Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Alvara’s head pounded with an intensity she hadn’t experienced in years. She groaned and peeked one eye open, letting in a small sliver of light. Why was it so bright?
She sat up as slowly as she could manage, rubbing her throbbing temples and breathing in slowly through her nose to quell her churning stomach.
A soft snore sounded from the floor next to her, where Boden lay, limbs stretched in all directions.
The messy sight warmed her heart in a way Alvara was much too sick from mead to handle, even as she fought the urge to sweep his hair out of his face.
She eventually settled for combing her fingers through her own gray mess.
What had even happened last night? She pressed her palms into her eyes in a poor effort to block out the sunlight as she did her best to sift through her alcohol-soaked memories. The night had started with Kat, but everything turned fuzzy rather quickly, until Boden’s face flickered in her mind.
She lowered her hands and stared at his tattoos. The inked animals tugged at something familiar. Had she…touched him?
Oh, holy mother of gods. “Burn me to ashes,” Alvara muttered. Her face heated from the memories of her hands on his skin, her insistence they share a bed. And not in the innocent way they had before.
What had she been thinking? She couldn’t remember the specifics, but he had stopped her, thank Vitharen. He must have been absolutely mortified.
“That terrible?” Boden words were mumbled and drowsy.
Her blinding headache paled in comparison to the panic that now gripped her.
She had absolutely no idea how to handle this.
The kiss on the ship had been nothing, an act of desperation.
What she had done last night was something she would have only done with the courage of alcohol, not in broad daylight, completely and painfully sober.
Boden’s hand grazed her arm, and she jumped. “Are you all right?”
She avoided his gaze—it would only horrify her all the more. “About last night. I was drunk out of my mind. Did I…touch your tattoos?”
“Petted would be a more accurate term, but yes. It’s nothing to worry about, we’ve all had worse nights than that. Trust me.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking.” She chanced a look at Boden’s face. He watched her in that thoughtful way that made her soul feel naked, every thought and emotion plain for him to read.
“You made it quite clear what you were thinking.”
“It would have been a mistake. We would have both regretted it.” She blurted the words before she could think too hard about them. She wasn’t even sure if she was speaking them for his sake or hers.
The images of what the night could have been flashed through her mind, all skin and tongue and teeth, and her heart skipped. She wanted to deny it, that no part of her desired something more between them. To know what his body would feel like on hers, what it would be like if he was hers.
But she had gone down that road once before with Pyry, and, well, that hadn’t exactly turned out. A friendship that could have lasted a lifetime, broken by a relationship that should have never happened in the first place.
More than anything, Alvara was still a mess, if last night was any indication.
She couldn’t offer Boden the all-encompassing love and companionship that someone like him deserved.
Maybe after the battle, if—when they defeated King Einar, when that part of her had healed. Maybe then, she could be enough.
“I need some food.” Actually, the mere concept of putting anything in her mouth made her want to gag, but she needed to escape this conversation and breathe in fresh air to clear her fogged mind.
She hurried out of the sleeping hall and found a pile of leftovers from the feast the night before, surrounded by equally miserable-looking elves.
She didn’t need to turn around to know Boden had followed her outside. Without looking up, she spooned meat and vegetables into two bowls, dug the peas out of his, and added them to her own before handing him his food.
“You would have regretted it?” His words hung somewhere between a question and a statement.
Alvara focused on swirling the spoon in her bowl. “We’re friends. After trying to push you away and realizing what I could lose, I’m not willing to risk it. I lost Pyry doing the same thing, making reckless choices that we could never come back from. I don’t think that’s a path we should go down.”
“I’m not Pyry.” His voice held an unexpected bite.
But gods, she was painfully aware of that fact.
Even Pyry hadn’t made her feel this overwhelming need to be near to him at all times, someone she couldn’t rid her mind of no matter how hard she tried.
And Boden’s words, his reaction—an embarrassingly large part of her wanted to know if he felt what she did.
No, it wasn’t worth thinking about. They had much bigger issues to tackle if they wanted to survive.
“I know. But it was just a night of too much mead, and it would be a mistake to think of it as anything more.” Alvara’s skin felt like it might melt.
How was she not visibly steaming? They needed to talk about anything else but this. “The prisoners. What happened?”
Boden stared at her, tapping his spoon on the side of his bowl.
He placed his food on a nearby stump and bowed his head.
“The king will invade on the full moon in a few weeks, when his power is at its strongest. He’s amassed an army larger than we had anticipated, built from Elan, Nyrian, and Valonian wielders. ”
So, Boden had tortured them. “After everything the king made you do, you haven’t stopped.” This was easier—fueling anger, emotions that would distance her far from any thoughts of a future they could have had together.
He pressed his lips together. “And here I believed you were telling the truth when you told me you didn’t judge me, that you understood.”
She didn’t judge him, and she did understand. That wasn’t the problem. “That’s not what I’m upset about, Boden. We needed the information, I understand. But why did it have to be you? Why does it always have to be you? Why do you think that everyone else is worth more, holds more value?”
The words tumbled out of her at a pace her tongue almost couldn’t keep up with, fed by her frustration.
With herself and him. “You continue to shred your own soul to save a drop of someone else’s blood, and it makes me so godsdamned angry.
” She slammed her own bowl onto the stump.
“Do you know how painful it is for the people who care about you to watch you tear yourself apart to shelter other people from the agony you inflict on yourself on a daily basis? What’s the point of saving everyone if you aren’t willing to save yourself? ”
He had gone utterly still, the only movement the rise and fall of his chest. She wanted so badly to wrap her arms around him, breathe him in to calm the tempest swirling inside of her, but she had drawn a firm line between them.
“What a night!” Kat’s cheery voice sliced through the tension like a finely honed blade. Her eyes darted between them, and the smile slipped from her face. “Oh gods, I walked in on something, didn’t I? I can go—”
“I didn’t do it,” Boden said.
Kat raised her eyebrows and tiptoed away.
“But you said—”
“I asked Rav, and he was all too happy to take over.” He studied the ground as he spoke. “I didn’t believe I was worth more, but you make me feel differently.” His eyes found hers, and her heart threatened to stop. “You make me want to be someone different than the person the king molded me to be.”
She could hardly breathe, let alone speak. He had listened to her. For the first time in gods knew how long, Boden had refused to put his worth, his life on the line and cared for his own well-being.
Alvara moved closer, even as her pulse flew off without her, and settled her hand on his arm (which was still just as enticing without mead involved).
“I’m proud of you. I know it isn’t easy for you to stop offering yourself as the solution to every problem.
” Boden laid his hand on top of hers, and her blood heated. “Your tattoos are really nice—”
“Remind me to always wear long sleeves around you,” he said, but his eyes twinkled.
“As long as it means you’ll be around me.”
That’s all she wanted, for him to stay around her for a long, long time.