Chapter 27 #3
His palm was soft – noble hands, no callouses on them.
His skin still radiated warmth from the fire he’d drawn.
His fingers closed around mine with surprising care, like a man trying not to squash a butterfly; his fingertips brushed over the inside of my wrist with feathery softness.
And then I hit the edges of his scars, the ragged cuts on the inside of his fingers, and the sting of cold had me gasping out loud – gasping, but not letting go.
Because he was holding me.
Not constraining me. Not attacking me. Just holding me, light and reassuring, and it was in that very moment that I realised Durlain Averre had never touched me tenderly before.
He should have pulled back.
So should I, really.
The deal was closed. The point was made. And yet our hands did not move from where they’d curled around each other, skin against skin, warmth against cold. His fingertips lingered at the base of my palm, waiting, inquiring, waking every nerve ending under the gossamer presence of their touch.
I realised I was holding my breath.
His breath was quickening ever so slightly in the absolute silence of the candlelit night.
Let go, my thoughts pressed as my eyes clung to our intertwined hands, to the shadows playing over his long, slender fingers.
Let go, because this should have been just a handshake.
Let go, because he wasn’t a good person.
Let go, because something was unfolding in the overwhelming awareness of his skin on mine, in that delicate touch that seemed to seep straight into my bones, and I knew at its first stir that it could never, never see the light of day.
But the voice that had always been there to stop me was gone from my mind.
And my thumb moved itself, slowly and tentatively, a movement that was all instinct and no thought – skimming across the back of his hand, over that pale, marble-smooth skin, in what was at once an exploration and an unspeakable question.
Durlain did not move.
He did not pull back.
When I looked up, his eye had gone dark – a darkness that seemed to swallow the light of the one burning candle entirely, that turned his face into a gaunt, ravenous mask.
He should have stopped me. We both knew he should have stopped me. But if he was going to, he should already have done it, and it was that simple fact that hung in the breathless air between us, that kept us teetering on that edge of irreversible mistakes – he hadn’t. He hadn’t.
Instead …
Instead, his fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around mine.
And with aching, agonising slowness, his thumb mirrored my earlier motion in a soft, deliberate caress.
A barely-there touch, yet it crackled like lightning into every nerve ending in my body – ran like a shiver down my spine, drew tight like a clenched fist in my lower belly. I felt his weight on my back again. Felt the rasp of his breath against my ear, the brush of his fingers, the twitch of his—
Fuck.
What was I thinking?
My thumb was still drawing slow circles on the back of his hand, round and round and round, drinking in the silky feel of his skin. The tremble of muscle below. The glasslike edge of his scars, cold and hard as diamonds.
He did not take his gaze off mine as he murmured, quietly, hoarsely, ‘Thraga.’
Perhaps it was a warning. Perhaps it was a question. My fingers faltered at the sound of his voice, unable or unwilling to let go.
‘Sorry,’ I breathed. ‘I’m sorry, I’m …’
Something flickered in the ink-black of his eye. ‘Oh, are you sure?’
Unneeded apologies.
In a flash, I wondered what he would do if I said yes. If I held his gaze, that warning, challenging gaze, and apologised again, pointedly and deliberately, would he push back? Respond? Retaliate?
Another shiver. Did I want to know how Durlain Averre retaliated?
Yes.
No.
Hell. What was I doing?
Overreaching. Overcompensating. Like a child getting blind drunk on their very first beer, I’d tasted one bite of freedom and begun gulping down all of it – no more bracing myself for Lark’s opinions, no more survivor’s guilt permeating my every thought, and just like that, the curve of Durlain’s lips had taken their place.
The provocation in his eyes. Those menacing murmurs as he told me I would damn well fight – ungentle, infuriating, and yet they surged to the surface in a heady tangle of memories now, with his hand soft yet firm in mine.
I wasn’t sure.
I wasn’t sure of anything.
‘I don’t really know what I’m doing anymore,’ I whispered – pathetic words, half-catching in my throat. ‘Or what I should be doing.’
His fingers tensed, almost imperceptibly. ‘Staying away from men like me is the first thing you should be doing.’
Was that a rejection?
Or just … a piece of advice?
Hell have mercy. I was making a fool of myself.
What did I think would happen if I succumbed to this madness now, even if he wanted me to, even if he would happily fuck me to oblivion?
We’d need to finish our mission. We’d need to look each other in the eye every morning.
And no matter what happened in the meantime, we’d still part ways once all of this was over – because he wanted a crown, and I didn’t want to lay eyes upon a crown ever again in my life.
My hand slipped from his fingers like a beaten dog crawling back into the shadows. The night air was cold against my skin, and empty.
‘I’ll take your expert advice on the matter,’ I heard myself say in a voice that didn’t seem to be my own, too cheery, too conversational for the hushed circle of candlelight.
‘Wise.’ He adjusted without so much as a blink, although his pointed smile didn’t reach his eye. ‘Anything else to discuss, then?’
As if we hadn’t stood on that precipice a moment before. As if the depths weren’t still beckoning beneath us.
As if he hadn’t brushed the pad of his thumb across my hand so softly, so deliberately, the trace of his touch still tingling on my skin.
‘We should probably get back on the road tomorrow,’ I said, and I no longer cared whether my voice was too brusque or loud enough to wake Errik sleeping below.
We weren’t doing anything that couldn’t bear the light of day, damn it.
‘My head is much better. And I think I’ll appreciate having something to do. ’
Something that isn’t you.
Death’s fucking arse, I could do with a few arrows to the face.
‘As you wish.’ His tone was carefully neutral. ‘Although I do suggest you sleep in after all this excitement. I’ll make travel preparations in the meantime, and we can leave in the early afternoon.’
A sensible plan.
A sensible decision.
All the same, I lay in my cold, empty bed minutes later, staring at the elaborately carved ceiling arches, and felt like the greatest fool in the world.