Chapter Sixteen #3
Helspira paused mid-spin, wide eyed. “Your arm?”
“Afraid so.”
“Are you all right?”
“I think I might be dying.”
In the face of his theatrics, she laughed. “How fortunate that you have multiple lives, then.”
He pulled her back into him until her face was inches from his. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Always.”
The side of his head rested against hers, the scent of campfire tangled in her hair. He breathed it in and whispered in her ear, “This is my favorite one so far.”
His stomach sank the second he said it. Were those his words?
Sometimes they came out so fast, so absent of thought that he couldn’t tell which statements were compulsive lies and which were truths.
He had only lived two lives so far, and this one was full of limitless anguish.
Surely, it couldn’t be his favorite of the two.
And yet ...
“I only have one life to live, but”—Helspira shivered under his breath—“I can honestly say I never felt more alive than I do right now.”
“I wager precious few women who took a halberd to the stomach could make such a claim.” He felt her muscles stretch into a smile against the side of his face.
“I could write an entire speech on why I’d do it again in an instant,” she said.
Her proximity soothed the ache in his arm, and against his better judgment, he pulled her closer. “Go on, then. I’ve ruined enough of your speeches. I owe it to you to listen to your next one.”
She pulled away just enough to find his eyes. “Now? Well, I ... um ... that is to say, I ...”
Sikras grazed his forehead against hers. “No notes. Easily the best speech I’ve ever heard.”
The distant tempo of Benjamin’s tune increased, the accelerando matching the primal beating of Sikras’s heart. Was he leaning closer? He must’ve been. Anticipation sizzled through his veins like an electric current.
Right up until Benjamin’s song ended and caused a momentary break in the gravitational pull.
“Thank you, thank you,” came Benjamin’s far off words. “You’ve been a wonderful if not slightly horrified audience.”
The phrase pierced through Sikras’s covetousness like a spear, for they echoed the words Benjamin had uttered at his and Imri’s wedding upon finishing his toast. “You’ve been a wonderful audience,” Ben had said to the crowd.
And they had clapped. And Sikras had taken Imri in his arms, had kissed her, and now remembered every detail of her face when she had smiled at him in her gown—
Guilt rained like a downpour of enemy arrows, and in each stab, he saw Imri’s face. He peeled his hands from Helspira’s body and stepped backward. Only one thought came to him in the moment. It somehow catered to both his inclinations despite their antithesis. “I should take you to bed.”
Helspira
HAD SHE HEARD HIM RIGHT? Maybe she only heard what she wanted to hear, or the substantial blood loss was making her hallucinate, or—“Yes,” came her eager interruption. “I’d like that. Very much. That’s—yeah—bed would be ... great.”
As her imagination wandered, her stomach tightened—and not just because a foe had driven steel into it however long ago.
Even for a demon with an impressive pain tolerance, she winced, every subtle movement reminding her of the injury.
If she wasn’t hallucinating, and if Sikras really was inviting her to share a bed, a near-crippling stab wound would make it difficult to be an active participant in any rigorous intimate acts.
Then again, Sikras was probably a gentle lover ...
He would probably spend a good portion of his time exploring her with his lips ...
His fingers ...
And the promised flood of desire between her thighs would likely draw focus from her injury as he slowly slid—
“Helspira?”
“Nothing!” she blurted, a burning heat invading her cheeks.
Sikras blinked. “What?”
“What? Never mind. Sorry, my mind was ... wandering.”
“A blade to the stomach will do that, I suppose.”
“Yeah.” She cleared her throat and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Fingers crossed I won’t have any other objects jammed into my body any time”—oh, gods, she needed to stop talking—“soon.”
Sikras chuckled, and, merciful fate, what a lovely sound it was. “Right. I know you favor sleeping outside so you can see the stars. You’re sure you won’t mind sleeping inside for one night?”
A long pause followed, and Helspira blinked. “Sleeping?”
“Right. In our tent. In my bedroll.”
“Oh?”
“And I’ll take that poor excuse for a bed they left you with.”
“... Oh.” Realization struck, and she tried to mask her disappointment by turning away.
He had meant take her to bed, not take her to bed, which, of course, that was what he meant.
Who in their right mind would be thinking about intense, magnetic physical and emotional attraction to a companion at a dire time like this?
Logic battled fiendish impulses all the way through the uneven terrain to the tent. Wild fantasies filled her imagination, and she leaned against Sikras for support, until they passed below the tent’s flap to enter the cramped interior.
Heavy canvas flanked them on all sides. Given the claustrophobic interior, it almost seemed as if the tent itself encouraged them to press their bodies against one another.
She couldn’t just stand there and argue with a tent’s logic.
Ridiculously impulsive or not, she would regret it more if she didn’t take a chance.
Turning into him, she let her blanket fall.
It was almost cruel how much he warmed her, which was strange given how cold his natural body temperature ran.
Her senses dizzied when she inhaled. Whatever soap Sikras had used to wash the blood from his garments and wounds must’ve been infused with bergamot.
Bed him. Now.
She couldn’t deny it. She wanted him. All of him. And she was tired of waiting. One hand slid up his chest, the other traveling to the back of his neck and into his silvery hair.
There. Even a blind man could read those cues.
Helspira thought for a moment he might say something. A flicker of fear spiked inside her when he didn’t. His body remained rigid under her touch, but she felt the faintest release of tension when he rested the side of his head against hers.
Near darkness veiled the finer details of the tent’s interior, but her demonic lineage granted the gift of night vision.
She saw only perfection. Felt only yearning.
The gentle pressure of his jaw against her temple.
The reliable chill of his hand sent shivers through her body.
The tips of her claws grazed his scalp, and his nearly inaudible, pleasure-filled groan was her reward.
“If you asked me to stay,” he whispered with noticeable reluctance, “I wouldn’t have the conviction to say no.”
She pulled back enough to search his eyes—the pallid green eyes that refused to meet hers. His tone spoke of his desire, his yearning, his eagerness to taste her, feel her, breathe her in. But his distant gaze held only guilt.
Immovable, endless, all-consuming guilt.
Helspira grazed her cheek against his jaw once more, closed her eyes, and lingered in the moment. Not as long as she wanted; there wasn’t enough time in the world for that. But as long as she felt she could without making him suffer more than he already did. “Goodnight, Sikras.”
The remaining tension in his shoulders melted. He stood with her in silence, until his face tilted toward hers, just enough to brush the softest kiss on her temple. “Goodnight, Helspira.”
Her chest ached from his absence when he pulled away and headed for the exit.
Hope bloomed when he stopped in the opening and looked over his shoulder. “Rest well.”
Crushed, she did her best to maintain a smile. “I’ll try.”
Helspira held her breath until he walked out. Left with nothing but quiet, she eased into a resting position atop his bed roll. It was unfair how much it held his scent. She dragged a hand over her aching stomach, closed her eyes, and sighed.
Countless circumstances had plagued her throughout her lifetime. The list of trials she had endured both in and out of Chthonia was not short. But letting Sikras Nikabod walk out that tent flap without confessing how much he meant to her competed for most difficult.
It was strange finding rest without the company of stars.
They had aided her countless evenings prior, little glowing sedatives that soothed her frazzled mind.
Fortunately, Sikras’s lingering scent had a similar effect.
Just as the peacefulness of sleep quieted her mind, a sound outside the tent forced her eyes to reopen.
“Sikras?” Helspira ignored the pain from suddenly sitting upright.
All hope drained when Banneret Rowan entered, holding her armor.
“Can you walk?” he asked, tone unreadable.
She gathered the nearby blanket to hide her exposed torso but assumed the rigid pose of a standing sentinel. A trickle of sweat snaked down her neck as she wrestled to disguise her pain. “Yes, Banneret. Have you need of me?”
“Not anymore.” Her belongings hit the floor, all except her sword and her iconic Red Sentinel scarf.
Helspira’s fingers dug into the blanket. “Banneret, please, I can still help in the fight—”
“You used the scroll. Catseye will never send that skeleton into Stow’s Peak now. Our odds of success were slim from the get-go, but thanks to your negligence, we’ve nearly no chance of victory.”
“No,” she retorted. “He promised. He gave me his word that he’d aid Nyllmas—”
“Sikras Nikabod is a compulsive liar. He’s been so for all seven years that I’ve known him.
His word is as good as that fake scroll.
” Defeat tempered the banneret’s aggression as he glowered, chin high.
“Be gone from our camp, demon. The only mercy I’ll afford you is time to get your parents from Vinepool before I return.
I don’t care where you go, but if you’re still there upon my arrival, I’ll cast you all into Chthonia myself. ”
“Rowan, I know this seems bad, but—”
“Banneret Rowan to you. I should’ve known better than to relent to the queen’s request that the Red Sentinel welcome you as a member. Nyllmas is no place for your kind.”
Stunned into paralysis, Helspira clutched the blanket and said nothing.
“I’d hurry if I were you,” came the banneret’s words as he strode toward the exit. “We’re returning to Nyllmas at first light to regroup our numbers and devise a new strategy. You have a ten-hour head start.”
The banneret disappeared, leaving Helspira to her shock.
Ten hours to crawl back to her parents in the dead of night with an aching stomach. Ten hours to pack everything they had acquired during their two years of freedom from Chthonia. Ten hours between now and when she had to tell her parents that she had failed them, their queen, their new homeland.
Should she leave Sikras a note? No. She didn’t need him chasing after her.
He promised her that he would save Nyllmas, and the Red Sentinel needed all the help it could get, whether it came from the Catseye or Sikras Nikabod.
Besides, what would she even say? She would need far more than ten hours to gather her thoughts, let alone summarize everything he meant to her in a letter.
And so, she did the only thing that made sense to her frazzled, spinning mind.
She donned her armor and vanished quietly into the night.