Chapter 34 #2
As the tears began to slow, he pressed a kiss against my head, and wrapped in his arms, I fell into an unsettled sleep.
Whenever I woke, sometimes crying, sometimes gasping from dreams that mixed past and present, he was there—holding me, stroking my hair, offering soft reassurances, letting me babble about whatever dragged me from sleep.
“I met them,” I whispered during one midnight awakening. “My parents. They were so in love. And I left them to die.”
His hand never stopped its gentle motions over my hair. “Tell me about them.”
So I did. About my mother’s hug. My father’s strength. The darkness that had swallowed their world. Violet’s sacrifice.
“Sleep, Princess,” he murmured like it was any other night, like my entire world hadn’t rocked on its axis. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”
With my head on his chest, I did as he told me.
As the hours passed, my awakenings became less frantic. Each time I woke, even if it was just for a moment, he was there, holding me in his arms, gazing down at me with that soft expression that made my heart flutter.
Until morning.
In the morning, I woke alone.
I sucked in a huge breath, feeling his absence like missing a limb. Before I had time to panic, however, the door opened and he appeared, carrying a tray of food. Taking in his rumpled state, his tousled hair, my breath caught.
“Good morning.” His voice was rough with sleep.
“Hi,” I squeaked, suddenly shy, the depth of connection from last night rippling between us.
Setting the food aside, he cupped my cheek, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “How are you feeling?”
“Crusty and sore.” Every one of my muscles was protesting what I had put them through.
His hand lingered behind my ear as I leaned into his touch. “What do you need?”
“A bath.” I looked down at what I was wearing, still sweaty, dirty, and blood-encrusted, and plucked it away from my skin. I had slept in this last night? He had cuddled me in this? My cheeks warmed in embarrassment. “And new clothes,” I said wryly.
“Give me a moment.”
Griff arranged for a bath and clothes to be brought in and stood by, waiting to assist me.
“Oh no, Champion. When you see me naked for the first time, it’s not going to be like this. Shoo.” I made a flapping motion at him as he froze. Then something that could only be described as a satisfied male smirk crossed his lips.
What had I said?
“Glad to know it’s a ‘when,’” his voice rumbled as he leaned in to give me a brief kiss, resting his arms on either side of where I sat on the bed. I grasped his cheeks, rough with scruff, and deepened the kiss. He let out a low groan that vibrated through me and I almost lost my resolve.
But no. I needed a bath.
I broke the kiss and put both hands on his chest to push him away, not letting myself get distracted by his pectoral muscles and how they tensed under my touch. One side of his mouth tilted up as his eyes swept over me, leaving a burning touch in their wake.
“Go,” I tried to order, but it came out breathless.
After brushing his lips over mine once more and giving me another one of those burning looks, he stepped out the door.
Every fiber of my being tingled as I gazed wistfully at where he’d disappeared, before I managed to haul myself over to the tub.
First things first—get clean.
Dredging up a spare bit of power through my fire channel, I heated the water, then eased my aching body in.
Thoughts swirled through my mind, attempting to fall into some sort of order.
I had traveled through time. Met my parents and facilitated their deaths.
Witnessed Violet’s sacrifice. And now apparently had Violet’s memories.
And underneath everything was the golden warmth pulsing in my chest. I could sense Griff, somewhere in the castle.
I must have dozed in the water because when I finally climbed out, the sun was high overhead. I finger-combed my hair, deciding for once to leave it down. It fell in a dark, wet sheet down my back, soaking my shirt, but that couldn’t be helped.
I poked my head out the door. The corridors were empty, most people going about their daily business. Perfect.
I followed the golden light that told me where Griff was, pulling me through the castle like a compass needle finding north. I kept my head down, and luckily, most people ignored me. As I approached a side room off the Great Hall, I heard raised voices.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” a short, portly man, red in the face, was shouting at Griff, waving something in the air.
Griff stood across from him, stone-faced, arms crossed, staring him down. I watched, a slight smile on my face. No one withstood that particular expression for long, myself excluded.
“Father.” A woman tugged at his arm.
The smile slid off my face. Of course Aine would be involved.
“A marriage contract has been signed!” the short man—her father, apparently—shouted angrily, shaking the document. “You expect us to just stand by while—”
I refused to hear any more. I turned on my heel and spun away, walking as fast my battered body would allow—which admittedly wasn’t very fast. I made it through the main doors and started down the path that wound its way down to the village.
I was nearly to the gates that denoted the end of the castle grounds when he caught up with me. I ignored him and kept hobbling along.
He easily kept pace with my faltering gait. “How much did you hear?”
“Are congratulations in order?” I asked bitterly, refusing to look at him, just focusing on taking the next painful step, then another.
He ran a hand through his hair, a sure sign of agitation. “Why are our fights always about Aine?”
“Probably because she keeps shoving herself between us. And you slept with her. And apparently you’re engaged to her.”
“It was years ago! I was a different person then!” he roared.
The volume of his voice made me flinch, and I realized just how much of a knife’s edge he was on. I stumbled slightly, my legs weakening as exhaustion caught up with me, but when he instinctively reached out to steady me, I jerked away from his touch.
“Are you telling me you have no exes in your closet?” he continued, in a marginally calmer tone.
“Fat chance you’ll ever have them paraded in front of you!”
“I met Tanner!” He was shouting again, his whole body radiating fury. “That boy might as well have tattooed on his face that he’d seen you naked and couldn’t wait to do so again.”
The crude reference to my past made me wrap my arms defensively around myself. “That’s different and you know it!”
People around us began backing away, torn between wanting to witness the drama of the princess and her Champion publicly fighting and fear of getting caught in the crossfire.
“How is it different?” he demanded, scrubbing both hands through his hair roughly.
“And I’m not engaged to her! If you had stayed and listened to the rest of the conversation, you would have heard me tell her and her father that I did not sign a marriage contract, I would never sign a marriage contract with her, and I never wanted to see it again.
And then I ripped it up and shoved it in his face, before coming to find you—where once again, you weren’t where I left you! ”
“I’m not some object that you can abandon somewhere and expect to find exactly where you left it!” My hands were shaking, either from exhaustion or anger, and I shoved them in my armpits.
“No, sometimes you travel through time and then enter stasis! And don’t tell me what your plan is!
” His voice broke slightly. “Do you have any idea what that was like? Feeling you slip away into nothing? I couldn’t find you!
Couldn’t follow you! Couldn’t do anything but sit there for twelve hours, praying you would return to me! ”
The raw pain in his voice almost broke my resolve. Almost. “You would have stopped me!”
“Damn right I would have! The risk was reckless beyond measure—”
“It was my risk to take! We needed the information. Can you travel through time? No? Then fuck off!”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “And then, when you returned, you fell straight into stasis. And I sat there at your bedside for two days, holding tight to your hand, hoping against hope that you’d again come back to me!”
We both stared at each other, breathing heavily. He looked to be a second away from kissing me or shouting at me.
“And what godsdamn information did you get?”
Shouting it was.
“I don’t know yet,” I snapped at him. Violet had transferred her memories to me, but what exactly was I going to find there? I added that, and this conversation, to the list of things I couldn’t process right now.
I struggled to walk away from him but he grabbed my arm, his touch gentle as his voice softened. “Lexa, please can we sit? You can barely walk.”
I wrenched myself out of his grasp. “Don’t you dare tell me what I can and can’t do, Griffin Narvene!”
I stormed away from him, or at least I tried to, given that storming was difficult when every step was a struggle.
We were far beyond the castle grounds now and into the beginnings of the city, and people were starting to stare.
Of course, that bastard teleported, popping up in front of me, and startled me enough that I stumbled.
His hands shot out to grip my upper arms, steadying me.
“Lexa, wait—”
I tore myself out of his grip once again, and without thinking, teleported myself, something I still hated doing. But right now, I just needed to be anywhere else.
And apparently “anywhere else” was paradise.
I looked around in shock at the rolling hills stretching endlessly before me, carpeted in tulips of every conceivable color.
Fields of brilliant red flowed into sunshine yellow, then creamy white, with patches of variegated blossoms mixing pink and orange and deep purple.
The only sounds were birdsong and the rush of water.
When I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, it smelled like springtime back home.