Chapter 14 Tamsyn #2
“Why are you in my den?” He should not be here like this, at night when I was asleep and at my most vulnerable. I had thought this my sanctuary—that I was free of him.
“You screamed.” There was faint accusation in the words, in a voice hard and slightly panting …
as though he was still affected by our—by what we had done.
“You screamed, so I came.” A simple explanation and yet none of this felt simple.
He gave me an exasperated look. “We’ve slept in the same space for weeks, Tamsyn …
Did you not think I wouldn’t be alert to you?
That I would not be on edge … making sure you are all right? ”
I inhaled with a wince. Of course. He’d been nothing but attentive and solicitous toward me since our rekon. It would not have been a switch he could simply flip off when I returned to my own den.
I flexed my fingers anew, and there—
There it was.
Fell. Not just in my dream.
I felt the swelling in my palm, the stinging lines of that deeply carved X buzzing with sudden life, a wild and desperate thing … like an animal trapped, ready to gnaw its own leg off to break free from its trap.
“I had a nightmare,” I explained vaguely, hoping that would be enough. “It happens.”
“So you screamed? Must have been quite the nightmare.”
I gave a single, hard nod. “I’ve been dreaming more lately.” I wet my lips. “Since I emerged from my svefn.” And during my svefn. My svefn had been one endless dream.
He gazed at me for a long moment before expelling a breath. “You’re safe here, Tamsyn. You know that. The Terror will not find you here.”
Did I know that? Was there safety anywhere?
It did not seem a promise anyone could make … much less one I could believe.
And how could I explain that it was not Stig haunting my dreams?
That it was Fell. That I felt him as I never had before.
That I felt him with me now—that he had been with me during my svefn.
At least … I had felt him then, in that shadowy plateau between life and death.
In that deep and healing rest, I had felt connected to him. More than that. He had been with me.
My feelings. His feelings. The two had been impossible to distinguish and untangle.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, because it felt like the thing to say. He’d entered my room in good faith. I’d practically pounced on him—and then I struck him.
He shrugged. “No harm.”
The air swirled thickly around us, and it felt as though he was waiting for something.
“When I heard you scream …” His voice faded.
“It made me think about what had happened to you.” His shoulders and chest lifted on a sharp inhale, as though he struggled to admit whatever was weighing on him.
“I never want you hurt like that again.”
This world is a dangerous place. Even here.
I recalled Vetr had once said those words to me, or something like it, after Nayden used his fire on me.
“You just said I am safe here,” I reminded him.
He inclined his head in acknowledgment, and yet still he hesitated.
Then, in a voice softer and huskier and reminding me of his raspy Little Flame, could you burn any hotter?
utterance, he said: “If you were mine, you would be safer here, in the Crags … No one would dare harm you. You would have no cause for nightmares.”
Instantly, my skin flushed hot. Butterflies erupted in my belly. Riotous and bewildering.
If you were mine …
I sucked in a breath, absorbing that. “I think I’ve proven how adept I am at taking care of myself.”
He nodded. “You have. No one would disagree with that. But we could be good together, Tamsyn.” Another pause. “And you wouldn’t have to sleep alone ever again. I would be there for you if you have a nightmare.”
I was suddenly keenly conscious of how very alone we were … and how very naked I was, and how close to naked he was, his bare chest an endless expanse of skin before me. The same chest I had so wantonly rubbed myself against.
I swallowed thickly. I could still taste him, still feel the ache between my legs where we had worked and strained against each other. It was overwhelming, arousing …
My body had decided it wanted him, and I felt betrayed by it.
I decided to avoid the whole if you were mine remark. Instead, I pointed out, “Fell wasn’t safe here. You were scarcely safe.” It took sacrificing the location of a coveted minn to secure his own release.
“What happened to him … it won’t happen to you.”
“You can’t know that,” I shot back.
He blinked and expelled a shuddery sigh. “If I could do it over again, I never would have—”
“Don’t,” I interrupted.
I didn’t want to hear about the things we wished to change. He and Fell had chosen their actions that day. They had left together, and only Vetr returned. Regret was pointless. I could fill every day and every night listing all those things.
My thumb involuntarily rubbed the inside of my throbbing palm. I couldn’t help it. It still smarted like a fresh bee sting. Every swipe of my thumb over the mark provoked a response, an answering spark. It was bothersome. And mystifying.
My body may have healed in my svefn, but I had not come out of it the same. The dreams of Fell, the sensation of him there with me, his touch, his voice in my head. The intensified throbbing in my palm. Strange and wild as it seemed, I had not woken alone.
Swallowing, I cleared my throat and dared to ask the thing I had put to rest some months ago: “Are you certain Fell is gone? Is he truly dead? Couldn’t he still be alive out there somewhere in the vastness of the Crags?”
Had Vetr actually seen Kaldr, the leader of the skelm, finish him? I’d gone to Vetr with this before, in the early days of losing Fell.
He had always rejected the possibility and advised me to give up hope.
Logic told me he was right. Fell was not out there. He couldn’t be. But hope was hard to kill.
It was a big world. There were worlds within our world. Magic hiding in the deepest of places. Vetr could be wrong.
“Tamsyn,” Vetr said evenly, his frost eyes cutting straight to the quick of me, as though he needed those words to take root inside me.
“The skelm isn’t known for mercy. Especially Kaldr. They killed him.
I’m sorry. The sooner you can accept that Fell is no longer alive, the sooner you will be at peace.
” He said this so earnestly, his voice winding around me in a curl of mist like he wanted that for me. He wanted me to find peace.
I wanted that peace, too.
My hand throbbed anew then, mocking me. I brought it to my chest, pressing it there as though I could silence the pulsing brand with my body and will alone.
Vetr tracked the motion, missing nothing.
After a moment, as though considering it carefully, he reached out.
His hand stopped, hovered over mine as though giving me time to react, to retreat; then he took my marked hand in his.
Watching my face, he gently traced the mark, his thumb running along the slashing lines with a tenderness that I was coming to expect from him.
All of me sagged then, the fight leaving me, my exhaustion exposed.
“Why do I feel him?” Shivers trembled through me as I looked up at him. “When will it stop?” I demanded hoarsely. “If he’s gone … how much longer must I live with his ghost in me?” The words dropped as jagged as broken glass between us.
“It will pass with time,” he assured me. “It’s like memory. Eventually it dulls and fades. The dragon bond runs deep, but when you move on and start living for yourself again … when you let new things in …”
His voice trailed away as his thumb continued to stroke my palm, the touch becoming charged, like the air before a storm, invigorating, and somehow sensual, too. He bent his head and pressed a long, lingering kiss to my palm, directly over the buzzing X.
Let new things in …
“How?” I whispered, leaning into his lips—into the promise of relief. “How do I do that?”
He lifted his head, his silvery eyes locking on me, tracking over my eyes, nose, lips.
He released my hand and brought his thumb to my face, to my mouth. He stroked my bottom lip in a languorous swipe. “I’ve been waiting to taste this mouth for a long time, Little Flame.”
I blinked rapidly. That nickname did things to me. It shouldn’t, but it did. “You have?”
“The experience did not disappoint. Your mouth is sumptuous, a feast. I want to kiss you again. I want to savor all of you.”
Heat flooded my face, fired throughout my body.
I gave my head a small shake. Wanting him was a dangerous thing.
I almost said that, but stopped myself, realizing that he was not one to turn away from danger.
He lived his life on the edge of a blade, flying into dangerous territory all the time, mingling with those who hated and wished him only ill.
Danger might very well be an inducement for him.
His stare pierced me.
I opened my mouth. No sound came out.
He went on. “You have to make room for new things in your life.”
“You mean … you.”
He took so long to answer, I felt a moment of doubt that I had misinterpreted him, that I somehow misunderstood his outrageous whisperings. Until he lifted one big shoulder in a half shrug. “Would I be so very hard to accept?”
Accept Vetr? Fell’s brother?
I wanted the idea to be repellent. Instead, I could only hear myself say, “Accept you as—” I swallowed thickly, feeling suddenly lightheaded, as though I had imbibed too much verdaberry wine.
Mist grew and thickened around us, moving over me, hazy there-not-there fingers trailing over my skin. It was him, I knew, working his magic. Tendrils of fog traced my jaw, caressed my throat.
Vetr was doing it, creating and controlling the haze, weaving it around us, manipulating the vapor so that it stroked me like a lover. The distance that separated us was closing. He was moving toward me as silent and subtle as the mist itself.
My fists clenched a soft pillow, pressing it tighter against me.