Chapter 30 #4
I came up on my elbows, body still burning, and tried to figure out why I wasn’t crumbling from shame and humiliation yet – how in the world I managed to meet his gaze.
All instincts told me to placate and reassure him.
To give him the reason he’d prefer, to make sure I wouldn’t spoil his fun with my endless anxious spinning …
But this was Durlain Averre, who hated cages. I had the faintest suspicion he’d take offense.
‘No,’ I admitted feebly. ‘Me neither.’
‘No.’ He tilted his head with a small, wry twitch of those expressive lips. ‘Which means I’m not going to fuck you senseless today, much though it pains me. I’m sure you understand.’
I understood.
I mumbled, ‘Does it?’
His brow came up. ‘Does it what?’
‘Pain you?’ My face flushed hot. ‘You don’t seem very … well …’
‘Ah. I’m sorry, Thraga.’ He did not sound particularly sorry, rearranging his shirt with nimble, easy motions.
‘The lack of whining is not a sign of lacking interest. I’m just not going to moan about my heartfelt regrets, because you’d probably feel compelled to let me have my way after all, and coercion has never been my favourite form of flattery. ’
Hell.
He made so much sense, and yet he didn’t make any sense at all.
‘So you would have wanted …’
‘Sweet fucking flames,’ he muttered, eye flicking heavenwards.
‘Do you really need me to spell it out? Yes, I’m lusting after you like a hell-cursed fool.
No, it’s not your problem or your fault.
Blame the murderous fingers or the spiteful filthy mouth, or perhaps the first knife you pushed to my throat – because if you insist, the rather humbling truth is I haven’t been able to think straight about you since. ’
That knife—
Eihwaz. Elenon.
Hell have mercy. The very first night of our journey?
My mouth was dry. ‘But you’d still hurt me if you needed to.’
‘Yes.’ He shrugged, no shame or mortified self-consciousness in his expression. ‘I never said it was fun, being a heartless bastard.’
No.
He’d continued to be his own arsehole self after that incident, keeping me at a distance, scaring me away. Not your ally. Not your friend. While I knew now just how easily he could have been charming and seductive instead – how easily he could have gotten what he wanted and ruined me with it.
Immorality, done the decent way.
All of a sudden, I was so very tired.
‘Come.’ Maybe he’d seen it, the sagging of my shoulders; he held up his first blanket as he began draping it over himself again, his half-raised eyebrow an invitation. ‘We should get some sleep. My bed and arms are available, if you care for them.’
I shouldn’t.
I really, really shouldn’t.
‘Are you trying to comfort me?’ I muttered, pushing that last nugget of good sense away and shuffling towards him over the coarse wooden floor.
‘Not at all. It’s pure selfishness.’ He draped a second blanket over the both of us, then turned me to my side, facing the fire, and settled himself behind me. His arm wrapped around me, firm and secure. ‘Body warmth should keep my scars from causing trouble.’
The worst thing was it was probably true. I scooted back and forth for a moment, finding some sort of comfort on the hard wood, and mumbled, ‘Glad to be of service, then.’
His audible exhale ruffled the hairs on my nape. ‘If you ever try to serve me, thorn of mine, I will make you regret it.’
And that, apparently, was as close to a goodnight as either of us was going to speak to each other.
I lay in silence under two heavy woollen blankets, the warmth of the last glowing embers on my face, the heat of his tall body against my back, and felt his breathing slowly go shallow against my scalp.
Hearing him fall asleep once again … and it was only then that I realised he’d positioned me with my back to the door of the hut, unable to turn and take a look, unable to get up and check the lock after all without waking him.
Of course he bloody had.
The panic didn’t come, that restless, nervy uncertainty that could have reduced me to tears on any other night. What was the worst that could happen? Our enemies would walk in without any warning?
Then I’d fight.
I had murderous fingers and a spiteful, filthy mouth, and I would fight.
Lark’s arms had never made me feel like this, I realised an eternity later – somewhere between dream and waking thought, unsure of how much time had gone by.
The ashes were no longer glowing. The world was pitch-dark around me.
But my mind was clear like a bright winter’s morning, brilliantly alive with Durlain’s arm still around me … and I understood everything.
Lark had never made me feel strong. Capable. Desirable.
For all I’d thought him safe, for all I’d craved his reassurances, he’d only ever left me in need of more of them.
Just like a door that needed checking over and over again once I’d given into it a first time – fear begetting fear, and he’d happily continued to feed the cycle.
He’d never told me to look away. He’d never told me to trust myself.
Only to trust him.
And all the while, he’d been lying.
His blood was no longer there against my chest. It might not even be in this hut; I hadn’t asked Durlain if he’d taken it along when we’d left the Dawn House.
No one could stop me anymore, no one could tell me I was wrong and foolish, as my thoughts slowly but inevitably crystallised into the conclusion they’d been orbiting for days.
‘I don’t want him to come back,’ I whispered into the night.
There was no one but the wood and the wool to hear me. The shallow rhythm of Durlain’s breaths didn’t falter behind me.
‘I don’t want you to come back,’ I breathed even more quietly, and I thought of Lark.
Smiling, patronising. Reassuring, criticising.
Listening to me with that faint shake of his head that told me I was being ridiculous again.
‘I don’t need you anymore. You were not gentle, and you were not kind, and I do not want you to come back.
I’ll see you in Niflheim when I die, and I’ll have some fucking stories to tell you. ’
There.
A promise. The only pledge of loyalty he deserved from me.
The night was cold, the floor was hard, and I felt like the bloody queen of the world.