Chapter 6 #2
The stew is thick with vegetables and meat, and I take a cautious mouthful. I can’t remember the last time I ate. I mean to eat it slowly, I want to savor every bite, but after a couple of spoonfuls, hunger takes over.
When I’m done, Cairn takes the bowl from me and hands me another cup. This one is filled with a hot drink that smells herbal.
“Serath left this for you.”
The sharp, bitter scent hits the back of my throat, and the shelter tilts.
No. No.
The healer’s fingers are digging into my jaw. The maid is tipping the mug against my lips. The bitter liquid burns my tongue, sliding down my throat.
My lungs lock. My fingers spasm, jerking away from the cup before Cairn can press it into my hands. I scramble backward across the furs, my spine slamming hard into the shimmering wall of the shelter.
“I won’t.” I barely recognize the frantic, breathless sounds as my own. “You can’t make me.”
The cup stops mid-air, and Cairn’s eyes snap to my face. His pupils narrow to slits, swallowed by the gold, and the planes of his face sharpen, turning him into the predator I know hides underneath.
He sets the cup down on the table, then crosses to where I’m curled into a tight ball, and crouches in front of me.
“Alleria.” The sudden, unexpected gentleness in his tone stops me. “No one is going to force you to do anything you don’t want. Not me. Not anyone in this camp.”
His words bring me back. There are no stone walls. No human healer. Only the soft, pulsing magic of the shelter walls, and Cairn in front of me.
“It’s just tea.” He doesn’t move to retrieve the cup. “To help restore energy taken by the healing. But you don’t have to drink it.”
I swallow, looking at the cup. Slowly, I uncurl my legs and sit up.
“All right.”
He straightens and goes back to the table, then brings the cup to me.
I take a cautious sip. The taste is faintly bitter beneath the sweetness, but its flavor is nothing like what Brennan’s healer forced on me. With each sip, warmth spreads through me, loosening the tight, panicked knots in my shoulders and neck.
Cairn lowers himself to sit beside me, his hand finding my back and moving up and down my spine in slow strokes. My head dips, dropping against his shoulder. I lower the now empty cup to my lap.
“My father sentenced me to death.” Cairn’s hand stills on my back. “His own daughter.” My voice shakes. “He listened to Brennan. He listened to what Nella had to say. But he wouldn’t listen to me.”
Nella was supposed to be my friend. Brennan was supposed to protect me. My father was supposed to love me no matter what.
They all lied.
“I have no home anymore. No family. Nothing.”
Cairn’s hand leaves my back. His fingers tuck beneath my chin and tip my head up until I’m forced to look at him.
“You have me.” His eyes shine in the low firelight, and the look in them takes my breath away. “And you have the Nightwild Guard.”
His words make my eyes sting. I reach up to wipe away the tears that threaten. He captures my hand in his, pulling it away. His knuckles brush over my cheek as he smooths my hair back from my face, and he traces the shape of my ear. A shudder rolls through me at the gentleness of it.
His lips quirk, and he kisses my fingertips, one by one. He turns my wrist and touches his lips to the inside of it, his eyes finding mine.
I press my free hand to his face. His eyes close, and the breath he releases is shaky.
He’s real. He’s here. I’m not alone.
I lean forward, and press my mouth to his.
His hand comes to the back of my neck, fingers curling into my hair, and his mouth opens against mine. He tastes the way he smells—of woodsmoke and magic. I lean into him, my hand dropping from his cheek so I can loop my arm around his neck.
He pulls back, breaking the kiss too soon. “You need to rest.” His voice is rougher than before.
His fingers stroke over my jaw. He kisses the corner of my mouth, my cheek, my forehead, then eases me back onto the furs. Tucking them around me, he stands up and looks down.
“Sleep now. When you’re rested, we’ll talk.”
My stomach is full, the herbal drink has loosened the last of the tension in my muscles, and my body is so tired that I don’t argue.
I bring the collar of his tunic to my nose again, so I can breathe in the scent of him, and close my eyes.
It doesn’t take long for my thoughts to slow, and drift toward sleep.
I’m safe.
Safe.
My father can’t reach me here.
My body relaxes into the furs, and the tight control I’ve held over myself slips.
It starts in my fingers …
A tremor small enough to ignore at first, but then it spreads. Up through my wrists, into my forearms, then my arms are shaking, and my shoulders. My teeth start to chatter. My muscles tense and release in waves I can’t predict or control.
I huddle deeper under the furs, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. But the shaking builds, and the chattering of my teeth is so loud …
“I … I’m c-cold. I can’t … I c-cant get w-warm.”
A shadow falls across me and then Cairn is there, his body stretching out along the length of mine, chest against my back. His arm wraps around my waist, one hand spreading flat across my stomach, and he pulls me into him until there’s no space between us.
“You’re not cold.” His lips brush against the back of my neck. “It’s shock. Your body is reacting to what happened to you.”
“I c-can’t stop sh-shaking.” My teeth keep clicking together.
“Aethryn. Don’t fight it. Let your body do what it needs to do.
” His breath is warm against my neck, then his lips are there, tracing down the side of my throat.
Down … Up … Down again. The hand on my stomach holds me firmly against him.
I press my back into his chest, and let the tremors take over.
“Thél vaen, Aethryn. Sídha.” He whispers the words against my skin, the sound rising and falling in a cadence that my body responds to without thought. The clenching of my muscles starts to ease. The spaces between the chattering of my teeth grow longer.
His lips keep moving up and down my neck, while the warmth of his body soaks into mine. The low rumble of his voice against my throat is a caress all of its own, and slowly my eyes start to slide shut again.
“Stay?”
His arm tightens around my waist.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Sleep pulls at me, and this time I let it. Because his arm is around my waist, his mouth is against my neck, and he said he wouldn’t leave.