15. Renard #3
Then I remember Vireth—still likely sleeping up at our camp, completely unprotected except for a very determined corpse weasel.
I cannot stop the sudden flood of horrified imaginings about what might happen when the band of bested bandits stumbles onto our camp.
The thought strikes with such force that all my satisfaction immediately evaporates.
I whirl around, and—
Gods.
Vireth stands just at the top of the rise—the most magnificent sight I’ve ever seen.
She’s still clad in her sleeping shift, sword clutched in a steady hand, her pale hair half-freed from its braid and fluttering around her face.
Relief crashes through me with such force that my knees almost give out.
That is, until I take in her expression.
She is staring at me with an intensity that immediately unsettles me, her oxblood eyes wide and fixed upon my face, not with fear or anger or even confusion, but with a kind of astonishment so profound that for one ridiculous moment I wonder if one of the bandits has returned.
Yet the clearing remains empty, save for us.
My relief begins to curdle into concern almost immediately, because astonishment is all well and good, but I would vastly prefer annoyance or irritation over her silence.
“Vireth?” I’ve never known her to be so silent for so long, which only furthers my fear that something is wrong—an illness, or another overtaking from the Blight Mother, or something.
My gaze drops immediately to the sword she still holds in a white-knuckled grip before traveling over the rest of her in a rapid inventory of potential injuries, searching for blood upon her clothing, bruises upon her skin, or any indication whatsoever that one of the bandits managed to reach her while I was occupied with the others.
“Did one of them get near you?” I ask as I cross the clearing toward her. “Are you hurt?”
Still she says nothing, and the silence settles heavier with every step I take, which I’m beginning to find more uncomfortable than irritating.
“Gods above, woman, answer me!”
By the time I reach her, I’m overset with worry and long past the point of pretending propriety, and I begin looking her over in earnest, checking her shoulders, her arms, her face, and anywhere else an injury might reasonably hide while she continues staring at me with those impossibly wide eyes.
“Did they touch you?” I demand, perhaps more sharply than intended.
“Gods, I should’ve killed the lot of them.
They were planning on robbing us on the road today—the things they talked about doing…
about doing to you! I couldn’t wait, Vireth, I had to act.
What is the matter? Were there more of them—did you see any others? Are you injured?”
For what feels like an eternity, she simply stands there looking at me as though she has never seen me before, and with each heartbeat that passes, I’m edging closer to madness with concern—with fear—for her.
Without warning, she drops her sword, which lands on the mossy earth with a muted thud, and before I can ask her anything else, her hands seize the front of my tunic and she kisses me.
My thoughts abandon me so completely, I may as well have been struck across the head with a shovel. One moment I am frantically searching for injuries and demanding answers from her, and the next her mouth is against mine and my whole world seems to tilt beneath my feet.
Gods.
Too long I’ve imagined this—dreamed of it—and yet, nothing has come close to the sheer perfection of this moment.
Her lips are warm and soft, but she kisses me with a fierceness that utterly destroys what remains of my common sense and threatens to untether my sanity.
She slips her tongue between my lips and I groan, giving in to the weeks of unspoken tension.
When she sucks at my lower lip, some deeply embarrassing sound escapes me, but I find I cannot be bothered to care.
The longer we stand there, the hungrier I become, licking and nipping and sucking at her like she is the last taste I will have before dying.
My hands find her waist as though they have always belonged there, while the rest of the world quietly ceases to matter. The road disappears. The wilderness disappears. The famine disappears. Arden disappears.
Every burden I have carried across half the continent simply dissolves beneath the overwhelming reality of her. My lady fae. My Vireth.
She tastes of river water, herbs, and something uniquely Vireth I cannot describe, and I realize with growing concern that I would quite happily stand here for the remainder of my natural life if given the opportunity.
When she finally pulls away, her cheeks are flushed from the kiss, while her beautiful oxblood eyes remain fixed upon mine with a vulnerability I don’t really recognize.
Perhaps it is new for her—this feeling—but it is an old friend to me, and I greet it with the surprise of someone who never thought to see them again.
I love her. I am in love with her. And, if I am being honest with myself, have been for quite some time.
Gods, no wonder I've been so miserable. No wonder I’ve gone from frightened nursemaid to overprotective—even jealous—admirer every time she’s stepped into danger.
No wonder every argument lingered in my thoughts long after it ended, and every laugh she surrendered felt like a treasure I wanted to keep.
Somewhere between Hollowmire and here, between the terrible roads and terrifying monsters, between seers and prophecies and shared campfires and all the impossible things we've met together… she rooted herself deep inside my heart and made a bed there of mushrooms and moss.
I love her sharp wit and utter fearlessness, I love the way she mutters to herself like she thinks no one is listening, and the way her entire face transforms whenever something summons her earth-shattering smile.
I love her impossible courage, her terrible temper, her endless compassion, and the aching loneliness she carries so carefully beneath all of it.
I love her. Completely. Wildly. Terribly.
I love her enough that the thought of losing her has haunted me for weeks—that my mornings must begin with the sight of her across the fire, that my evenings must end with the comfort of her voice somewhere near.
I love her enough that my whole world has remade itself in her presence—as though every road will inevitably lead back to wherever she happens to be.
And now, she has kissed me, and that might undo me entirely because wanting her from afar was painful enough, but being handed even the smallest glimpse of possibility feels infinitely worse, opening doors inside me that I had long ago convinced myself would remain locked forever.
Before this moment, I could at least pretend that the future belonged solely to duty and obligation and whatever years remained to me.
Now, despite every effort to remain sensible, I find myself wanting things.
Dangerous things. Impossible things. Mornings waking up next to her, every challenge and argument I’d have the privilege to face with her, hearing her laughter and her swears and her sighs—and enough years together that eventually neither of us can remember what life looked like before the other arrived.
The yearning rises so suddenly and so fiercely that it steals my breath and buckles my knees.
Because somewhere along this journey, without permission and entirely against my better judgment, this extraordinary, infuriating, beautiful woman became the thing I want most in all the world.
And standing here with her lips still lingering upon mine, I fear there is no recovering from that.