Chapter Thirty-Two #2
He strides over, closing the distance in remarkably few steps, and tilts his chin up to look at me. “Oh,” he drawls in a voice that sends warning signals skating down my skin. “Surely you don’t think my task for you is as simple as just walking across a fallen tree, do you?”
Yes?
Not that I would exactly call the assignment “easy” by any means. The bark is slick and caked with lichen—which retains moisture. Not to mention, it’s not that the tree is far enough to make the fall into the stream deadly or anything, but it is certainly high enough to make it unpleasant.
“Considering the way you asked that,” I grumble. “I’m going to guess no.”
“Smart girl,” he muses with far too much enjoyment.
This time I let my eyes roll. “So, what’s the twist?”
Draven’s smirk turns pointed. Without further explanation, he pulls a black, silky cloth from his back pocket and dangles it in the air. “You will cross while wearing this. ”
I cock my head and frown. “Is that…a blindfold ?”
Draven’s tiny huff of laughter is his only confirmation.
My gaze shifts from the silky blindfold to him. I arch a suspecting brow and point at it. “Do you always carry that thing around?”
He shrugs lazily. “When I need it.”
My brow arches higher. “And how often is that?”
Taunting lines curve his lips as he just watches me with wry amusement humming in his eyes.
“Staring at me is not an answer,” I point out, lowering my chin further to fully meet his gaze since, propped up on the tree, I’m about a head taller than him.
“You haven’t earned the right to ask a question yet,” he taunts. And I swear he flicks his eyes to my lips. But it’s so quick, I’m convinced I simply imagined it.
I hold his lingering stare defiantly. “Well, I’m about to.” I snatch the blindfold from his fingers. “Now, will you at least explain to me the point of wearing this?”
Draven’s gaze doesn’t let go of me. “People rely too much on what they see, and that becomes a weakness. Our minds twist images into what we want them to be—or at least what we think them to be. Seldom does reality truly align with our perceptions. That—” he nods toward the blindfold resting between my fingers “—will help you distinguish between lies and truths. It will also force you to sense. To feel.”
The way he says those last two words does not go unnoticed.
Still…he has a point, actually.
I glance down at the blindfold. “Unfortunately, your reasoning makes sense,” I mumble dryly.
Draven’s head tilts, and I realize he still hasn’t looked away from me. “Unfortunate for who, exactly?”
My brows lower. “Me, obviously.” Then, I blow out a sigh and turn back to face the length of the sprawling tree—fig, maybe?—and tie the blindfold over my eyes.
Darkness consumes my vision, and suddenly, every sound sharpens while sensations hum with clarity. The air is rich with earth and damp moss, grounding me as I take my first determined step forward—
Only to immediately slip on a patch of lichen.
My stomach lurches, and then I’m falling.
But before the stream can claim me, an arm hooks around my waist, yanking me backward into something solid.
The impact steals the breath from my lungs, and for a dizzying moment, the only thing keeping me upright is the arm braced around me.
Heat seeps through the fabric of my shirt, and when I realize it is coming from another body— his body—my mind isn’t focused on the near fall.
It’s sharpened into jarring focus on him.
The broad chest pressed against my back.
The steady rise and fall of his breathing.
The way his fingers tighten—just for a second—before settling flat on my waist.
And then there is the sensation of something soft grazing the tip of my ear as a brush of air caresses my skin. “Looks like I’d better start thinking of my three questions,” he teases in a low voice.
My breath catches, and a shiver races down my spine, the traitorous thing.
Yet a defiant fire flickers to life inside me. I clear my throat, ignoring the way my pulse stumbles and the warm thrill humming beneath my skin. I lift my chin and keep my voice smooth. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I haven’t fallen yet.”
I shift, signaling that I’m ready to step forward—ready to be released and to try again.
But he doesn’t let go. Not immediately, at least.
“Because I chose to catch you,” he points out. I can hear the wry smile clinging to his words.
His fingers stay at my waist—a sensation that is heightened with my sight stripped from me—just long enough for me to feel the calloused tips of his fingers, the press of his palm on my body.
Then, as if the moment never happened, he releases his grip on me entirely and steps back. From somewhere behind me, Draven chides with humor, “But I won’t catch you this time. Balance, or fall. ”
Bastard.
I blow out a steadying breath and feel around with my feet, trying to memorize exactly how many steps stand between me and falling. I give myself somewhere around a half-step margin for error.
Fantastic odds.
There was once an entertaining troupe King Alastair hired for one of his parties.
They had a woman who could walk across a string.
Baffled and awed, I found her at the end of the party and questioned her extensively about how she did it.
She provided me with a few techniques—a few tips and tricks.
But when I tried to balance across a small gardening ledge, Gray my “wide-eyed” audience, I fell into moist soil and caked my face with dirt.
No matter.
I at least remember one of her biggest tips: spread your toes and stay centered.
Keep center, I can do that.
I take a small step forward, and relief calms me when I don’t immediately slip and fall. I splay my arms out, attempting to steady myself, and my toes creep forward inch after inch, staying in line with the heels of my feet.
It’s a rather interesting sensation, walking across a mossy, algae-ridden fallen tree trunk.
My feet feel every impression with stark clarity, and I now notice the undertones of smells that weren’t there before.
Every rustled leaf, shift in the stream, chirp from a bird—my ears hear it all.
Hell, even my skin picks up on sensations—a dip in the breeze’s temperature, a trickle of moisture in the air from the flowing stream.
Maybe Draven, despite all of that smugness, is onto something here.
At the thought of Draven, my mind can’t help but replay the moment he slammed my body into his, catching me.
The way his fingers twitched at my hip, like they were in a war with themselves to hold me tighter or let me go.
And I am certain those were his lips that grazed my ear.
But what’s more concerning than the touch itself is the way my body reacted to it. The way it hummed. Awakened. The way I—
My foot slips, and I fall into the stream.