Chapter 18 #3
He lifted his hands, so they were resting on her cheeks. “I meant what I said. Yes, I won’t deny that there is a part of me that wants to protect you because you’re Kira. But I already cared about you before I knew.”
He swallowed, voice becoming softer than she’d ever heard it.
“I don’t want to help you kill Thorn because of who you once were.
I want to help because… because I’m not ready to say goodbye to the feral girl I met.
The one who had been through so much at the hands of that monster and somehow kept going. ”
Her pulse thundered.
His gaze locked with hers, all pretense stripped away, leaving nothing but raw truth between them.
“What if I just want to know you?” he whispered.
Elora stared up at him, the air suddenly thick as honey in her chest. Her lips parted, but no sound emerged. Too many truths, too many wounds, too many wants colliding at once.
“The girl who always scowls at my jokes.” He smiled, thumb tracing over her cheekbone. The motion was so gentle it made something in her want to flinch from how it threatened to dissolve the last of her defenses. “The girl who purred when I touched her.”
Elora felt her cheeks flame, color blooming so violently across her face it threatened to drown her. The memory flashed through her: the strange, bright bolt of pleasure at his hand in her hair, the shock of her own body reacting so easily, so unguardedly.
She wanted to shrink from it, to dismiss it as some animal thing, some inherited urge from the blood magic that had corrupted her body and mind. But the way he said it… there was no disgust in it, no mockery. Only something like awe.
He leaned in, closing the last trembling inch between them, and rested his forehead against hers. She caught the clean scent of soap and something unmistakably him flooded her senses, dizzying in its closeness.
His voice dropped to a whisper. “The girl who kissed me.”
“I—Rell…” Her breath shook.
Her mind screamed to retreat, to protect what little remained of her walls, even as her body leaned imperceptibly closer. For a suspended breath, she hovered in that impossible space—half-fleeing, half-surrendering—her fingers curling into fists at her sides, then slowly uncurling again.
And then he kissed her.
His mouth was soft, hesitant. She felt herself answer it, her fingers uncurling, one hand rising almost to his chest before the thought arrived, quiet and annihilating— This is how you lose someone.
She went still.
He felt it. His lips slowed, then stopped. He pulled back just an inch, fingers still resting in her hair.
Why did I let him do that?
“Hey.” His thumb brushed the nap of her neck. “I won’t make you ever do anything that you don’t want. But what do you want?”
Thorn’s face flashed behind her eyelids—alive, breathing, unpunished—while Tehvan’s blood still stained her memories crimson. The warmth in her chest didn’t disappear. If anything, it hurt more for being there at all.
She swallowed hard against the knot in her throat.
Wanting anything besides revenge felt wrong.
“I— I don’t know right now,” she whispered. Every muscle in her body said to run, fly, focus on what she crossed a mountain to do. But her feet wouldn’t budge.
He reached up, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. “That’s okay,” he murmured. “Just get some rest, okay?”
She nodded once.
“There aren’t any spare rooms, but you can stay here.” He stepped back, leaving the space between them cold. “I’ll sleep on the sofa downstairs.”
“Umm… you can stay here— If you want.” She wanted space, escape, air to breathe.
But despite her nightglider form keeping the nightmares at bay, she still didn’t like sleeping alone.
Al’tera was different, disconnected, but here, in these stone walls with doors that creaked and people she grew up with that probably weren’t as fond of her as they acted, she couldn’t.
Rell smiled. “Okay, I’ll take the armchair.” He returned to the wardrobe, staying behind the door to dress.
This is probably a mistake. Elora unclipped her cloak, letting it fall to the floor.
In seconds her human shape vanished into the silhouette of a massive nightglider.
Rell didn’t startle, he just watched her. Completely unbothered by the massive predator he agreed to share a room with. No fear. No second thoughts. Yeah, this is definitely a mistake.
She padded away from him silently, the floor creaking beneath her weight, and hopped onto the foot of the bed. The frame dipped under her size, but it held.
There she settled, a mountain of midnight feathers, her massive form betrayed by the subtle tremors running through her wings as she folded them tightly around herself like armor.
Behind that barrier, she could pretend not to hear his words, not to feel the confusion in her chest, not to remember what his lips had felt like against hers.
She told herself she was tired, that staying here after everything that just happened, everything she learned, was a necessity.
Rell glanced at the cloak on the floor, at her huge, curled form on the bed, at the exhausted droop of her wings.
A faint smile tugged at his lips. She closed her eyes. The only escape she could manage right now.