6. Torment #2
Right now, I had a gauntlet to run. And a mate to confront.
Almost an hour later, I was exhausted. But thankfully, easing past the guards lower in the tower wasn’t hard because the lights were few, casting thick shadows on the stairs between each landing.
As I reached the top of the tower flight, my heart raced because I could feel Melek right there.
But there was a final wide landing with several bright lanterns high on the walls and to either side of the double doors.
And four guards.
Praying the men were so focused on what was in front of them they wouldn’t notice my shadow walking, I veiled myself as close to the edge of the shadows as I dared, then took hold of my power and shoved myself through the light and past the guards and into the dark anteroom beyond .
There had been so much light on the landing that my skin smarted and I was panting when I materialized on the other side of the door. Sucking in chilled air, I took one step and caught myself before I stumbled.
When I straightened and my eyes adjusted to the dark, Melek was laying on his bed, his gaze two bright pinpoints of light fixed on me.
Our eyes locked and my heart sang. I felt his soul rush for me as well.
“Melek,” I breathed and started towards him.
He bolted upright and the bedcovers fell to his waist baring his chest, shoulders, and the rigid muscles of his arms as he fisted the furs.
“No,” he growled.
I froze halfway across that anteroom, staring at him. “Melek, please—”
“I don’t… trust you,” he rasped through clenched teeth.
Despair and fear washed through me. I drew myself up but kept my voice low.
“I know this is difficult. But I also know I’m not the only one suffering tonight,” I whispered. I threw the hood of my cloak back just in case he couldn’t see my face. I needed him to see me. To feel me through the bond. To relent.
And see me he did. When my face and hair were free of the hood, his eyes scanned me from crown to toe, returning to my face as he drank me in.
I took one step closer to him. He swallowed and flinched.
He wasn’t ready.
Frantic need fought with shivering insecurity, coating the inside of my ribs, but I clutched the length of my cloak and made myself keep my chin high and my eyes locked on his.
His forehead creased as I started towards him, but he laid back down to watch as I reached the bars.
But my steps faltered.
There was nothing here. Turo must have removed the table and chairs I’d used to share a meal with him earlier.
An icy breeze lifted strands of my hair. Melek hadn’t shuttered the windows and it was freezing.
I stared into his eyes to let him see I yearned to join him in that bed, to twine our limbs and warm each other’s skin... But he only grunted and rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling.
With a sigh, I curled myself in my cloak and sat on the floor with my back to the bars. I would watch the shadows under the door and hide myself if the guards entered.
At least I could hear him breathe.
~ MELEK ~
It took forever for her to slip to the floor and fall asleep, but eventually her breathing slowed and evened out.
I thought I’d be able to relax, maybe even sleep myself since the bond was heaving with relief, though it still niggled with the need to touch her. She looked so small curled up like that, like a lonely puppy desperately seeking the warmth of its litter.
I laid there with sleep eluding me, staring at her tiny form.
And then she began to shiver.
Tiny waves trembled through her body. She must have been truly exhausted because she didn’t wake. As silently as I was able, I slipped out of bed and crept across the room to shutter the windows, sending the space into near pitch-black.
But when I returned to bed it was still torture watching her. She had come here to be close to me. Yet, while I lay here warm and comfortable, she froze.
I made it through an hour, but when she whimpered I was moving before I’d thought to.
Grabbing the largest of the furs, I rolled out of bed and pulled it around my shoulders, slipping across the freezing cold stones towards her.
When I stood over her on the other side of the bars she stirred. I thought she’d wake up, but she just sighed and shivered again.
With a muttered curse, I relented and settled down on my side of the bars, right against her back.
I heard her breath catch and I felt her wake and go still, but I didn’t speak or reach for her.
I laid there with my spine against the bars and draped the fur over my front and sides so that my warmth would reach her in the gaps where our backs pressed together.
She didn’t move or make a sound .
When I’d settled with my hands and feet curled up under the fur, I clenched my teeth and let my weight rest back against her.
Feeling the tiny strip of warmth at my back that was her fed something within me.
I’d turned my back intentionally so I couldn’t reach for her.
But it was no surprise when a few minutes later I felt her foot slip through the gap in the bars to lay over my calf and her breath fluttered on the back of my neck as one of her tiny arms reached between the bars and her hand slipped between my ribs and my bicep.
To my relief, with her touch on me, that itch to be closer eased.
She sighed and went still, her body deflating.
Where we touched, my skin came alive. All the weariness and stress from the day easing out of me.
And so, we slept, leaving the rest of the shitshow for tomorrow.
~ YILAN ~
I woke when the pale light of dawn through a crack in the shutters made my eyelids glow.
It took a moment to remember why my back ached and was freezing but the front of my body and leg were toasty warm.
Melek.
The bars.
Sleep.
I didn’t open my eyes immediately but inhaled his scent and mentally prepared to see him. Melek’s breathing was deep and even. I knew as soon as I moved he’d wake. But for those few seconds I could pretend we weren’t opponents, that we were curled in a tent together and…
The fantasy died as I opened my eyes to a thinning dark and my instincts screamed that I had to get moving while there were still shadows in the Palace.
My nose brushed the back of Melek’s neck, tickled by the strands of his warrior’s length that trailed to the cold stone. The sliver of sun-browned skin at the base of his neck, bare and vulnerable, taunted me .
Gripping his waist where my hand had come to rest through the bars, I leaned forward to brush my lips on that sensitive skin.
Melek sighed but then stiffened when his eyes blinked open.
“I have to go while it’s still mostly dark,” I whispered, tipping my forehead against the back of his neck. “I love you, Melek.”
I waited, but he didn’t respond.
Swallowing back the lump that appeared in my throat, I pushed away from him. I stretched my stiff joints and rolled my head, watching from the corner of my eye in case he deigned to look at me.
But he didn’t. And the light outside was turning from purple to pink.
“I’ll bring Gall later,” I whispered, then walked the shadows back to the stairs and through the Palace with barely a thought. I couldn’t think . All I could see was him. My senses were filled with him—his scent, his warm strength… and his cold, cold shoulder.
I would not cry. I would pray that God could get through to him.
It was a relief to take those final steps through the shadow in the halls and to open the door to my rooms. But the room beyond wasn’t shrouded in darkness as I’d left it.
Instead, the curtains had been drawn back from the tall windows at the end of my large sitting room, and there was Turo. He stood with his back to me staring out the window, silhouetted by the dawn light glowing through it.
I couldn’t see his face. But even the set of his shoulders was taut.