Chapter 19 #3
“Hmm.” I pull my stare off the beam.
“Can I get another chance? I swear not to screw it up this time.”
My heart floods with beats. “What would the next few months look like?”
He presses our foreheads together. Only our foreheads. How I wish it were our lips. How I long for his to taste mine. To teach me all the ways they can be used to love a body.
“Like this,” he finally says. “Stolen touches behind closed doors.”
“All above the belt, I presume?”
A part of him hardens and digs into the side of my thigh. One he’ll need to keep away from me for the foreseeable future.
He breathes out a husky, “Yes.”
“Can we hug?”
He swallows, his gaze tripping off my face and landing in my cleavage. “I want to say yes.”
“But…?”
He trails his gaze back up the length of my body, coaxing goose bumps to my skin. “But it’s probably best we don’t.” He readjusts our positions, sliding me away from the bulge straining his linen trousers.
To think that if I’d run away, I would never have found out that Nordin liked me back. And not just a little, but enough to want to turn away a true mate.
“Did you tell your mother where you were going?” he suddenly asks.
“No. Why?”
“Because she’s about to knock on my door.” He stands and sets me on my feet.
I wobble like a newborn goat, my heart rate spiking with apprehension. “She is?”
I take a step back as though the door were about to burst open. But it’s bolted. Shit. Is that worse?
Before I can ask Nordin, who’s headed toward his garment trunk, the handle swings and the lock jangles. I all but lunge back toward my side of the table and drop my ass back on my bench, then right the hourglass to pretend like we’re still playing.
Nordin is still spearing on his tunic when Mor bangs on the door and calls out his name in an alarmingly strident pitch.
Instead of heading her way, he heads mine and leans over to murmur, “Calm down, Zaskjalill. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
Haven’t we, though? I strongly doubt my mother would approve of how I was perched on his lap mere moments ago.
“Nordin! Open the damn door right this minute.”
I spin my face so fast in the direction of the door that our lips brush. The jolt it generates almost knocks me off the bench. Nordin must feel something as well, because his eyes ignite with that brightness reserved for when he hunts prey in the dark.
“Sorry,” I mumble, right as my mother clobbers the wood panel separating us some more.
He squeezes his eyes shut and straightens. “One second, Eira!” He slips his tongue over his bottom lip as though to sweep away the taste of my mouth.
Or to swallow it.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur.
“It’s fine. Can you—” He winces. “Get the door? Best if I sit.”
I give his coiled body a wide berth, then wait for him to settle on the bench before sliding the bolt.
The door whips wide, missing my nose by an inch.
Mor shakes, looking primed to scalp her nephew. “You. Left.” Or me.
I can say, with unwavering certainty, that she wasn’t even this angry last week. “Not the valley.”
The rush of color in her face tells me that was the wrong thing to say. “You cannot just leave without telling me where you’re going, Zaskja! And what the Hel are you wearing?”
Shit.
“You’re grounded! Now go home.”
“What?” I gasp.
“Go. Home.” That little vein at her temple bumps along at a dizzying pace. “And don’t even think about taking a detour elsewhere.”
“Mor, why am I being punished? Nordin promised me a game of Rafbo.”
“Home. Now.” The command pinches through her teeth with such violence it’s a wonder it doesn’t chip the enamel.
“Fine.” I yank my coat off the peg and march past her.
When she doesn’t follow me, I stop and sling a look over my shoulder to find her streaking across Nordin’s threshold and slapping his door shut.
My feet itch to retrace my steps and intervene, but wouldn’t that be a dead giveaway of guilt?
Nordin and I didn’t break any rules.
The sharp bite of winter punches up my nose and presses around me, searing my quivering skin.
When Nordin’s door remains motionless several minutes later, I finally don my coat and trudge back to my house.
Because my mind is built to dig up the worst outcomes, many have shuffled behind my lids by the time I reach my destination. One in particular sticks: Mor encouraging Ulf to send me or Nordin to live elsewhere.
The neighboring valleys might not be on the other side of the continent, but for non-shifters, the tunnels to and from the five different lands take hours to traverse.
By the time I make it home, my skin feels as sticky as my insides—partly because of my brisk pace and partly because of my turmoil.
Which is senseless, come to think of it.
She might’ve guessed that my affection for Nordin ran deeper than a familial bond, but she cannot possibly have guessed that Nordin has any feelings for me other than—
I freeze with one glove off and the other still on.
No.
Nonononono.
I snap my bare hand out toward the nearest solid thing—the wall—and sag, the blood draining from my face…from my chest…from my heart.