Chapter Thirty-Seven. The Quenching of Thirst.
Thirty-Seven
The Quenching of Thirst.
Merc insists on walking to give our horse a break from his weight.
The chestnut seems to prefer him up ahead, rather than at our sides, so he’s out in front, the reins a graceful curve running between his left hand and the bit in our steed’s mouth.
Astride, I am drowsy from the mosey, the back-and-forth rocking like the rhythm of my own breath, something that happens to me, rather than anything I control.
And like the regular contraction and expansion of my lungs, the ho-hum hooving over the gray ground is nothing I notice anymore.
In the back of my mind, I recognize that I’m in pain in many places, but either from exhaustion or new habit, I don’t notice the signals anymore.
“How we doing back there, Sorrel?”
Three … two … one—
As Merc looks over his shoulder, our eyes meet.
I’ve learned not to answer his inquiries quickly so he’s forced to visually check in.
I can’t get enough of his face, and though those black and white eyes will always be my true north, I also enjoy the sight of his mouth, his cheeks, and those almost-always-furrowed brows.
The vista of his visage has yet to grow old on me, and I feel like this is permanent.
“Fine, yes. Thank you—”
He does this thing where his left brow arches while the other stays down, and I find it endearing. “Your color’s bad.”
“Is it?”
“Too pale with cheeks too red.” He reorients back around. “But it’s not much farther.”
I’m not sure I trust the “not much farther.”
Things have changed around us. The mountain range off to the west has come closer and closer, and we’ve mounted a gradual rise that I think might be, finally, the far end of the lakebed. I have no idea how far the Outpost is from us, though, and I’m not asking.
At least the sun is lower and there are clouds coming in.
I tell myself the temperature is dropping.
It’s a lie. The rocks have been warmed all day long, so they’re taking the balance of the heat’s graft over from the declining strength of the rays overhead, a hearth still warm even after the fire has dwindled.
I have some faint hope, as we crest the incline, that whatever’s on the other side—
“Oh … fates,” I whisper through my aching, dry throat. “It’s beautiful.”
Merc halts our progress, and everyone looks around: Him, me … the horse. There’s green, everywhere.
“Water…” I croak as I point a shaky hand.
We all see it at the same time, and each have the same thought.
Merc and the horse put feet forward, and even I, up in the saddle, lean in the direction of the rushing stream, as if I’m a water diviner.
The rope of churning, crystal current, in its carpet of luscious, healthy grass, is such a welcome sight, I get teary and I don’t even bother to wait until we stop.
I dismount halfway there, imagining the cool flow down the back of my throat, the sweat gone from my face and eyes, the—
My legs crumple beneath me.
Before I fall on my face, Merc whips a hand back and captures a hold of my uninjured arm. With a jerk, I’m up against him, and I throw a clutch around his waist.
When he releases the reins, the horse continues on without us. “I can carry you?”
“I’ll walk.” He’s worked harder than I have on this stretch. “Crescent moon, I’ve never wanted a drink more than—”
As I stumble, it’s clear I’m not walking anywhere. My feet are dead at the end of my numb legs.
Merc sweeps me up into his arms as the horse chugs right into the rush, dropping its head, the reins washing away in the brisk flow.
The stream is five lengths wide, and appears to go to infinity in both directions.
The bottom is all rocks, and even with the speed at which the water runs, you can see right down to them.
There’s nothing cloudy, no weeds or even fish, and I can already taste it.
Merc wades in with me, and I wince as he shifts me down and places my feet in the little river. The water comes to his knees. For me, it’s halfway up my thighs—and the incandescent delight of the cold rinse hitting my aching, hot feet and stinging, throbbing calves makes me moan.
“I’ve got this,” I say as I nudge free of him.
Cupping my palms, I bend down—
My legs give out on me again and I splash into the stream. Merc reaches out again with a curse, but I brush him off with an ugly squeak that, were I not so dehydrated, would have been a proper laugh.
I totally submerge myself by lying flat and holding myself under with a grip on the smooth, clean stones at the bottom.
There’s a shock to it all, my hot skin, hot clothes, hot hair, exploding at the tingling chill, and then there’s my injury, which positively screams. But I don’t care.
As invisible fingers scrub down to my scalp, and every chafed, gritty, sweated place is rinsed off, I am renewed even before I start to slake my thirst.
Opening my mouth, I take in gallons of water as if it’s air and I’ve been suffocating for days. The taste is exactly as I thought, so sweet, it’s like an apple—
Abruptly, Merc pulls me out, and on a sputter, I mistakenly blow spray into his face. “Oh! I’m so sorry—”
“I thought you were drowning.” He laughs in a burst. “And worry not, woman. Everything that matters is wet on me, too.”
Indeed, he’s put his whole head in the stream, or poured as much as I’ve drunk over himself.
Clear water is dripping off the beaded ends of his braids, and his long, black hair has twisted into damp corkscrews.
Droplets even cling to his long, thick lashes, and I stare, mesmerized, at the way the diamonds glimmer around his obsidian eye.
“I’m going to ask you something,” he says in that deep voice that goes into me as if my marrow is a tuning fork for his song.
“What,” I whisper as our horse wades out and starts to crop at the grass.
“Why’re you looking at me now?” He reaches to my face and touches my wet cheek. “You never did, before.”
Hide.
I don’t like to lie to him. But how could I possibly explain the truth?
“After everything we’ve been through?” I smile a little. “Let’s just say, our sustained discomfort has led to a certain … comfort.”
“Ah.” He cocks a brow. “Quite a price for eye contact, then.”
Worth it. So very worth it.
I brush my wet hair back. “I would much have preferred sharing a pint and a nice meal, it’s true.”
Merc throws his head back and laughs properly, and the way the muscles on the sides of his neck flex remind me why he’s good at a job that requires strength.
And as he relevels himself, I have the traitorous thought that I want to be unforgettable to him.
After we part, I want him to remember me as I’ll remember him—
Before I think better of it, I rise up on my tiptoes and bring his face down to my own. Our lips meet with such ease, it’s as if we have been kissing each other for years, and when his tongue seeks to enter me, I want the penetration.
I want him inside me in another place, too.
After all of the travel and the heat, I feel like I’m soaring on the first pleasurable moment I’ve had …
Ever.
I want more of him. I want all of him, his naked skin, his sex in my own, his weight bearing down on me.
When we finally ease back, I stare into those eyes of his and remember the way he stopped before. Flushing, I stammer, “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for the likes of that.”
A precious moment follows—one I know I’ll recall when I try to sleep tonight, wherever that may be—where we cling to each other’s gaze and both go so much further in our minds. Clearly, I’ve misinterpreted his earlier reversal. Or maybe I was right then … and now is somehow different.
Mortal near-misses make people restless, perhaps?
Although for certain, his “further” is very much more accurate than my own fantasies. Something tells me he’ll teach me, though.
Except then he looks out to the south, and I know, even before he frowns and steps away, that the moment is gone.
Nor should it continue.
A rider approaches.