Chapter 17
HALLUM
“It’s a slow song,” Lualhati said.
“Yes.” I wasn’t sure why she was pointing this out to me. Anyone with ears could hear how the tempo and mood of the music had shifted. “What do you require of me?”
“A dance,” she said.
I knew that much. She’d come storming over to me at the door a moment ago, her eyes huge, and asked me to dance with her. I’d pointed out that if she needed fellow dancers, Xennet, Dorn, and Shiloh remained in the centre of the room.
“I don’t want to be with them right now,” she’d said. “I want to be with you.”
A terrible part of me wished I’d somehow been able to record her voice in that moment. I want to be with you.
My memory would have to suffice. Luckily, it was a good one. And even if I’d had a memory like a water bucket full of holes, I did not think I could ever forget, to the end of my days, the way she’d sounded when she’d said it.
“I do not know how to dance. I will disappoint you,” I’d told her.
She’d replied that she did not care.
And when she raised her hand between us, I found it entirely impossible not to take it.
“You must instruct me,” I told her.
“Just do what Warden Tenn is doing.”
I glanced beyond her and saw Warden Tenn holding his wife by the waist, swaying with her to the music. It appeared to be like some kind of moving hug.
The act seemed incredibly intimate, lasting longer than a normal hug and involving that rhythmic motion. It seemed like something a married couple might do in the privacy of their own home. Shiloh and Rivven began to dance the same way, which only seemed to confirm my thoughts on the subject.
But then again, Xennet and Dorn were now slow dancing with each other. So perhaps I was overthinking this.
“Put your hands on my waist,” she murmured. By the blazes, she had a lovely mouth. My gaze was on her lips as she spoke.
And my hands were on her body.
“Good,” she crooned softly. “Not a disappointment at all. I told you.”
She tried to place her own hands on my shoulders, but it proved to be an uncomfortable reach for her that way.
So instead, she looped her arms around my back, pressing her cheek against my chest. My head dipped down towards her of its own volition.
Her hair smelled like flowers and fruit and all the sweet things I’d never really cared about. Until now.
Until this moment. This moment that told me there was likely no way around it, no way to avoid it.
I was becoming hopelessly addicted.
I would not say this to her. Could not say it.
What purpose would it serve? To tell her I thought that she was beautiful?
The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in all my blasted life?
That when she’d come out in this tight, short dress tonight, my desire for her felt like it might actually kill me?
I would not tell her that I thought of her the moment I woke up, the moment I went to bed, and every other moment in between.
She was not mine to keep.
She was not mine at all.
But I could hold her for now, and I did so, as if the moment might last forever. Her body was exquisite glory against my own. She was putting her full weight on me now, perhaps an effect of fatigue, or the alcohol, or both.
“You are tired,” I said.
She just said, “Mmm,” and burrowed closer.
The dip of her waist was perfect in my hands. I wanted so badly to touch my lips to her hair.
I was getting hard. She did not seem to notice. Her eyes were closed. She barely moved in my arms.
She is practically asleep on her tiny little feet.
“Come on,” I said. “Let us get you home to bed.”
“Song’s not over yet!” she protested weakly.
But the song was over. It ended just after her reply, with a final flourish of melancholy notes.
“Come on,” I said again, more firmly this time. I did not want to use my warden voice on her, but I would if I had to. Luckily, she seemed amenable enough now, and I led her to the chair by the door. Removing the clothing there with my tail, I directed her to sit.
“Put these on,” I said, putting the warm pants and jacket onto her lap. “Where are your boots?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a heavy sigh.
“Stay there. I’ll find them.”
The boots had been abandoned by the side of the dancefloor. I fetched them and returned to her. She’d managed to get her pants on, but seemed to be struggling with the jacket.
“I can’t get my arm in here!” she cried, showing me the right sleeve of her jacket. “Something’s wrong with it.”
“Your gloves are inside it.”
“Oh.”
My chest constricted. My mouth tightened. I liked Lualhati when she was at her most competent.
But I also liked her like this. Just a little bit helpless.
In need of her warden.
“Here.” I retrieved the gloves from the offending sleeve, which allowed her arm to go all the way into it this time.
“Ah,” she said happily. “That’s better!” Once the jacket was on, she put on the gloves.
“Now the boots,” I told her. “Here they are.”
“Ugh.” Her happiness from the previous moment disappeared. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I just put these gloves on!”
“So? What do the gloves have to do with it?”
“It made my fingers all tired,” she groaned. “Plus, my feet are so far away. Look at them!”
She wiggled her tiny toes, as if to provide evidence of how unreasonable my request had been. Unfortunately, all this did was make my cock ache with a new, inexplicable throb.
“I will do it for you, then.”
I really needed her to put those wiggly toes away. They were…doing things to me.
I found her socks inside the boots, much like the gloves. Putting on her socks proved more difficult than anticipated, as she started bucking like a spooked shuldu the second I touched her ankle.
“That tickles!” she snorted.
It took everything I had not to draw the pad of my thumb slowly along the arch of her sensitive foot.
Instead, I made use of both my hands and my tail to hold one foot still, then the other, so I could put her absurdly tiny socks on her. The boots proved a little easier for both of us. After zipping them up, I stood.
She blinked sleepily up at me. “Hallum?”
Hallum.
It was the first time she’d called me only by my name.
By the empire, how I loved the sound of it in her mouth. Even when slightly slurred the way she said it now. More like “Hall’m”
“Yes?”
“I think I might be drunk.”
“I think you might be right.”
I’d never actually seen drunkenness in a human before, but I could comprehend it on a theoretical level. And Lualhati was certainly exhibiting the symptoms as I understood them.
“I do stupid shit when I’m drunk,” she said. She focused her glassy eyes on my face. Or tried to, anyway. “Don’t let me do any stupid shit, Hallum!”
“You have already suffered through a dance with me,” I grunted. “So it may already be too late.”
She laughed, loose and loud.
“You are so funny. How the heck are you so funny? I never would have thought that you actually had a sense of humour when I first met you.” She shook her head slowly, the long strands of her hair shifting around her shoulders. “Dancing with you was the best part of my night.”
She was definitely drunk.
“Let’s get you into bed.”
When she didn’t move, I picked her up. I tried to help her stand, but I did not like the way she balanced – or rather, didn’t balance – on those spindly heels of hers. So I scooped her up and held her cradled to my chest. I would carry her to the sled myself.
When I turned around, I found all four of the others watching us in wide-eyed, slack-jawed silence. The music blared on, entirely forgotten by the dancers.
“She is tired and I am taking her home,” I announced. “Goodnight. Warden Tenn and Tasha, I wish you safe travels.”
“Bye!” Lualhati said, flapping her hand in the general direction of the group.
A chorus of stilted goodbyes rang out behind me as I took Lualhati out the door.
The cold air felt good on my skin after the warmth of the saloon.
And Lualhati felt so perfect in my arms. I could have carried her the whole way home like this. I thought about it. Really thought about it. Wondered what excuse I might use about leaving the sled and the shuldu behind.
I could not, of course. I had to get Bart and Berta stabled for the night. With something far too close to acrid regret for my liking, I laid her down in the sled.
She curled up onto her side immediately.
Some of her hair had fallen into her face. It rustled with each breath, making her nose wrinkle as it tickled her skin. I brushed the strands away, smoothing them tenderly back. I did not allow myself to touch her beyond that.
I spent the ride back in silence that had grown strangely unfamiliar to me. Usually, Lualhati would keep up some kind of conversation between us. I used to enjoy the quiet. Now, it felt unnatural. Hollow.
It was not a good sign about what my life would be like once she left me.
Left here. Not me.
Besides, my life would simply be as it had been before. No better. No worse.
So why did it feel like it would be worse? That my life, like my house would be once she was gone, would be empty? That the meticulous order I’d always valued would be entirely meaningless to me now, without her there to poke at it, tease it, fray it?
This was a pathetically foolish sort of moroseness.
The kind I never allowed myself to indulge in.
Perhaps Warden Tenn had had a point, when he had called me sullen.
It irked me to think that Warden Tenn had seen something in me that I had not been able to.
I prided myself on being someone who could judge people efficiently and accurately.
Myself, most of all. Denial was the tool of lesser men.
I’d never been one to hide from my own motives before.
But my motives were not her motives. She had made her decision. She would not stay.
I respected that. Because I respected her.
Respected her, and…