Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Orla gathered herself in her blankets before turning her back to him.
She expected her blankets to be cooled from the winter air, but when she got inside them, she noticed their whole camp became warmer.
It felt more like sleeping during a cool summer night than in the frigid chill of winter.
She scowled at the way it made her heart clinch as she realized how often Owain had used his powers around her.
All the times Owain had kept her warm, or when he let the rainfall so mushrooms would grow.
But then she thought of the lightning at Fontina and the little thaw of her heart froze over once again.
They continued like that for days, riding in silence, eating in silence, breaking down their camp in silence.
This was a kind of loneliness that Orla had never known before.
Growing up with her dad, she had felt the loneliness of not belonging.
And after his death, she felt the loneliness of being orphaned.
She had felt the loneliness of grief and the loneliness of heartbreak.
But never before had she been in the company of someone and felt this despair.
Even worse, she was with the person she most wanted to be with. Nightly, Orla’s thoughts wandered to Owain. To the ways he had touched her, to the pleasure he had brought her. And most of all, to how whole he had made her feel. She hated that she couldn’t scrub those memories from her mind.
Each night, Owain warmed their camp before bed.
Orla noticed rain clouds overhead on their third evening of travel, but Owain had shielded them from it.
Rain fell on every part of their forest, except their camp.
Every morning, Owain would wake before Orla to warm water on their campfire before making her tea.
Each morning when she woke up and saw the tea, she refused to drink it.
His caring and consideration were like a knife to the chest each day.
She wanted so desperately to believe that he had actually cared for her.
But internally, she warred with herself.
So what if he cared, it didn’t change the fact that he had lied.
It certainly did not change the fact that she was now traipsing through the forest fleeing for her life because of him.