Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Killan
Pain throbs under my skull, making the task of opening my eyes nearly impossible. Lydia is organizing small bundles of cloth into wet piles but stops when she sees me watching. I wish I could be more confident that the look she gives me is one of concern and not consternation.
“Harlee told me not to follow.” I say the first thing I think of, to break the silence.
“Smart woman.” Lydia sits back on her heels and presses a hand to my forehead. I do not know why.
Her hairs are partway dry, as are her clothes. There are dark circles coloring the skin under her eyes, and there’s a faint scratch on her cheek, not deep enough to have bled, but there all the same.
I catch her fingers in mine, holding her hand to my chest. She is icy cold. I can feel her shivering. She does not pull away from me, and I shamelessly take advantage of her reluctance to scold me while there is dried blood still on my face. It will not last long.
Our eyes meet, and she hastily looks away. Although it does not escape my notice that she shuffles a fraction closer to me as she does so.
“How long was I asleep for?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a few hours.” She gestures with her free hand at the surrounding cave. “The water level has dropped a couple of inches, but it’s taking a long time to clear. I still don’t really understand what happened. How did you know the water would come rushing down like that?”
“An educated guess,” I admit. “The water leaks through minute gaps in the rock.” I wince, as talking causes fresh pain thumping through my head.
“Where the crystal forms, it blocks those cracks, trapping the water. And where there is a lot of crystal, there is often a lot of trapped water. It is tempting to use these lakes to cultivate algae as they are by far the largest and deepest, but the crystal weakens the rock, and so we avoid them.”
Gingerly, I touch the top of my head. There is a tender lump where I must have been hit.
My hand, too, is sore—the hand I used to shield my head.
And there is a mark across the back of my palm, where my scales have broken.
That my bones were not also broken is a testament to the protection scales provide.
I flex my fingers, wincing at the pain, but pleased when everything appears to be working.
I collect my datapad from my boot. It is waterproof but not damage proof. The screen is cracked, and it won’t turn on.
“Broken,” I declare. Akh well, in the time it would have taken Roan to get here, hopefully I will have recovered.
“Do you think you can stand?”
“Yes…” Dropping the now-useless datapad onto the ground, I close my eyes. “In a moment.”
I do not need to see Lydia to know she is glaring.
“In a moment,” I reiterate, as if repeating it will make it true.
“Right...” Suspicion enters her voice.
Were I in the habit, I would smile. Despite knowing it would probably piss Lydia off even more.
I open my outer eyelids to sneak a peek. As predicted, her eyes are narrowed, and her shoulders are tense.
Seeing me watch her, she unceremoniously thrusts a soggy nutrient bar at me. “Eat.”
“In another moment.” I would take it if I thought I had the dexterity with which to open the polyplastic wrapper. My fingers feel as if they are twice their normal size, and the pounding in my head beats in time with my heart.
“You keep saying that, but I don’t think I believe you.”
“You,” I tell her, “are being purposefully obtuse.” I can recognize it now—when she uses her anger as a shield. I am ashamed it took me so long to realize. She has less subtlety than Roan when he was a youngling.
Silence follows my words for long enough that I open my inner eyelids too, all the better to see her.
She is chewing her bottom lip.
“You are worried about me.” I make it a statement, not a question.
“Am not,” she immediately replies.
“And you are bad at hiding it,” I add, with considerably less tact than I might have had, were it not for the lump on my head and her hand still pressed to my chest.
She is nearly close enough that I could bow my head and kiss her, but I do not want to push Lydia past her endurance, despite her hesitation to anger. My headache would not appreciate Lydia yelling.
“I…” she begins, pausing as she scrutinizes her words before speaking. “I am grateful, I suppose…that you did not listen to Harlee…or to me.”
I wait, but apparently that is all she is planning on saying.
“You are grateful I followed you,” I say in her stead.
“Not that I needed saving,” she adds, pointing at me with the index finger of her free hand. “I probably could’ve saved myself. Had I the chance.”
“Of course,” I agree, catching her outstretched finger lightly in my fist and drawing her second hand to my chest.
My agreement was evidently the right answer, for she gives a satisfied nod. Still, the tension remains in her shoulders.
I am acutely aware of how cold she is, now that the hand of hers I have been holding longest is warm. The difference is ice and fire. I would warm her entire body if only she would eliminate the last of the space between us.
“You are particularly eloquent when showing gratitude.” I creep my third arm to her waist, not quite daring to lean forward.
The wall at my back is helping keep me upright, and it would not be impressive if I were to lean forward only to topple over.
Still, my hand at her waist is enough for me to tug gently, and she shuffles a fraction closer, almost without realizing what she is doing.
She raises her eyebrows. “When did you start using sarcasm?”
“I always have.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“You must not have been paying attention.”
She laughs. “Trust me. I’ve been paying you way too much attention. And you’re not the sarcastic type.”
My chest tightens. “Have you?”
Humor flees her face as she realizes what she confessed. “I mean…" She moves to draw back, but I keep hold of her. “I didn’t…”
“You cannot take back what you have said. You,” I say smugly, “have been paying me attention.” And I am sliding her onto my lap before she has even realized there is no longer any empty space between us.
She stiffens. Her face reddens. Yet she does not immediately climb off.
“Besides,” she adds as an afterthought—or mayhaps in an attempt to return the conversation to a more manageable subject, “you’re the one who’s always saying I don’t need to thank you.
It’s your fault if I’m out of practice.” She clears her throat, looping an arm over my shoulders so she can twist to face me more fully.
“Thank you, Killan, for not listening to me and for coming after me. And…for saving me. There’s a chance—albeit an incredibly small chance—that I might not have been able to, um, save myself. So, yes, thank you.”
“Yes, you would have.” To think things might have turned out otherwise is unimaginable. “I wanted to claim all the glory. I am selfish like that.” I could not bear to lose Lydia, now that I am beginning to find her. Beginning to properly understand her.
“Oh, so selfish,” she agrees, rolling her eyes. “Because getting hit over the head is the definition of selfishness.”
“Now who is being sarcastic?” Keeping my back pressed firmly against the cave wall, I finally allow myself the privilege of bowing my head.
Lydia
I know with absolute certainty that Killan is going to kiss me.
I could move away. He’s not holding on to me so tightly that I couldn’t climb off his lap should I choose to. But time slows, and the knowledge that I’m going to let him kiss me settles over me like particles of dust—softly, slowly.
What comes next is reminiscent of the tsunami. All-encompassing. Pleasure ignites my nerve endings, and it’s as if I can feel his lips on all the places he isn’t touching me. Which sounds crazy but goes to show how worked up I’ve been these last few days, mentally lusting after this man.
His lips move against mine, part nip, part kiss, and I wrap my arms around his neck so that I can press more firmly against his glorious chest. The sensation of his scales against my nipples—even through layers of fabric—is sensational. Exactly what I’ve been so desperately craving.
This could be one of my dreams, except that there’s no chance I’m going to wake up, unsated and unsatisfied.
But then it’s like a switch in my head is flipped, and I suddenly remember that Killan’s hurt.
I pull back breathlessly, examining his face for signs of pain.
It might be a trick of the light that his scales appear to be tinged blue, but I don’t think so.
Killan’s blushing—or the Ril’os version of blushing.
I glance down, and sure enough, there’s a bulge at the crux of his legs, exactly how Briar described it. A cock pocket.
He can’t be feeling too bad, then.
Neither can I, because the part of my personality that’s ruled by my obsession with making and completing plans is demanding that I begin my exploration immediately.
But…if I’m already having wet dreams about him, when all we’ve done is kiss, imagine how chaotic my dreams are going to get once I’ve seen his real-life dick. There’ll be no exorcising Killan from my brain once I’ve felt him up.
My hand drifts down his chest, even as indecision fights inside me.
He’s sitting so still, it’s as if he’s afraid movement will scare me away.
He’s probably right. I haven’t yet caught my breath.
I feel…skittish. I want to wrap myself around Killan and sink back into his inexpert kisses until all my warring thoughts shut the hell up.
But I also want to jump to my feet. Pent-up energy is flowing through my veins, searching for an outlet.
I could probably run a half marathon, feeling like this.
I scramble off his lap, yanking off my shoes, T-shirt, and jeans. The fabric hasn’t fully dried, and I’m fighting against it with shaking hands. The second I’m dressed in nothing more than my bra and panties, I turn my back on Killan and wade into the cold water.