Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
NORA
Nora sat on a rocky ledge as Airik waded waist-deep in the river below. He was attempting to fish the black eels they’d seen crest every now and then. They had stopped for the night in what looked like a park of sorts, complete with rainbow-barked trees and flowering bushes.
Lucky paced back and forth on the ledge beside her, watching Airik. His face scrunched up in what could only be annoyance and frustration, like Airik was doing everything wrong.
“Could you do a better job?” Nora asked, catching Lucky’s tail in a playful tug.
The creature spun back, and Nora stilled as a voice pushed into her head. I sure could.
“What?”
Lucky smiled a toothy grin, his tail whipping out of her hand in excitement.
Surely not…
No. Absolutely not. She shook her head—the extra oxygen on this planet was getting to her—and turned back to Airik.
For a soldier who claimed to destroy planets, the man was terrible at killing anything that didn’t immediately try to kill them.
Though there was no pressure yet to hunt—Joe’s food kept them well fed, and Airik had managed to compress and carry it all in his pack—he tried.
Earlier that day, while he’d demanded they break, she had caught him, sword raised over one of the grazing creatures that plowed through the bamboo grass.
They didn’t know to be scared of him, so they lazily chewed, paying him no mind.
Her own breath had been bated, waiting for the downward drop of his arm.
After a second, he had grimaced, his arm beginning to shake. She’d heard his pained groan all the way where she’d sat, and a second later, his arm had fallen slack to his side. She’d wanted to run to him and hold his hands still between hers, the wild thought persisting that he didn’t want to kill.
Then he’d stomped, sending the herd scrambling and making them fear him. She’d hurried away so he wouldn’t know she’d been watching.
They got away, he’d said after finding her, the glow of his eyes weak.
It’s okay, she had told him. Because for now, it was.
“You’re moving too much!” she called down to him now. She’d caught fish in creeks as a young child. If she stayed by the river’s edge where the water wasn’t so deep, she could at least try to help. She kicked off her slippers. She could do this.
Airik gave her a lethal look. “Sit down,” he said, with zero room for bargaining in his tone. “If I can’t catch fish, I won’t be able to catch you if you need help.”
She plopped down, ignoring the delicious hum waking in her chest at his command. What the fuck was happening to her?
He turned away, holding still, his arms ready to clamp together at the slightest movement.
A splash.
Airik dove after it. A second later, he emerged—scowling, empty-handed, and adorably disappointed.
After a half dozen attempts, he groaned and dove under in frustration. He was a terrible fisher, too, it seemed—and learning of something he didn’t excel at only made him more precious to her.
Dinner was eel, though—courtesy of Lucky, who was much more skilled at fishing—and a bag of crushed potato chips.
Nora held one out to Airik, and after a second of hesitation, he took it, eyeing it suspiciously before putting it in his mouth. He chewed a few times, his face growing increasingly distraught.
He looked up at her, looking absolutely betrayed.
Then he leapt up, rushing behind a tree. “Fucking terrible,” he complained. She laughed, hearing him spit out the pieces out of her view.
He emerged, shooting a glare at the chip bag in her hand. “I’m going to go wash,” he complained, rummaging through his bag. He pulled out one of his hard teeth-cleaning sticks—like a toothbrush, only it dissolved. He muttered something to Lucky, then headed to the river.
Nora watched him go, her laughter fading as he grew more distant. A tall, graceful form of gray, silver, and strength. The corded muscles of his back, always bare now that he insisted his few shirts were hers, flexed with each step.
Though she wanted to run after him, she stayed put, drawing her arms tighter around herself, watching the boundaries where the fire’s light reached.
Lucky, who’d been making his patrolling circles, froze beside her, ears perked forward. A branch snapped somewhere in the darkness.
Before Nora could identify where it came from, Lucky had wrapped his tail around her wrist and pulled her to her feet. He didn’t bark but looked at her pointedly, yanking toward the direction Airik had gone.
We need to be quiet, his large eyes seemed to say. His mouth opened, lips pulled back enough to form a smile but not enough to bare too many of his teeth. It’ll be okay.
Having seen enough horror movies not to question an animal’s instincts, she let him lead them through the woods.
The thought that a cat-wolf pushed thoughts in her mind evaporated the instant she reached the edge of the river. Airik had waded a third of the way out, submerged to his waist.
Hidden in the shadows of branches and trees, Nora stood spellbound, as if she’d just seen a water spirit rise from the river, taking the form of a man so that he could experience life unburdened by magical constraints.
It was the wrong thing to do—to keep looking. She knew this, and yet she felt herself sinking to the soil, unable to tear her eyes from him.
Days. It had been days of walking beside him, that body bared to her, protecting her.
He moved fluidly around her, despite his height, as if his whole world had recentered on her.
He dipped low when he talked to her. He’d help her sit on top of a rock or log, with him below, so they could be eye to eye at night.
Even when they slept, he did so with their heads level.
He smiled at her more now, even laughing with her. How had she earned such a high honor?
She formulated the explanation she’d give him for why she looked on because he deserved to know.
That she’d almost been killed again by some creature in the woods and that Lucky had brought her here.
That she knew she should have turned her back just now.
That she had sinned, but of all the terrible things she had done, this was the only one she had willingly committed.
Unaware of her presence, Airik poured water over himself. It sluiced off the long muscles of his body, his skin glistening in the moonlight.
Lucky rubbed against Nora, throwing her off balance and sending her forward. A leaf crunched loudly under her hand at the river’s edge.
Airik tensed, turning toward where his sword and clothes were on shore.
Likely sensing Airik’s unease, Lucky barked, exposing them. Nora’s heart beat like a wild drum.
He glanced over his shoulder, catching her staring. His lips parted. The notion that she should look away vaguely entered her mind again, but she was too starved for him, beyond embarrassment.
Moving toward her, he smiled, his fang tips slipping from beneath his beautiful, full gray lips.
As he came to her, the water level dropped to his waist, then lower.
When he finally stopped, just outside her reach, it lapped at the muscular cut of his hip.
Nora’s mouth went dry at the hint of silver hair just below the waterline, leading to the last part of him she hadn’t seen but had imagined.
What the fuck was she doing?
She dropped her gaze, her cheeks unbearably hot. “I-I’m sorry.”
Water rippled at the shore as he moved closer. “Look at me, demon eyes.”
She obeyed.
He tilted his head, his breath somewhat labored. “Why are you sorry?”
“Because I shouldn’t have looked. I shouldn’t even be here. It’s just that there was a noise—”
“But you’re here,” he said, coming even closer. “And I’m not sorry that you are. To look at me. To see me. I want you”—his brows furrowed as he reached forward and took her braid, bringing it to his lips—“to keep looking at me…I like it.”
“Oh,” she said, but it came out like a sigh. Who was she to deny what he wanted? “Okay—I can definitely do that. I like…looking at you, too.”
As her gaze drifted from the water’s surface to his face, he made a pleased purr, his abdomen clenching. How long had it taken to build a body like his?
Heat pooled low in Nora’s belly, sparking a hunger that, with Airik, she no longer could ignore. His hair was silvery white—everywhere. But the water still covered…
Something pricked the corner of her mouth, and she looked up. She wiped it away—her lips were painfully sensitive under Airik’s watchful gaze. His eyes, fixed on her mouth, brightened, and he licked his lips.
An icy gust swept through the air. Goose bumps rose on her arms. A drop of rain fell onto her cheek, and this time it burned.
Airik growled, pulling himself over the riverbank.
Before she could make sense of what was happening, he pulled the loose collar of her shirt over her head, forming a hood. “Run—now!”
“But you—”
He glared at her. “I said now!”
With Lucky at her heels, Nora ran back to camp, her ankle screaming to slow down. Tiny pricks erupted across her skin with each drop of rain. It wasn’t an acid that burned through but a painful irritant, like bee stings.
She backed against a tree, then pulled the bedroll over herself, creating a makeshift tent. Lucky bolted up the trunk, disappearing into a large hole above her.
And then Nora could do nothing but wait for Airik to return.