CHAPTER FIFTEEN #3
“Let me heal you first. It’s the least I can do.” She flexed her good hand, which had itched with her silver threads to mend his wounds, though her head swam as an ache formed in her temples.
He gently slid her legs off his lap and stood. “That’s not necessary.”
She reached for his hand, but thought better, and allowed him to retreat from her. “But you plucked those quills for me.”
He lifted his hand to shove his hair back from his face and Emmery narrowed her eyes on a half dozen marks on the inside of his bicep revealed through the shredded sleeve.
The torn, bloody skin made it almost impossible to make them out but, those had to be pactum scars.
And really, she shouldn’t be surprised. She could only begin to imagine the things he traded and sold and bargained to get what he wanted.
How had he phrased it that dinner before they’d made their pactum?
Don’t mistake my decency for weakness. I don’t beg. I don’t grovel. And I certainly don’t fall to my knees for anyone. I get what I desire and deal accordingly with those who stand in my way.
At least he’d been upfront with her. But wasn’t he only moments ago on his knees for her?
Destonne retrieved her cloak from where it hung on a tree branch, and tossed it over as if he suddenly couldn’t put enough distance between them. “I didn’t do it for a favour.”
Emmery winced at the sting of her palm as she caught it and balled the fabric in her lap. “Then, why?”
He exhaled a long breath, pinched the bridge of his nose, and ignored her question. “Now it seems it’s you who doesn’t understand the meaning of no.”
After she slung her cloak angrily over her shoulders and yanked the clasps closed, she glanced down at her chest and arms. Her deep wounds still bled.
The familiar sticky sensation tightened her chest, and she fought the memory of Vesper’s blood.
She grabbed her boots and shoved her feet into them with more force than necessary.
Her damn swollen fingers wouldn’t work as she fumbled with the laces. “Why won’t you—”
Destonne spun, took a giant step toward her, and her voice died. “You’ve already lost a lot of blood and it’s my fault. Now you want to use your magic to heal me?” He huffed a bitter laugh. “I don’t think so.”
“But—” She bit back her response as he sank to the ground and seized her booted foot. Emmery’s chest constricted as his eyes locked on hers.
“It’s not your burden to bear. It’s mine.” He methodically laced her boot, never once removing his gaze from hers. “Don’t waste your magic on me.”
Not knowing how to respond, she sat there mute.
Waste. As if he wasn’t worth the effort.
What a terrible way to think of oneself and a shocking revelation from the King of Thorns, who gave the impression of overwhelming arrogance.
A complicated man who took what he wanted, when he wanted, like stealing his kingdom out of his father’s cold dead hands, but yet would try to convince her not to heal him when she offered.
Destonne held her gaze as his fingers worked, not a flicker of humour in his eyes this time. Instead, an intensity she couldn’t place simmered there. One that sparked a flush beneath her skin.
Aera leapt off Emmery’s lap and plunked herself down beside Destonne, cocking her head at the two of them.
Emmery barely paid the fox any mind as she stared at Destonne, unwilling to be the first to look away.
It seemed he had the same idea, and the corner of his lip twitched as he took in her pink cheeks.
Gods, how could one man make her squirm just by looking at her?
“Are you angry?” she whispered, her chest in knots.
He looped the lace. “No.”
Emmery gnawed on her lip, not sure what else to say because he certainly sounded angry. And he should be. If she’d died, he couldn’t retrieve his magic and that was all he wanted.
“I thought I would drown.” The words floated on her jagged breath.
Destonne knotted her last lace, but his hand didn’t leave her. No, instead, it slid from the boot to the back of her ankle. Her breath snagged and she went still as a rabbit caught in a snare.
“I will only say this once,” he drawled, his voice like crushed velvet.
His fingers trailed from her ankle, up the curve of her calve in a long, luxurious stroke. Emmery bit down on her bottom lip as her body drew tight as a bowstring and her heart thumped in time with her magic.
“I want you to listen and sear it into your memory.”
Destonne’s hand slid higher yet, cupping the back of her knee and every nerve in her body narrowed on that touch sending that delicious tingle up her leg.
Her magic pounded like a galloping horse, and there was no doubt in her mind that he saw that reaction—the wavering betrayal of her vestige glowing and swelling for him.
That wicked glint in his eyes told her all she needed to know.
But it seemed, despite all logic, he held her like he couldn’t help himself.
Like not touching her was a strain. And he’d given in.
Though this was a game like all the others, the intensity inflated by the second. If she pulled away, he won, but if she let him continue, he won too. Emmery wanted to scream in frustration.
She should pull away. Should.
But she didn’t.
She could play, too.
Emmery lifted her chin and met his stare with equal fire. But while hers was a golden caress and liquid honey melting on one's tongue, his was dark desire and crackling midnight embers. The epitome of sinful embraces.
His heat sank into her chilled flesh and, damn her, the imprint of his fingers in her skin, made her traitorous mind wander to his beautiful hands on other parts of her.
Softer parts. Intimate parts. What if his hand continued up her thigh, if he leaned in, his warm breath on her neck as his fingers—
Emmery shook the thought loose.
Ridiculous. It was ridiculous.
And so, so wrong.
His thumb grazed her inner thigh and her whole body leaned into it, her back involuntarily arching. Back and forth, each swipe a longer, slower caress.
Fuck.
Destonne knew exactly what he was doing. “Are you listening?” he asked.
Too baffled by his commanding words and the direction of his touch, Emmery merely nodded.
“I will never let you drown.” He said it so simply, once he claimed it, she believed it to be true. His promise flitted through her, playful and heavy and all the things in between. “This isn’t the first time I’ve saved you from drowning and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
Emmery frowned. “What—what do you mean?”
At his silence, her stomach dipped. If he’d saved her before then there was really only one time: when she fell through the ice in the mountain village.
But how was that even possible? How did he know she was there, let alone pull her from the water?
But there had been someone chasing after her.
She recalled the pursuing footsteps, someone calling her name through the smoke, and Destonne was keen to protect his asset and ensure his pactum with Vesper was executed successfully.
Now that she thought about it, Vesper had been dry when they sat at the camp.
Had that been Destonne’s mouth that breathed life back into her? The air from his own lungs? By the twinkle in his eyes as his gaze dipped to her mouth, he was recalling how her chapped lips had given under his.
Gods save her.
Emmery couldn’t form a reply that wasn’t a babbling ramble of nonsense. She opened her mouth, gaped like a floundering fish and then clamped it shut. When she finally spoke, she said, “I—I haven’t a clue what to say.”
“A simple thank you would suffice. Perhaps that gift I’ve anxiously awaited.”
Emmery closed her eyes as her head swam with everything that happened—all the emotions, feelings, and desires battling within her. “I let fear win again,” she said, her whisper as broken as she felt.
When she finally opened her eyes, she found Destonne watching her with impossible gentleness.
“You know the mechanics,” he said. “You only have to put it together and push past that wall of fear. You shoved that boundary today and failed. That’s fine, but don’t give up.
Don’t stop pushing. No one else will push for you. ”
He carefully set her foot on the ground, stood, and extended his hand to her. She took it, grateful for the support.
The King paled as he surveyed her arm. “You’re still bleeding.”
As Emmery glanced down, she caught the blood streaming off her fingers from the deep gash down the length of her forearm. Her pounding head echoed in her ears. Disoriented her.
Regardless, she got to her feet. She had barely straightened to stand before her vision swayed, went black, and she fainted into Destonne’s arms.