Chapter 41 Aurelia
Aurelia
I woke with the weight of sleep still on my limbs. Warmth lay across my body—solid, steady, alive.
My leg was thrown over Malachi’s waist; my arm had slipped across his chest. For one disorienting second I believed I’d always slept like this—safe in the press of another’s body. Then I realized, with the mortifying clarity of a wet pillow, I’d drooled on him.
I lurched upright, the blanket tumbling from me in a rush of cool air that licked over my bare skin. I scrubbed at my mouth with the back of my hand, fingers tangling uselessly in my wild curls, as if taming them might restore some scrap of dignity.
It took only a heartbeat to realize I wasn’t wearing any pants. Heat climbed my neck in a swift, scalding flush.
Before I could cover myself, Malachi shifted. One massive arm uncoiled and slung across my sternum, pinning me back to the bedding. He didn’t push me away, didn’t even seem to notice the panic racing through me. He only folded into me, heavy and warm, as though he’d always been there.
The fire outside had dropped low. Light sifted through canvas in molten slashes.
His eyes were half-hidden in the crook of his arm, lashes dark, features softened by sleep—less warrior, more man.
Ink snaked along his bicep, a coiled serpent with flecks of gold in its scales that caught the light like embers.
I found myself following the pattern up to the braids at his neck and then returning to the steady rise and fall of his chest.
His hand slid free and rested over my belly. The motion was slow, absentminded, then it wasn’t. Fingers brushed the bare skin just above my navel, tracing a lazy, intimate spiral. The touch pooled heat low in my stomach.
I should move, I told myself. Check the tents. See if Lysara was alright.
Malachi’s breath deepened. He stilled, then bent his face toward my neck, teeth ghosting the skin there. The world narrowed to that sound: his breath, the scrape of fabric, the hush of the night. My pulse thudded loud enough to drown thought.
Every nerve in me waited, taut. I wasn’t afraid, not exactly. But gods, I was unmoored. If he pressed further, if I let myself fall into this, what would be left of me when morning came?
He lifted his head and searched my face. For a heartbeat, his eyes were only hunger; the next, something softer, like restraint cost him as much as surrender would. He looked as if he were standing on the edge of a precipice, and I was the ground he might crash into.
His voice was low and rough. “May I kiss you?”
The question hollowed me out, left me trembling. No command. No expectation. Just the choice placed in my hands. After Kaelith, after the bond that would soon strip away so much, the simple act of being asked felt new.
“Yes,” I whispered, the word breaking in my throat.
He lowered his mouth toward mine. Close enough that I could feel the promise of it—warmth, the tilt of his lips, the brush of his breath.
Our lips met, barely—the faintest whisper of skin on skin. It wasn’t a kiss so much as a question. For a breath, I forgot everything: the tent, the blood, my home. For that breath, the world was a thin place between us.
But memories shoved at the back of my teeth. The dream. Lysara’s scream. The knife. The way I’d felt, a terrible, aching wanting that did not feel like my own. I pulled back, a breath of distance between us. His forehead rested against mine for a long second, eyes closed.
“I should check on Lysara,” I said, voice small and sudden, urgent in a way that startled me. It was the least intimate thing I could think to say—and the truest.
Malachi’s eyes opened. Something unreadable flickered there—desire, disappointment, and then, unmistakably, steadiness. He let out a laugh without humor.
“Alright,” he said, voice low. He kept his hand at my waist, thumb moving in slow circles as if to reassure me, and himself, that we still existed, and that nothing here would force me where I would not go.
I slid off the pallet, knees weak and slid my trousers on before the cold could bite any deeper.
The space between us felt charged, full of postponed promises.
When I stood, the night seemed colder. My pulse still hummed under my skin.
I took one last look at Malachi, at the line of his throat, at the way he watched me, and then I pulled the tent flap aside.