Chapter 5 Syrrah #2
The stones in my pocket vibrate softly, as if in agreement.
“No, this is the only way. Trust me.”
I swallow hard, my eyes clenched tight. “I can’t.”
“Yes you can. Just one step at a time. I’m here. I’ll help you.” His tone is soothing, encouraging.
“First Magnus and now this? Do you practice these heroic moments?” I ask through clenched teeth, trying to still my shaking legs. “Or do they come naturally?”
“Oh, entirely practiced. I have a routine—rescue fair maiden on the Sabbath, battle monsters under a full moon….” His grip steadies me as another piece of ledge crumbles. “Though I usually try to avoid doing both on the same day.”
“And what’s scheduled for today?”
“Apparently, keeping a particularly sharp-tongued healer from testing whether she can fly.” His breath is warm against my ear. “Take a step, Syrrah.”
With my eyes still closed, I shuffle across the ledge, bumping gently into him.
“Good.” His hand slides down to my waist, keeping me anchored to the wall. “We’ll do this together. My feet guide yours, understand?”
We move as one after that, his body sheltering mine from the drop. When the ledge crumbles again, his grip keeps me steady. When my nerve falters, his quiet encouragement keeps me moving. It’s the most intimate dance I’ve ever experienced, heightened all the more by our certain death if we fail.
The wind picks up again, stronger this time, and I feel Rooke tense against me.
“Talk to me,” I say, surprising myself. “Tell me about your sister.”
His grip on my waist tightens fractionally. “What?”
“Your sister. The one who taught you to cook. Tell me about her.”
There’s a pause, then a soft exhale. “How about I tell you about my brothers instead?”
I nod once, my cheek scraping against the stone wall.
“Craven was the eldest.” His voice takes on a distant quality.
“Built like a bear, twice as stubborn. Used to carry me and Keo on his shoulders when we were small, one of us on each side.” He chuckles.
“Said it helped him build strength for sword training, but really, he just liked making us laugh.”
Another gust of wind rattles through the cavern. Rooke’s arm tightens around me, but we remain steady.
“And Keo?” I ask.
“Ah, Keo.” There’s genuine warmth there, but also a rawness. “Clever one, he is. Always with his nose in some book or scroll. Used to drive Craven mad, trying to solve everything with words instead of steel.”
I notice his shift in tense—was for Craven, is for Keo.
“You speak as though they’re gone.”
He hesitates, his body tense. “Craven is. Lost on the same night I lost my eye.”
“I’m sorry.” I shuffle closer to him until my shoulder brushes his side. “I know what grief feels like. And Keo?”
He begins to move again. “Alive, but his is a different kind of loss.”
We move in tandem, navigating a particularly narrow strip.
“They sound nothing like you,” I say when we’re past the worst of it.
His laugh vibrates through both our bodies we’re pressed so close.
“Truth be told, I’m a little of both. Craven’s trouble and Keo’s wit.
At least, that’s what our mother used to say.
” He guides me around a jutting rock. “Though she usually said it while trying to talk us out of whatever scheme we’d cooked up. ”
“Did it work?”
“Never.” The fondness in his voice carries an edge of pain. “But she never stopped trying.”
The stones in my pocket pulse gently, as if responding to the truth in his words.
“We’re nearly there,” he says, voice rough. “Just a few more steps.”
The ledge begins to widen gradually, but a fresh problem presents itself. The rock face juts out sharply, requiring us to duck under while maintaining our precarious balance.
“I’ll need to let you go, and duck under first,” Rooke says, but I can hear the tension returning to his voice at the thought of releasing his grip on me. “We don’t know what’s on the other side.”
We maneuver carefully toward the overhang, but as we edge under it, his pack catches, throwing him off-balance.
I hear his sharp intake of breath as he stumbles, tripping toward the chasm.
“No!”
Without thinking, I grab at his pack, using his momentum to swing him over the gaping void.
“Rooke!” his name tears from my throat as I haul back with all my strength.
The stones in my pocket burn hot, and suddenly I feel stronger, steadier. With one final heave, I swing us both over the chasm, fear freezing my heart as time seems to stretch. Every inch feels like a decade as we fly across the dark abyss to tumble onto a solid stone shelf.
We collapse together, breathing hard, frozen in disbelief. I’m caught between the cold stone at my back and the warm weight of him against my chest, my hands still fisted in his pack. He tosses it off and twists to clasp my arms.
“Syrrah!”
His hands run over my body, frantically searching for injury. His brow is furrowed, jaw tight, a sharp line of tension etched into every muscle. But it’s the look in his eye that steals my breath.
Fear.
It gleams in the flickering firelight, raw and unguarded. And there’s something else. Something I can’t name. Something that shouldn’t be there. Not in the face of a man like him.
“I’m okay,” I manage, placing a hand on his chest. “I’m okay, Rooke.”
“Gods be,” he mutters. “You have a talent for making things interesting.” He stills, though he doesn’t seem reassured. “It seems I owe you my life.”
“Consider us even,” I manage, though my voice shakes.
His mouth curves, but his grip doesn’t loosen. Not yet.
He shifts until we’re seated, our gazes locked. This close, I can see the gold flecks in his visible eye, feel the tremor in his hands where they’ve come to rest on my hips.
My body hums with awareness, with the joy of being alive.
Our gazes hold, tension ratcheting between us.
I want him to kiss me. I need him to kiss me.
“You’ve forced me to do this,” he whispers. “I hope you know you’re entirely to blame.”
I blink. “What do you—?”
And then he’s kissing me.
I freeze, caught between disbelief and the electric pull of his lips against mine.
No one has ever kissed me. It’s not permitted—and yet here I am, in a cave with a rogue whose life I saved, being kissed.
And what a kiss it is.
His mouth is soft but insistent, asking a question I don’t know how to answer. One hand tangles gently in my hair, the light tug sending shivers racing down my spine, while the other pulls me closer, grounding me against him.
Did he read my mind?
My world seems to tilt, the edges of everything else blurring until all that exists is this moment, this touch, this impossible connection. My heart thunders in my chest, every nerve alive with unfamiliar sensations—warmth, pressure, and a longing I can’t name but feel down to my bones.
He pulls back, glaring down at me. “Kiss me back.”
Then his mouth is on mine once more, and this time I respond.
It’s clumsy and overwhelming, and I suspect he’s amused by my innocent fumbling confusion, but he soothes me with slow strokes of his tongue, gently guiding me, teaching me in a way that leaves me breathless and trembling in his arms.
My logical, rational, responsible side whispers in my ear. The side of me that’s had vows and oaths and discipline beaten into me by men who explain that to look upon me is temptation, to know me is a sin.
I should push him away. I should—
A harsh scraping, like claws dragged over jagged stone, reverberates through the cavern, sharp and unsettling. We break apart instantly, Rooke already moving to put himself between me and the sound, his sword clearing its sheath in one fluid motion.
“Time to move,” he says, voice tight. “Whatever that is, I doubt it’s going to invite us to its home for a nice cup of tea.”
I pull the torch from his pack and light it before we move, Rooke now at my back, his sword at the ready.
We move through the caves once again, pausing now and then to listen for any creatures that might follow.
As we walk the stones’ pulsing fades until they are nothing but pretty rocks in my pocket.
“I think we’re safe,” I say, breaking the silence between us.
“I do too.” He stops, sheathing his sword before pulling his waterskin free. “We should rest a moment.”
I nod, grateful for the brief reprieve.
“Water?”
“Please.” I’m parched, though a secret part of me wishes I didn’t have to wash the taste of him from my lips.
Rooke hands me the skin, his fingers lingering.
“Syrrah?”
I blink up at him. “Yes?”
“Was that your first kiss?”