Chapter 22 #2
Every Druid in the Grove had used them at some point.
Healers sent sore patients there when their muscles needed warmth more than medicine.
Thornwardens crowded the larger pools after winter patrols and long training days until the water smelled of whatever mud, blood, and liniment we had carried in with us.
The smallest pools sat farther uphill.
Those took more effort to reach.
Which generally meant fewer people bothered.
The late-morning sun warmed the top of my head as I led Xandros along a narrow trail behind the last row of healer dwellings. Ferns crowded the path, wet fronds brushing my boots. The air changed as we climbed, growing heavier with damp earth and sun-kissed stone.
Xandros' hand remained around mine.
I noticed every shift of his fingers.
Every brush of his knuckles.
Every time his thumb moved across the edge of the star in my palm.
I ducked beneath a low-hanging branch. The pool appeared beyond it.
Dark stone curved around a hollow beneath enormous roots, forming a basin perhaps three body lengths across. Clear water bubbled from a narrow crack in the rock wall and spilled into the pool before escaping through a shallow channel on the opposite side.
Steam drifted beneath broad leaves overhead. Moss covered the rocks nearest the water, and tiny white flowers had pushed through the damp earth along the bank.
No voices carried from the other pools below.
No footsteps disturbed the path behind us.
I loosened my grip on Xandros' hand.
“This one is usually empty during the day.”
His attention moved slowly across the sheltered hollow. Then back to me.
Something in that look heated my skin far more effectively than the spring.
I turned toward the flat stone where bathers left their belongings and began unfastening my empty sword belt.
Leather slid through the buckle.
Xandros stayed where he was.
I laid it across the stone.
I slid my knife from my boot before removing those as well. Then I untied the laces of his shirt that I was still wearing.
His lips parted as he watched.
My fingers slowed.
For several breaths, neither of us moved.
He had seen me wounded, feverish, soaked through with rain. He had carried me while my body shook so violently my teeth struck together. I had slept beside him in his bed with a king holding us prisoner beyond the door.
None of that had prepared me for the way his gaze dropped to my fingers and stopped there.
He turned away.
The abrupt movement startled a laugh out of me.
Xandros looked toward the trees. “Are you laughing at me?”
“A little.”
He slid his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Excellent.”
I grinned, pulling the tunic over my head and laying it beside my belt. “I didn’t realize Asterran princes were so modest.”
A long-suffering sigh escaped him. “I am attempting to be respectful, but you are making it very difficult at the moment.”
Steamy air moved across my bare skin.
I reached for the fastening at my trousers.
“You kissed me.”
His head turned slightly, though he still didn’t look at me. One hand opened and closed at his side.
“You kissed me back.”
Every part of my skin pebbled, my breathing coming more quickly than it had before. “I seem to remember having my legs around your waist as well.”
Fire dropped low through my belly. I pushed the trousers down my legs and stepped free.
Xandros still faced the trees.
He cleared his throat. “I remember.”
His head dipped and I smiled at the back of it.
The water welcomed my toes with a rush of heat. I stepped down onto the first submerged ledge, then lower until the water closed around my calves and thighs.
Every muscle in my body reacted at once.
I groaned.
Xandros looked over his shoulder so quickly I almost laughed.
The sound died before it reached my mouth.
His eyes found mine first, then dropped lower. A muscle flexed in his jaw as his gaze followed the water climbing my body.
Steam curled between us.
I stepped deeper, until the spring reached my hips. My hair hung over one shoulder, the dark braid nearly brushing the surface of the water.
His throat moved once, that muscle working in his jaw again before he turned sharply back toward the trees.
The loss of his attention left my skin strangely bare.
I sank until the spring covered me to my chest. “You can turn around now.”
His head tipped back slightly, as though weighing the risk of that.
“That seems unwise.” His voice had gone lower, roughened around the edges.
“Xandros.”
For a moment, he remained facing the trees.
Then he turned fully toward me.
For a male who had stared down a three-headed Marred without blinking, he seemed strangely uncertain about what to do with his hands.
A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. I had never seen him so unsettled, and I found that I liked being the cause of it. The thought sent another sweep of heat through me.
I rested my arms along the stone edge.
“Well, this is delightful.”
His eyes narrowed. “You are enjoying this far too much.”
“Maybe.”
He reached for the clasp at his shoulder, and my amusement disappeared.
The clasp came free. His outer coat slipped from his shoulders and landed across the stone. Then his hands caught the hem of his shirt.
Torrid air stalled in my lungs.
I had seen him bare before. At the eastern gate, his skin had been streaked with blood and a dark bandage wrapped around his chest while the Circle questioned him through the roots. My eyes had gone straight to the wound soaking through near his collarbone.
He drew the shirt over his head and dropped it beside mine.
My gaze dropped with it.
Constellations spread over his broad shoulders and down his defined chest and abdomen, thin gold lines lying quietly along pale skin. Scars interrupted them in places. One narrow white line cut across his ribs. Another disappeared along his side.
My gaze followed it.
His fingers stopped at the fastening of his trousers.
Silver eyes met mine, and I lifted my chin.
His mouth twitched. “You were saying something about modesty?”
Heat swept across my face and down my chest. I dragged my gaze back to his.
“I’ve forgotten.”
A dark brow lifted, and the corner of his mouth followed.
“That quickly?”
“Tragic, I know.” I shrugged.
He laughed under his breath. The sound settled somewhere beneath my ribs.
I turned my face toward the water long enough to give him a measure of the privacy he had given me.
A soft rustle of fabric followed.
Then came the quiet splash of a foot entering the spring.
I kept my attention on the opposite bank as water shifted around his descent. Another step. Another soft disturbance of the surface.
When the water settled, I looked up.
Xandros stood across the pool from me, the spring reaching his waist. His constellations gently flared beneath his skin, their light reflecting across the water between us. His hair had come loose from its tie and fell around his shoulders. I had the overwhelming urge to run my fingers through it.
There was enough space between us for two more people.
It felt like considerably less.
He bent his knees and disappeared beneath the surface.
My pulse stumbled.
He emerged a moment later, sweeping his hair back from his face as water streamed over his shoulders and chest.
I reached for the small piece of soap I had brought from the healer’s washroom and broke it in half.
“Here.” I held one piece out.
He crossed the space between us to take it. His fingers lingered against mine before the soap disappeared into his hand.
He stayed closer than necessary.
Water glistened across his chest. Pale strands of hair had already fallen forward again, wet against his neck.
A shiver moved over my skin despite the heat surrounding me. I dropped my gaze to the soap before it could linger anywhere else.
I dragged my soap along my forearm. Gray water streamed from my skin, carried by the current down into the next pool. I watched it disappear.
Every person I had trusted most in the Deepwood seemed to carry some hidden instruction about what should happen to me.
My parents had died without telling me what our name once meant, though I no longer knew whether they had ever been given the truth themselves.
The Circle had known.
Caelan had known enough to shape my life around an order I had never heard.
Xandros had known what the thread between us might be before I did. I had been furious when I learned that. He had stood in front of me and admitted I was right to be.
Then he had kept his promise.
He had refused a king.
He had let me walk away from him.
He had warned me away from Asterra when taking me there might have saved his people.
The soap slipped slightly in my fingers.
Xandros caught it before it would have sunk to the bottom of the spring. His knuckles brushed mine beneath the water as he handed it back.
“What is it?”
I looked at him. “Nothing.”
His expression made clear exactly what he thought of that answer.
I ran the soap once more over my arm. “Nothing I want to talk about right now.”
His gaze stayed on me for another moment. “Do you want me to ask again?”
“No.”
“Then I won’t.”
The soap stilled against my wrist.
Of course he wouldn’t.
I rinsed the gray lather from my skin and let out a breath. “I’m just thinking.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “That sounds dangerous.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Be careful. I’m still armed.”
His gaze flicked pointedly toward the pile of clothing several paces away as he lowered himself onto the smooth stone seat in the pool. “I feel reasonably safe.”
I splashed him, and water struck the hard panes of his chest and face.
He stared at me. A laugh escaped before I could stop it.
Xandros wiped one hand slowly over his face. “You realize I could retaliate.”
I shrugged, the movement momentarily tugging his attention lower. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“Because you are a prince.”
His brows drew together. “And?”
“And I assume your precious royal dignity would prevent?—”
Warm water hit me squarely in the face, cutting me off midsentence.