Chapter 10 #2
I quickly stood, heading to the packs and rifling around for spare cloth I could use. The first thing I found was the thin shift I had been wearing when Kelvar first took me. I mentally shrugged before carrying it over to the oasis and kneeling beside him.
He didn’t move, watching quietly as I tore the fabric into strips and soaked a few in the clear water of the oasis.
It was cool on my hands, and rivulets dripped down my wrists as I raised the rags toward Kelvar’s injured arm.
He had done a serviceable job cleaning them, but it must have been difficult to see what he was doing on his own shoulder.
Gently, I dabbed at the area with the cool cloth. Kelvar sucked in a breath through his teeth.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “Does that hurt?”
He just shook his head. His gaze remained determinedly focused on my hands as I worked.
I leaned closer to get a better view. My knees pressed against his thigh, and the warmth rolling off his skin seeped through my light linen pants. Despite the constant heat shimmering in the air, it wasn’t unpleasant.
As the first rag was stained pink from removing the blood crusted on his skin, I reached for a second one. Now, I began cleaning the wounds themselves. While the skin was torn by the rake of the caracal’s lethal claws, they didn’t seem deep enough to have reached the muscles.
If they had, I might have tried to use just a touch of magic to aid their healing without Kelvar noticing—a task that might have been made difficult by the power dancing and sparking off his skin, leaking into the air around him as if his body wasn’t quite large enough to contain it all.
The moment I started pulling on threads of power, he would surely sense it.
Instead, I contented myself with making sure no sand or grit had worked its way into the scratches. I leaned so close that my breath stirred the loose hairs that had fallen from the knot at the back of his head to rest on his neck.
Kelvar inhaled sharply again.
My eyes darted to his face, to find his jaw tense, a muscle there ticking as if it took him great effort to hold still.
I turned back to my work, my fingers quickening to complete their task.
Two more rags lay stained and discarded beside me by the time I was satisfied.
I turned back to my now shredded shift, tearing two more long strips from it.
One, I folded to create a sort of pad that would cover all three scratches.
The other, I wrapped around his arm to hold the first in place.
Kelvar lifted his arm obligingly so I could wind the bandage behind his shoulder, pulling it tight enough to hold pressure without impeding his movements. As I reached around him, my chest brushed against him, and he let out a hiss that this time I had the wherewithal to realize wasn’t pain.
I tried to focus on my task, tying the ends of the bandage off right at the point of his shoulder. My fingers trembled, though, my attention and coordination stolen by the way Kelvar’s ribs expanded against me with a shuddering breath.
I rested my hand over his shoulder once I finished, not quite ready to pull away.
“If it festers, I can search for some cara leaves to make a poultice,” I murmured, my voice quiet, but still feeling impossibly loud in the tense stillness of the moment. “Or maybe some lyra flowers for the pain.”
We both held perfectly still for a moment. I shifted, a quiet voice in the back of my head telling me I needed to pull away.
Kelvar’s other arm came to my waist, wrapping around me and keeping me close, and I was all but pressed chest to chest with him. It was my breath that caught this time.
“It hurts less when you touch it,” he admitted, a touch of hoarseness edging into his voice.
In response, I traced my fingers lightly over the edge of the cloth, just brushing his skin. The muscles of his shoulder jumped under my touch.
Finally, his gaze tore away from where I had worked on his wound, trailing toward my face, but it snagged on my mouth on its way to my eyes.
My lips parted as I froze, and I found myself leaning closer.
“This is a horrible idea,” he murmured.
“We can’t,” I agreed, my voice just a breath—a puff of air that ghosted over his face as he too leaned in.
“Why not?”
“I don’t remember.”
The last words were spoken nearly against his lips, and I closed the last of the distance between us.
His kiss managed to be gentle and desperate at the same time.
Kelvar’s arm around my waist pressed me to the hard planes of his chest, even as his lips coaxed mine to open for him with aching sweetness.
My hands tightened on his shoulders, fingers digging into the fabric of his vest and clutching on to him as if I could somehow bring him closer.
My head swam, and I couldn’t tell if the sparks dancing over my skin were from the dark storm of his power or the touch of his other hand coming to cup the side of my neck.
His thumb smoothed back and forth over the hammering pulse in my throat, thundering so loudly I was sure he could hear it.
As I gasped, his tongue slicked into my mouth, and he groaned, the sound broken and ravenous. The hand on my neck moved to my hair, tilting my head gently so he could slot his mouth against mine even more thoroughly.
I wanted—needed—to touch more of him in return. I raked my nails down his chest, scratching across the V of skin visible at the top of his vest.
He sat back, draping me across his lap at the edge of the oasis. His lips dragged from my mouth to my jaw, tongue and teeth exploring down my throat to the sensitive skin behind my ear.
“Tell me to stop,” he demanded breathlessly.
“Don’t. Please don’t stop,” I responded, voice already heady with pleasure.
He rewarded me by sucking on the point he had just laved with kisses.
I let my head fall back as a hitched gasp escaped me. My eyes fluttered open to stare sightlessly at the sky, bleached of color by the sun nearing its zenith.
Despite my father’s protectiveness, I had managed to steal a handful of kisses with riders of Clan Padra, sometimes accompanied by furtive, wandering hands.
But such things had always happened beneath the cover of night, near fires burned down to embers or in the shadows of tents with lowered lanterns.
Out here in the bright of the midday sun, there was no hiding from the blazing heat that Kelvar coaxed to life in my veins. The desert herself watched us, and the glowing plant inside me bloomed as if her magic rejoiced in it.
“You’re exquisite, Flower,” Kelvar breathed against my skin, causing goosebumps to spread across my arms and down my back, despite the inferno building within me. His words made me wonder if he too could feel the way my magic unfurled in his presence.
His hands moved to the hem of my overlarge tunic, sliding under it to press his palms flat to my stomach. My belly fluttered with anticipation.
“Please,” he asked, the word a request and a question all in one.
I swallowed thickly before nodding. As he slipped the fabric over my head and tossed it to the ground beside us, thoughts clambered in the back of my mind, trying to remind me why I shouldn’t—couldn’t—do this. How it could only end in heartbreak—our rival clans pulling us in opposite directions.
But I couldn’t make out those voices over the buzz of anticipation and the satisfied purr of my power as Kelvar’s gaze roved over my newly bared skin.
Even more of his hair had escaped the knot he wore it in, and his lips were already shining and swollen.
The armor of the self-assured Warlord was all but cast aside as something equal parts soft and feral filled his eyes.
He only drank me in for a moment before leaning forward and pressing an open-mouthed kiss to my sternum.
As his lips traveled sideways, his breath tickling my breast, my hands flew to his hair, pulling it the rest of the way free of its knot.
When he took my nipple into his mouth, the gentle tangle of my fingers with his silken strands turned into a hard tug.
He toyed at my breast with his tongue and teeth, and I clapped a hand over my mouth to contain the high-pitched whine that threatened to escape my lips. Kelvar released my breast and shook his head, nuzzling into my skin.
“No one is around for miles, Alyx. Don’t deprive me of the noises I work so hard to pull from those pretty lips,” he chided.
A huff that might have been a laugh had I had more breath in my chest escaped me. “I didn’t think you were working that hard,” I gasped, my voice tremulous. Indeed, it seemed that even the slightest touch from him left me ready to fly out of my skin.
“Then I will have to redouble my efforts,” he murmured before covering my other breast with his mouth. This time, I did keen as he pressed his flattened tongue to my nipple before worrying it with his teeth.
He grunted in satisfaction, and I arched into his touch, twisting his hair between my fingers. As his mouth explored my chest, his hands drifted down to the sash at my waist, fingers picking at the knot.
My heart jumped to my throat. I had never bared this much of myself to a man. There should be a million reasons why giving myself like this to another clan’s Warlord would lead to ruin. I could think of none—only the incessant need curling low in my belly.
I wanted this, and I wanted it with Kelvar.
After all, out here in the open sands with him, I had gained my first taste of freedom. It left me hungry for more, and even hungrier for him.
I helped him slide down my pants, an awkward affair with me still straddling his lap. He smiled, equal parts wicked and sweet as he laid me back on the ground instead, sliding the cloth down my legs. I kicked the garment off, letting it fall in a forgotten pile with my tunic.