Chapter 9
The rain hammered the shutters until the wood shivered around the hinges.
Kristen lay on her side and watched the dawn through the cracks. When the next gust rattled the iron, she gave up on sleep, slipped from the bed, and padded to the window. The wood was cool under her feet. Far below, the guards moved across the yard, their lanterns small as fireflies.
Behind her, the bed almost seemed to breathe. Neil slept on his stomach, shirtless, the blanket loose around his waist, and the scars on his body catching the faint light. His back rose and fell in a slow, even rhythm she had not seen from him before.
She pressed her palm to the sill as a thought came to her.
Is this the first good sleep he has had in years?
Her eyes kept drifting back to him. His broad back. The long line from his shoulders to his hips. The spot where the blanket pooled around his thighs.
She scolded herself inwardly and looked back down at the guards. Thunder boomed, like a club on the roof of the world, breaking her resolve just a little.
As she struggled to compose herself, Neil jolted up with a strangled sound. His hands clawed at the air as if something were bearing down on him. For one breath, his face contorted in fear.
“Neil,” Kristen said softly. “Neil, look at me.”
Torchlight.
Not the fireplace.
Smoke, thick and bitter.
Rope on damp wood.
A door that never opened.
The thunderclap became a blow, and Neil instinctively reached for a weapon that was no longer there. He found only the edge of the mattress and the sweat on his palm.
“Out,” he rasped to the cabin, except it was no longer the cabin. “Out.”
Kristen dropped to her knees beside the bed. “Ye are in the castle,” she soothed. “Listen to me. Finn and Anna are asleep in the nursery. Maggie is snoring louder than the storm, and she will get angry if ye let thunder beat her.”
The wild look wouldn’t leave Neil’s eyes.
She slowly lifted her hand, palm open. “’Tis just me,” she murmured. “It is Kristen. Ye are home. Ye nay longer have to worry.”
Her fingers touched his forearm, and heat jumped under his skin. He flinched, and his breathing grew ragged, but he did not lash out. She kept her hand on his forearm and put the other on the blanket so he could see both.
“Look,” she said. “Walls of stone. Our bed. The old chest with the crack on the lid. Hear the rain. It is only rain.”
“Door,” he growled. “Bolt the door.”
“It is bolted,” she assured him. “See?” She nodded toward the latch. “I did it before I lay down.”
His jaw clenched. His fists loosened a fraction, then another.
“Breathe with me,” Kristen coaxed. “Slow. We will count. One. Two. Three.”
Neil was fighting it. She could see it in the way his throat worked.
She slid her hand close to the scar on his shoulder and felt the beat under her palm. “Four,” she breathed. “Five.”
Neil closed his eyes. He breathed in and out, the sound still ragged, then growing steady. Thunder boomed again, longer and lower. He did not jolt.
“There,” she said. “Stay with me.”
His hands opened on the blanket. His lips parted. He looked at her as if she were a stranger.
“What did ye see?” she asked softly.
“Nae here.” His voice was the ground after rain, heavy and cold.
“All right,” she relented. “Nae here.”
They fell quiet while the rain pounded harder at the castle. The wind dragged a loose branch along the walls and left it. Kristen stayed close, just a few inches from him.
“Ye can sleep,” she coaxed. “The storm can finish its business without ye.”
Neil huffed what might have been a laugh, but it faded quickly. He drew another breath and let it out slowly, as she had shown him.
Lightning flashed, and for a heartbeat, the room turned white, their faces only a hand’s breadth apart. The space between them felt charged, bright as the sky. Kristen’s lips parted, before sense returned like a hand on her shoulder.
“Nay,” she muttered. “Nae like this.” She pulled back. “There are still a few hours till we have to get up. Best to sleep while ye can.”
He watched her, his eyes dark. “Aye.”
She climbed into the bed and curled on her side, facing the wall. Her heart misbehaved, wild and quick. She made it slow with her count. One. Two. Three.
The mattress shifted a few minutes later, and she heard Neil stand and cross the room. She did not turn until the next bolt of lightning gave her an excuse.
He had gone to the window. The flare of light outlined his figure, which hovered by the thin draft that steadily pierced the room. She traced the lines of his body through the thin white fabric of his trousers—the sinews of his thighs, the narrow V between his hips, the breadth of his shoulders.
Heat spread through her like fire.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Ye are a sensible woman. Daenae do something foolish.
The shutters rattled.
Neil leaned a shoulder against the stone wall and watched the sky tear itself apart.
“I daenae want ye to be afraid,” he murmured, as if to the rain.
Kristen kept facing the wall. “Then stop giving me reasons to be.”
The words hung heavy in the air.
After a brief silence, the thunder answered for Neil. He came back to the bed and lay on his back, careful not to touch her. Still, she could feel his warmth, and her body recognized the distance like a fingertip recognized a seam.
“Ye kept me from the dark,” he rasped. “Thank ye.”
She opened her eyes stared at a crack in the shutter. “Aye.”
Silence fell again. The storm refused to tire, and the wind battered the corners of the castle. Kristen knew at this point that the guards on the wall would be cursing their cloaks.
“Will ye sleep?” Neil asked.
“Likely nae,” she answered. “I am nae as clever as Maggie.”
“She is a learned beast,” he noted.
“She is.” A small smile touched her lips.
Neil shifted again, restless, then stilled. “Ye should have stayed by the window. Ye didnae need to come close.”
“I did,” she insisted. “There was nay question.”
“Why?”
“Because I am nae afraid,” she replied. “And because ye were.”
He turned his head. She felt it more than saw it. “Ye are a vexing woman.”
“So everyone says,” she said.
He breathed out. It sounded like a laugh with its edges cut off.
Again, they lapsed into silence.
Lightning flashed again, casting his profile in silver.
She saw the scar on his throat, the old brand’s pale curve.
She did not let her gaze wander lower. She closed her eyes and counted, not sheep, not stairs, but small things that held.
Finn’s hand on her sleeve. Anna’s soft snores.
Maggie’s patience. The sound of rain, and a man’s breath that did not break.
His voice came once more, low. “Sleep, Kristen.”
“Ye first,” she countered.
“Stubborn,” he huffed.
“Aye.”
They lay like that while the storm raged. The bed held them as if it were a small boat in a rough sea and neither of them knew how to row. Still, they did not let go. Neither fell back asleep.
The morning came much later than Kristen had hoped, and its light eased the tension in the room. She opened her eyes, only to be caught off guard. Not only was Neil already awake, but he was also sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling on his boots.
“I only asked ye to stay the night,” she said, flustered. “Ye dinnae have to stay through the morning as well.”
“I can choose when I want to leave.” His laugh came soft, but it startled her more than thunder.
“If one hears ye speak like this, one would think the thunder didnae shoot ye awake last night. Even Maggie is braver in storms,” she muttered.
“Are ye comparing me to a dog now?” His lips twitched. “Is that what is happening?”
“It was just…”
He left before she could finish her sentence.
“A joke.”
Not long after, Kristen climbed out of bed and got ready for the day. The breakfast bell rang, and after spending almost twenty minutes sifting through her wardrobe for the perfect dress, she settled on a dark green gown. It flattered her shoulders and settled well around her ankles.
The morning light streamed through the tall windows of the Great Hall, warm on the long tables. Kristen grabbed a chair to pull it back, only for it to move first. Neil stood behind it, his eyes unreadable, and then slid into the seat beside her.
Kristen opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to thank him, but the children burst in with the clatter of small boots, freezing the words in her throat. Anna hid behind her skirts, peeking out, while Finn beamed as if the sun had decided to sit at their table.
Maggie trotted after them, her head up, her tail a slow metronome. She gave a low growl that said, I am watching, but did not bare her teeth.
Kristen’s shoulders relaxed as she reached for the bread. Finn climbed into her lap as if he had done it every day of his life. She shifted him with her arm and balanced the tray with her other hand, then kissed his temple.
She could feel Neil staring at her, but she kept her eyes on the porridge. “Eat,” she told Finn.
The boy obeyed at once.
Anna slid onto the bench with a solemn little sigh and stole a berry from Kristen’s plate. Maggie rested her chin on Kristen’s knee and pretended she would never beg.
Neil’s hand stilled on his cup. “I can see why the dog thinks ye are hers.”
“Maggie has fine taste,” Kristen quipped.
“She does,” Neil agreed. The warmth of his voice suddenly made the spoon in her hand feel heavy.
They ate but did not speak much. It felt like walking on a rope that had grown wider in the night.
By late morning, Neil stood in the courtyard with an axe in his hands and a log at his feet.
He set the wedge and hit it clean. Wood split with a sharp, grounding crack.
Sweat ran down his spine as he swung the axe in fruitful repetition.
The air was sharp after the rain, and the work kept his mind where it should be—the present.
He could feel a pair of eyes land on the back of his neck, but he did not turn around. He set another log and swung his axe. It rose and fell in a rhythm that his body remembered.