Chapter 21 #2
When he squeezed her shoulders, it grounded her somewhat. Loosed her tongue and had her confessing, “I can’t… I can’t do it. I can’t get it off.”
Lunara swayed, black spots swimming in her vision as that last burst of power and pain caught up.
“Shh, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”
Next she knew, his fingers were landing in her hair to massage her scalp.
Slowly, so slowly, her lungs unclenched. Feeling came back. Combined with the shock of the cold water and the soothing tone of his rumbling bass…
This blood was not her parents’ blood. Brand was well and the monster was gone. The Elders had counted her among the dead. It was fifty-two years later, and she was in the Westrealm, not the Evesong. Not Starkeep.
Safe. She was safe.
Lunara tumbled back into her body, into sanity, on a ragged sigh.
Her bones turned to putty beneath Brand’s ministrations, muscles unwinding as he worked to remove the filth coating her and she finally relaxed—until her foot slipped from the mossy stone she’d been perched on and she fell into his waiting arms.
She was incapable of thought after that.
Lunara was unraveling.
Tearing at the ruined sleeves of her dress, clawing at the buttons on her bodice.
Her gaze had gone distant the second she’d seen him, into some middle space, eyes flashing with something that had nothing to do with Glynmor and its horrors.
And then she’d run. Again.
He’d followed her crashing footfalls, her gasps, the sounds tearing at him. Wondering the entire way what in the realms had happened to her. Who had dared to fucking hurt her. Why it made her feral and unpredictable. Level, until she suddenly wasn’t.
Yet another problem for another time. The litany of shite to deal with was getting longer, but he couldn’t do anything about it in the middle of the night.
Not while he was watching her break.
He slipped his belt and boots off, dropping them onto the rocky sand near a pile of linens she’d summoned, and waded in to reach her.
“Get it off, get it off,” she whispered repeatedly, a prayer and a plea.
He stopped a breath away from her trembling body, allowing only his hands to have contact with her.
“Let me,” he whispered, sliding his touch through the water along her arms to still her movements. “Let me help you.”
It was bordering on violating his earlier promise, but the tightness in his chest didn’t seem like his own. She was falling apart, and he felt it.
This wasn’t about knowing better, but about sensing that she needed someone else to care for her. He had no idea what ghosts she’d seen out in the woods, or what nightmares had come back to haunt her. Only that he recognized the look—one he’d seen on some of his warriors’ faces often enough.
And he held no conditions over her. She could do whatever she liked, and he wouldn’t stop her.
Brand appreciated the need for freedom, for choice. Maybe better than most, since he craved it so badly but could never have it. Not being who he was.
He was the biggest arse in Bordoroth for not seeing it. Not realizing what he’d been taking away from her, even in his panicked attempt to protect her. He didn’t need to know the story to understand it to his marrow.
Dragging his hands back up, he squeezed her shoulders, kneading, trying to lend her some of his own calm.
If it worked…
“I can’t… I can’t do it,” she rasped. “I can’t get it off.”
“Shh, it’s okay,” he crooned, plucking the soap from her white-knuckled grasp. “I’ve got you.”
He lathered up and paused, reading her body language one more time to be sure it was truly okay, before sinking his trembling fingers into the mass of her hair.
Sisters, the way she melted. She swayed into the touch, a sigh leaving her lips.
Brand had to bite back a groan at the sound, at her capitulation, at finally having her curls within his grasp.
Even when it was such a mess, it was beautiful.
He scrubbed at every clump and tangle, gently loosening knots and scraping away debris.
When the last of the dirt and filth was whisked away by the river’s current, only soaking strands of silk left behind, he still kept running his fingers through it.
Kept inhaling the amber and spice that accompanied her moonlight scent.
It was working though. Her face was a mask of serenity, her limbs loose.
The sight of it untethered something within him. Visions of having the curls wrapped around him, tickling against his bare skin, flooded his mind. Had him straining against his trousers.
He wanted to step closer, press against her, feel her—
She lost her footing and stumbled backwards into him, granting his wish. He caught her by the waist, and every good intention fled him. Brand couldn’t bring himself to move away, to leave the warmth of her. Instead, he tightened his hold and closed his eyes, every ragged breath matching hers.
Burning Solyrian, the way her curves cradled him. She was just so fucking soft.
Worse than the training by a mile. The water erased the layers between them, the heat of her skin seeping through the soaked fabric to burn his own.
A shock of lust tore through his body, amplified by the memory of her unknowingly drinking his blood gift in the watchtower. It hadn’t been appropriate to acknowledge it then, not with so much death surrounding them, but now…
Now, they were in a pocket of relative peace and he could admit to the pure satisfaction that had filled his veins at seeing her throat bob. Seeing her take even that small piece of him inside herself.
His greater half purred within him, unable to help the swell of pride, the contentment. He would gladly be her sole source of sustenance if that was how it always felt to do so.
Fuck. The thought of her fangs sinking into him was like heady wine.
Brand finally opened his eyes, ready to turn her around and beg on his knees for her to feed from him directly, but the words got stuck when he saw a lock of her clean hair caught on the grime of his soiled tunic.
Ever so slowly, he loosened his hold and stepped away. Swallowing a growl of frustration, he turned his back to her and ripped off the offending garment.
“Thank you, Brand. That was…” She cleared her throat. “Thank you.”
At least she sounded like herself again. At least he’d given her that.
He turned around to respond just in time to see her dress disappearing.
It didn’t matter that she was facing away or that the river was black as midnight and rose well above her waist because she was glowing—literally fucking glowing—and the water that should’ve covered her didn’t.
Instead, her body was revealed as a luscious shimmer beneath the lapping current.
A beacon in the darkness, beckoning to him.
Seeing that much of her, so close, hit Brand like an avalanche on the mountainside.
It took every ounce of self control he possessed to look away and resume his own undressing.
Unfortunately, the relief when he freed himself from his trousers was short-lived.
His ears latched on to the sound of Lunara humming under her breath, accompanied by the tinkling music of water droplets splashing as she washed, and it nearly killed him.
On a heavy sigh, he sank into the water, holding himself under until his lungs screamed for air.
Submerged in the murk, he finally accepted that there was nothing in all of Bordoroth capable of quelling the overwhelming desire he felt for the stunning Sorcerit.
She was the most captivating female he’d ever met, beautiful inside and out.
And he wanted her with a burning intensity that should have shocked him, but didn’t.
Not when the staggering truth was settling even deeper into his bones.
Not when Brand would swear he was starting to faintly feel her emotions as if they were his own. When he’d projected slow breaths and soothing ease, control, and she’d absorbed all of it like a sponge as he’d cleaned her.
Not when his greater half was crowing inside, alive with the triumph of certainty.
Mag and Hedda’s faces flashed—his look of awed realization, hers of quiet understanding.
They knew. They fucking knew it too.
Pushing to the surface, he raked both hands through his hair, washing it as quickly as he could.
He couldn’t stay that close to her, not a stitch of clothing between them, any longer.
Not without doing something utterly reckless.
She deserved more, better, than a muddy river bank less than an hour after having to put him in his place.
Brand tossed his shirt and pants onto the bank along with everything else and strode out of the water, every sloshing step taking him further from where he actually wanted to be.
When he bent to retrieve a towel, Lunara’s singing dwindled to nothing, and her softly gasped, “Weeping, fucking shite,” made him pause.
Made him wonder.
If they were sharing feelings, it was possible she was as tightly wound as he. Maybe having similar thoughts and realizations of her own.
The notion made him wicked. The distance and water between them made him bold.
Still facing away from her, Brand slowed his movements, running the cloth over his skin with deliberately drawn out strokes. He didn’t bother to keep his head from tipping back, or his hand from gliding the linen over his cock once, twice, again…
Fuck.
He had to get dry, after all. May as well torture them both while he did it.
Brand froze when he heard her leaving the water. Bold, unfortunately, did not mean reformed, and his nerves spiked. Ignoring the throbbing jut of his erection, he tied the towel around himself in a rush and turned.
Weeping, fucking shite was right.
Mere feet away and dripping, Lunara was wrapped in a scrap of linen that had no hope whatsoever of fully covering her luscious curves.
It gaped wide open up one rounded thigh, exposing a generous hip, and only tapered closed when it hit her much smaller waist. Her breasts were barely concealed, spilling over the top where her arms held the ends together.