my hand to his face. I meant to do it gently, but it turned out to be more of a slap.
“Ouch!” Darion whisper-shouted. “Right on my bruise.”
“Sorry!” I said. “A bit tipsy.”
Darion pulled a vial from his belt. “Here. Drink this. Brightleaf potion. It’ll clear your head.”
I swigged it down in one gulp. My mind immediately sharpened—almost too much.
A torrent of thoughts rushed through my head, all the things I had tried to forget.
I’d been sure Darion was dead and that I was the cause.
And now, days later, here he was, somehow both finding and rescuing me.
A strange mix of relief, anger, and desire swirled through me.
“Where were you?” I pleaded. “What happened to your face?”
“It’s a long story. But the short version is, I ran into some guards.”
“What?” I nearly shouted. “Did they capture you?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
A barking dog and a loud thud came from behind the door we stood at. I supposed it wasn’t as abandoned as I’d thought.
“Let’s go,” Darion said with a cringe. We hurried up the stairs and ran down the street.
Once we were clear of the house, I turned to Darion. “Can you please tell me the rest of what happened?”
“Yeah, but not here,” he said, smiling. “I want to show you something.”
“That’s mysterious. I’m not sure I can handle mysterious right now.”
“I think you’ll like this.”
Darion led me through various alleyways, and we soon entered a part of the Underworld I’d never been to.
This was the second time I had trusted him to guide me.
I was on high alert despite the fact that he’d just rescued me and I was the one who’d nearly gotten him killed.
I couldn’t control my suspicions any more than I could stop breathing.
And yet I desperately wanted to trust him.
Darion guided us to a narrow cave-like opening and then down into a tunnel covered with the blue phosphorescent moss that lit much of the Underworld.
It clung to every surface, denser than I’d seen anywhere else, casting us in an eerie blue glow brighter than a full moon on a cloudless summer eve.
Darion’s smiling face shone in the light.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“Almost there.”
The passage opened up onto a massive cavern with a moss-dotted ceiling that soared high above our heads.
Large mounds of the same glowing moss covered the ground, creating the illusion that we were standing on a grassy hillside under the starry sky.
Farther into the cavern, a small tree sprang from the moss.
A twisting trunk led to boughs full of pale oval-shaped leaves.
Next to the tree was a shallow pond of the clearest water I’d ever seen.
“How is there a tree here?” I asked.
“It’s a night willow,” he said. “They’re very rare and only grow in the light produced by the moss. Its roots drink from this pond.”
“It’s beautiful.” I couldn’t hold back my smile. The leaves were soft as silk. When I touched one, it broke free from the branch. I snatched it up and held it out to Darion. “Have you felt these?”
He took the leaf, rubbed it between his fingers, and smiled. “You know what giving a night willow leaf to someone signifies?”
“No idea.”
“It means you like that person. I’m keeping this.” He pocketed the leaf with such tenderness and care, and with it a tiny piece of my heart.
He sat down beneath the tree and patted the ground beside him. When I sat, the ground had a give to it, almost like I was sprawled on a large feather pillow.
Darion looked me right in the eye. Dust, those eyes were beautiful.
“So, I owe you an explanation,” he said.
“I want to know what happened, of course,” I said, “but you don’t owe me anything.”
“I think I do owe you,” he said with a grave look.
“After we were separated, I must have ended up in a different part of the river. I floated into a long cave that had a shoreline, so I climbed out. I waited for a long while but never saw you. I even tried to swim upstream to see if I could find you, but the current was too strong. I found a way back into the catacombs, but I ran into a band of guards there.”
“You were captured?” I asked.
“Yeah. But luckily, one of the guards simply needed the right kind of persuasion to let me go.” Darion mimed rubbing two coins together with his fingers.
“I was worried you had died,” I said, unable to hold back the anguish in my voice. “I thought I was responsible for your death.”
“I’m sorry I put you through that,” Darion said, taking my hand in his. The contact sent warmth radiating through me. “Honestly, until I saw you walk into the tavern, I thought you had died.”
“So that was you watching me,” I said.
He nodded.
“Why did you hide?”
“Honestly? I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Cas, there are things…” Darion paused for a moment, then sighed. “There are things about me that I’m not proud of. Things I can’t really share.”
This didn’t surprise me in the least, and to be honest, I was relieved.
There were things about me that I couldn’t tell him, too, and since we both had secrets, maybe we could cobble together some kind of half-broken relationship.
Or maybe I was getting way ahead of myself.
Maybe he didn’t want the same things I did.
“You don’t have to tell me everything,” I said. “Maybe it’s even better that way.”
Darion’s expression was complex, perhaps a little sad. “Maybe.”
“But there is one thing I need to know,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“In the catacombs, when you kissed me…” My throat dried up, and the words stuck in my mouth.
“Yes,” Darion said with certainty. “I meant it. And I want to do it again.”
He cupped my cheek.
“Slower this time,” I said. “And less water.”
Darion laughed quietly, then pressed his smile against my lips. We kissed tenderly, deliberately, savoring the moment. His lips were soft and receptive. The air he exhaled through his nose tickled my cheek, sending a tingle through my entire body, all the way to my fingers and toes.
His tongue explored my lips, and I welcomed him in. Our tongues met, but we continued gently, in no hurry, neither of us feeling the need to turn up the heat too much. And yet it was the most passionate kiss I’d ever experienced.
We leaned back, resting on the soft moss, letting our hands explore each other.
He caressed the small of my back in broad strokes, just barely dipping his fingers under the waistband of my trousers.
I ran my hand down his neck, across his strong shoulders, feeling the strength in his arms. I grazed his armpit, and he giggled into my mouth.
“Sorry,” I said.
“No, I like it.”
“You do, huh?” With that encouragement, I raised his arm by the wrist, then pressed my nose into the tender skin under the shoulder.
Darion gasped, a mix of surprise and pleasure.
And wow, that sound he made flipped a switch in me.
Suddenly all I could think about was ripping his clothes off.
The image of him in his wet drawers at the pond flashed in my mind.
Somewhere deep in the cavern, a rock shifted. We both sat up, instantly alert. We were, after all, in a cave in the Underworld. Obscure as it was, it wasn’t exactly a private space.
I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of what came next. We couldn’t go back to my place with Elena there, and I didn’t even know where Darion lived.
I looked into his eyes. “So…”
“So,” he echoed.
But the mood had shifted. I could sense it.
“Can I come by your cart tomorrow?” Darion asked. “I thought maybe I could bring us lunch and we could have another picnic. But maybe one with more kissing.”
“More kissing sounds great,” I said. “And maybe more than just kissing.”
The longing in Darion’s eyes nearly bored holes into my chest and straight through my heart. “Much more than kissing,” he said.