Chapter Fifty-Six Samira
FIFTY-SIX SAMIRA
The next two days were more of the same. Trudging through sand. Sizzling under the sun. Resting. Then up to do it all over again. As we readied to make camp once more, I felt it. The compulsion—which had been little more than a nudge—strengthened, solidified into a cord in my chest.
My head snapped up.
Keir paused in unwrapping the fabric around his side. He’d torn off the bottom of his tunic and was using it as a makeshift bandage. “What is it?”
My brows furrowed as I gazed across the sea of sand. The sun was just about to dip behind the horizon, and the last of its golden light bounced off that roof in the distance. “I feel…”
Keir followed my gaze, instantly on alert. “What?”
“A pull.” Something about that beaming structure… It wasn’t just a beacon anymore. It was alluring. A siren’s song, calling for me. Different from the Shroud. Stronger. More urgent.
“A pull. Care to elaborate?”
“We can’t stop to rest tonight,” I murmured, and took a stumbling step forward. “We have to keep going.”
“Majesty, what are— Amunet, stop.” He grabbed my arm.
I hardly even felt it. A shudder of fear passed through me, but it wasn’t mine. They were in trouble; they were scared. They needed me, whoever was waiting for us there.
I tried to pull out of Keir’s grip, but he held fast. “They need help.”
“For the love of—” Keir growled as he placed himself firmly in front of me. “Who needs help?”
“I don’t know. Someone…”
“Amunet, look at me. Look at me.” He held my face and shook me until my eyes found his, the sunny irises bright with alarm. He waited until he was sure I was seeing him, until my frantic movements slowed, before he said, “We’re still a full day away. You can’t just take off.”
I nodded, but it was like a rope was wrapped around my sternum, desperately trying to drag me away.
I couldn’t help but think of the shadow creature from Zarqa’s vision.
It had appeared out of the sand. Maybe it was the one calling to me.
I shuddered. “They want me there,” I whispered. “Why do they want me there?”
Keir didn’t have to voice his concern. It was plain in his eyes as he scanned every inch of my face. “Am I going to have to tie you down, Majesty?”
The sun finally succumbed to the horizon, taking its rays with it.
The distant gleam faded as if it had been nothing more than a mirage.
And yet the pull remained. Even though my legs trembled with the effort to stay in place and not take off across the desert, if I concentrated, I could resist it.
For a little while longer at least. Because Keir was right—it was madness to press on now. We had to rest. “I’ll be okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Keir’s hands lingered on my cheeks before finally dropping down to his wound, but I didn’t miss the way his eyes kept darting worriedly back to me.
His side was viciously red. Though he made a strong effort not to react, the skin around his eyes was tight with pain.
“Let me see it,” I said, stepping toward him.
He shifted away. “I’m fine.”
I sighed and tapped the X on my chest. “I have some experience with infection. Just let me look.”
He rolled his eyes but removed his hands from the wrap, revealing the blistered wound. I took a step forward, and when he didn’t bolt, I bent to get a good look at it in the fading light.
The bubble of a blister had shrunk significantly, which was a good sign, but the skin around it was still an angry red.
I placed my hands on either side of it, and Keir hissed in a breath.
“Sorry,” I murmured. His skin was hot against my touch, but that was normal for him.
A quick glance up at his face showed clear eyes. No fever. A stark relief.
“Give me the bandage.” He handed it over without a word.
There was no blood on the fabric since the wound wasn’t open, but there was some discoloration from where the blister had emptied out.
“Try to keep a clean part against the wound,” I told him as I shifted the bandage to a spot without discharge.
“I know that,” he snapped.
“So do it,” I fired back. I might have pulled the knot tighter than necessary.
“Careful!”
“Sorry,” I said. Unapologetically.
When Keir glared down at me, his yellow eyes were twin flames. He looked like he wanted to put his dagger to my throat again. But I straightened and didn’t flinch away, daring him. He grumbled, “I liked you better when you were scared of me.”
My snort was entirely involuntary. “No, you didn’t.”
“It made you much easier to deal with.”
“Then why did you make sure I knew you weren’t a cannibal? Why reassure me I wasn’t in danger right from the beginning?”
“I wasn’t reassuring you.”
“Then what were you doing?”
“Being honest. A foreign concept to you, I know.” He gave me a false smile.
I returned it. “And saving me from Bain? What about that night, Keir? How was that meant to keep me scared of you?”
His smile dropped instantly. Tension settled over us, strung tight.
One sharp breath away from snapping. Suddenly, my heart was beating too fast, skin flushing hot, and I could think of nothing beyond his strong body against mine, his lips at my ear, his hands on my hips.
The way his rough voice had raked shivers down my spine.
Just the memory was enough to send a wave of heat to my core.
Neither of us had mentioned the Lunar Feast. Alluded to it, shot knowing looks, but never blatantly shone a light on that secret in the dark.
But with his fevered words thrumming through my veins, a heady confidence seized me.
Bolstered by the glint in his eyes as he stared down at me, which almost seemed like anticipation.
His breaths fanned across my face, his side heaving against where my hand still rested on the bandage’s knot.
His nostrils flared as his eyes flicked up to my runes for just a millisecond.
Then his jaw clenched, and he turned his head away.
My cheeks heated. I ducked my head and worked on double-knotting the bandage. Then, before I could think better of it, I asked, “Is it just cinnamon?”
His head whipped back to me.
I busied myself with the knot, which was obviously as secure as it could be. “Your reactions to my scent are always…” That scent… Gods, that scent… I swallowed. “Strong.”
Keir’s face was made of stone. He just gazed down at me with those intense eyes. But the longer he remained silent, the more the heat inside me cooled as another thought took hold. “Is there something wrong with me?”
At that, he chuckled. “There are quite a few things wrong with you, Majesty,” he answered. “But none of them have to do with your scent.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Some of the tension seeped out of me. “So what is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“Exactly what I said.” He backed away from me, checking the tightness of the knot himself, before dropping down to the sand.
“So there could be something wrong with me.”
“No.”
“But you just said—”
“You smell good, okay?” His eyes flashed with annoyance, a hint of redness along his cheeks, before he glanced away again. “I like your scent. Fucking love it, actually. That’s all. There’s nothing wrong with you. Now go to sleep.” He turned over, giving me his back like he’d done every night.
Slowly, I sank down a few feet away, already shivering in the desert’s cold, and stared at him. Wings took flight in my stomach. I tried to tamp them down as I curled up in the sand. Somehow, that only seemed to make the sensation worse.
Rade had suggested my scent was offensive, but he’d been wrong. Keir liked it. Loved it. I pressed my lips together to stop them from curving as another freezing shiver racked my frame.
Keir sighed and rolled over, scooting closer to me in the sand.
My eyes snapped to his. “What are you doing?”
“Relax. Shifters run hot, remember? I can hear your teeth chattering. You need the body heat.” He held out his arm.
I hesitated for only a moment. But I was freezing. Kaldfold had been cold, but there were warm coats and fires burning in every available nook and cranny. This was unbearable.
And Keir loved my scent…
Not bothering to waste any more time deliberating, I sidled closer and nestled eagerly into his warmth. Keir wrapped his massive arm around my back, cocooning me. His skin was like a furnace. It was… bliss.
But as I started to relax, I realized the runes on my forehead would touch the ones cutting down from his jaw.
The feelings that rune-touching conjured up were too strong, too intimate.
Whatever he’d confessed about my scent, I didn’t think he’d appreciate such liberties. I stiffened and arched my head away.
Keir mumbled, “What are you doing?”
“Trying not to touch your runes.”
“My runes?”
I could already feel the muscles in my neck cramping.
I wouldn’t be able to stay like this. Keir’s runes stretched all the way down from his jaw to his sternum in thick, long lines.
Regardless of what unnatural position I took now, there was a good chance my forehead would land on one of those lines at some point in my sleep.
I should just roll over. That was the safest option for both of us. I started to turn—
Keir’s hand landed on my hip, stilling me. “Nothing will happen if our runes touch.”
“Yes,” I stated, “something definitely will.”
The moonlight gilded his amused grin in silver and reflected off his gold eyes. “Only a Gods-Blessed can do that. You’re safe with me, Majesty.”
I looked down at the iridescent blue marks and swallowed hard.
Hesitantly, I relaxed into Keir and allowed my forehead to rest against his warm flesh.
I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself for the heat to intensify.
But it never came. No searing. No fingers reaching inside me.
No overwhelming ache or need. It was just the warmth of his skin, the gentle rise and fall of his breaths, and nothing else.
“See?” he said. His grip on my hip softened and slid to the small of my back. “Sleep, Amunet.”
Feeling foolish, I settled with my face pressed against his chest, folding my arms tightly between us.
The smell of sweat drifted up to my nose, but so did the spice of mulberries.
It wrapped a cozy blanket around me and niggled at a memory until it finally, finally sprang free.
My lips spread into a smile beyond my control.
I hesitated a moment before I whispered, “Keir?”
“Hm?”
“Remember how I told you about the tree I used to pray under, beside the river?”
“Yes?”
“It was a mulberry tree.” I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten that wonderful tree until now.
“When I was little, I used to love climbing it. I’d sit in its branches for hours.
It was big and shady, and in the spring, my fingers would almost always be stained maroon from all the mulberries I’d eat.
They were my favorite treat, besides bread.
” I glanced down at my fingers curled against Keir’s chest, almost expecting them to be stained even now.
My lids slipped shut, and within the quiet of my head, I could almost hear the rustle of my tree’s leaves, see the light filtering through the branches, and when I inhaled, I caught its distinct earthy aroma coming off Keir’s skin.
I smiled wider. “That’s what you smell like to me. ”
Keir’s body was carefully still against mine except for the movement of his breaths.
He didn’t say anything, and I was suddenly too embarrassed to pull out of his chest to see his expression.
I swallowed and awkwardly mumbled, “Just thought it was fair for you to know. An answer for an answer, right?”
He remained motionless for a moment longer.
Then one of his hands left me to fiddle with something under his shirt.
I recognized the gesture from Frostguard but only now realized what he was doing.
Keir pinched the leather band between his fingers and pulled it tight, cinched it around his ribs. His features twitched in a wince.
I started to ask why, but his massive arms wrapped fully around me again, enveloping me in his Shifter heat as he buried his nose in my hair and drew in a long, deep breath.
He didn’t question whether there were mulberry trees in Khada Palace.
He didn’t accuse me of lying or offer an explanation.
He just hugged me against him, and I burrowed into the space beneath his chin, surrounding myself in warmth and mulberries until I hardly felt the desert’s cold at all anymore.
We were lost in the Mirror Realm, broiling alive under the desert sun, wounded, nearly starved, and headed toward a glint in the distance that could be anything. I had no idea if Rade was safe or dead. My qareen awaited me somewhere.
And yet, bundled up in Keir’s arms, I slept more soundly than I ever had.