26
The guards roused themselves from their arousal and raised their crossbows with a start, aiming at me as I approached the servant with the stern expression I used to give my soldiers.
She jumped a mile and stopped touching Amlach, who calmly pulled out his hand from under her tunic.
“You’re cutting that beard in patches, girl,” I reproached her. “Do you want him to look like a piebald?”
“N-no . . .” she stammered, glancing hesitantly toward the men. “I . . .”
I stretched out my hand with the palm facing up so abruptly that the young woman recoiled in fright, stepping out of the semicircle formed by Amlach’s legs.
“Give them to me,” I ordered.
Ysia shuddered at my feral gaze, handed me the scissors, and then turned and left the bathroom like lightning.
I met the guards’ anxious gazes, daring them to shoot the darts now that I was armed with scissors.
The fifth soldier huffed annoyingly. “Just be quick about it.”
Summoning all my courage, I tried to ignore the glances directed at my legs, arms, and shoulders as I turned toward Amlach. Swallowing hard, I moved between his knees to get closer to him.
He stared at me with a very smug face. “Someone is jealous . . .”
I glared at him. “Someone doesn’t realize I have scissors right at his throat.”
A smile lifted one corner of his lips.
“Head against the wall,” I commanded him.
He did as he was told, his pine-green eyes glimmering with arrogance.
I set to work, trying not to think about the fact that I was touching his face for the first time. That his breath was brushing my knuckles. That I longed for my eyes to rest on his damp torso.
That I longed for him to touch me as he had just done with the human girl. To touch me much more than he did with her.
I felt a liquid heat between my thighs at the thought of feeling his calloused fingertips slip through the hairless lips of my vulva.
At the thought of his fingers entering me, I felt like I was on fire.
I rubbed my knees together, embarrassed by the inconceivable reaction of my body, and tried to ignore the tingling all over my body, focusing on what I was doing.
Gradually, Amlach’s smile waned, and his face turned so serious and gloomy, almost vicious, that I stiffened. His hands—resting on his thighs until then—slowly closed into a fist.
I held my breath, the scissors close to the small tuft of beard I was about to trim.
Amlach inhaled forcefully, angrily, and let his arms fall slowly to the sides of the chair, grasping its back legs. “Don’t stop,” he ordered in a low growl.
Or he would stop restraining himself.
That was the message his eyes conveyed. They were too intense, too dark, filled with a desire that threatened to possess me, devour me.
Ruin me.
With my heart thundering in my chest, I finished trimming his beard and then applied the soothing ointment on the still reddened and slightly peeling areas of his face due to the days spent in the sun.
In a sudden move, Amlach took my wrist and, frowning, peered at my fingers. “You’re bleeding.”
The broken nail on my middle finger was encircled by a thick, vermilion ring that had already started to trickle down toward the knuckle.
“It’s nothing,” I said brusquely.
When he pulled his hand away, Amlach slid his index finger along my wounded one, staining himself with blood. With his gaze fixed on mine, he brought his finger to his lips and licked it.
I followed with my eyes the slow motion of his tongue with my eyes, then suddenly jerked them away from his mouth, my ears on fire. “You’re disgusting,” I muttered as I screwed the lid onto the jar.
“And you’re lucky we’re not alone,” he replied, his deep voice carrying dark, carnal promises.
I cut him a murderous glance, grabbed the clothes of my size, and walked furiously toward the shower stall at the back of the room.
“Ah, ah, ah!” I heard Amlach exclaim, suddenly bothered. “Be good soldiers, stay where you are, and let her dress down there without the worry of having your perverted gazes on her.”
I couldn’t help but smile again as I let the towel fall to the ground. I slipped on brown trousers and a white blouse, both made of soft, fresh linen; they were slightly large on me, but it felt wonderful to finally wear clean clothes, not hardened by the sun and salty water.
I returned to Amlach, who had worn clothes like mine, and I sat beside him to put on the boots. As I tied them, I felt his gaze on me, yet I dared not meet his eyes, not even for a moment.
Once we were ready, the fifth guard chained us together again and ordered us to follow him.
However, Amlach did not care and gave our chain a firm yank, demanding my full attention. “Don’t pout just because you can’t accept that you, too, want what I want,” he hissed under his breath.
“You’re wrong,” I replied through my teeth, shoving back the instinct to push him away from me, yell at him, and . . .
I blinked rapidly to dispel the forbidden thought that had crept into my mind, and I rushed toward the fifth soldier, who had been waiting for us at the threshold.
Just before we stepped out into the open, I felt Amlach’s warm breath against my ear. “You’re a liar, Elf.”