Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
GAVIN SMYTH
I’m here at the Barracks doing this for me. That’s what I keep telling myself. I know it’s true.
But at night, when I’m lying in bed wearing your sweater and the rest of the world falls away, I admit to myself that I also really want to make you proud.
—UNSENT CORRESPONDENCE FROM QUEEN ARYELLA I TO THE BUTCHER OF NYRIDA
13th of Helios, 402 Years Ago
I wiped sweat from my forehead. Working the forge shirtless was reckless, but it was hot as hell today.
The only relief from the damp, oppressive heat of Brinnea in midsummer was the cool, misty breeze off the ocean.
But my blacksmith’s shop had small windows and a blazing fire within. On hot days, it was nearly unbearable.
For most people, birthdays were filled with joy, treats, and gifts.
Isaac and Eden had always done their best to make birthdays special for me.
But truthfully, I hated this day. It was the day a poor, abandoned twenty-three-year-old woman died bringing the bastard son she never asked for into the world.
I didn’t know who my father was. I didn’t care to find out.
I wouldn’t mourn a man who abandoned his child and its mother.
But for the long life my mother never got to live because of me, I mourned a great deal.
That truth cast a grim pall over the day every year.
By noon, I was always long past wishing it was over.
“Your lack of concern over being burned to a crisp by your own forge is concerning.”
I smiled and laughed, my chest warming in a way the oppressive heat could never manage.
And just like that, my birthday wasn’t so grim anymore.
Heart racing, I set my hammer down, turned, and basked in the remarkable gift of simply looking at her.
Her existence felt like a slip in some divine plan.
As if while the gods were attempting to achieve perfection, the heavens opened and accidentally let her loose.
I was the lucky asshole whose arms she happened to land in.
She was glowing, even though sweat dampened her brow and plastered silver-blond strands loose from her braid to her forehead.
And those golden-green eyes were shining, even as she blew out a tired breath and let the strap of a cumbersome leather bag fall off her shoulder onto the ground, where it made a light clanging sound.
She eagerly shrugged her hooded cloak, tossed it on the back of a corner chair, and faced me, hands on her hips. She scanned me head to toe with a sly little grin.
“Why are you still standing all the way over there?” I asked, folding my arms across my bare, filthy chest.
Her lip twitched, fighting a smile. “I don’t want to interrupt your work. I’ll wait.”
I chuckled. “I won’t get anything done with you here, Ella.”
Her cheeks blushed. “Well, I can le?—”
“Do not finish that sentence,” I growled playfully. “Come here.”
Her sweet smile blooming, she launched herself into my arms with an excited squeak. I caught her, firmly gripping her ass—for support, of course—and resting my forehead against hers.
“Happy Birthday,” she whispered. I was drenched in sweat, but she didn’t seem to care. “I missed you.”
“Thank you. I missed you, too,” I answered back. What an understatement. I eyed her coyly. “Though it’s only been five days, Ella. Getting a little greedy, are you?”
Her laugh lightened the damp air. “You’re one to talk.”
True. I knew she wanted to see me, but my obsession with seeing her was much more powerful.
I made a habit of sneaking into the castle as much as possible.
Sometimes I used what few extra coins I had to pay one of the farmers transporting crops up to the castle to let me take the load.
Other times I knocked a guard unconscious like I had the first time.
I was never caught, and I never did it in the same place twice.
No one was going to keep me from her.
“You’re filthy.” She wiped ash off my cheek with her thumb. “And sweaty.” But she pressed her soft lips to mine, not seeming to care. I longed to deepen the kiss, but she was right. Groaning, I pulled away.
“I suppose I could use a bath.” I studied the seventeen freckles cresting over the bridge of her nose. A distraction from the way her loving touch sent blood to my groin. I couldn’t let myself carry her straight into the bath with me.
She unwound her arms from around my neck. “Okay. I’ll wait here.”
But I, the clingy motherfucker that I was, decided I wasn’t ready to leave whatever room she was in. Instead, I locked my hands together behind the small of her back and nodded at the large bag she’d dropped. “What is that you carried all the way here?”
She smiled and brushed her light fingers over my chest. “Did you think I wouldn’t bring you something for your birthday?”
“I wouldn’t have cared if you hadn’t.” I cared more about how she felt pressed against me. And how it would feel to have her fingers in my hair while my tongue was between her legs.
“Well, I did. Let me show you.” She reached behind her back, and I begrudgingly let her escape from my hold. She blew out a heavy breath when starting to lift the bag.
I lunged to help her. “Let me?—”
“I’m stronger than I look,” she insisted, despite her clear exhaustion. I watched as she strained to lift it, but doing so seemed important to her. There wasn’t much in her life she’d been allowed, and she was stronger than she looked in more ways than one.
She managed to hoist the bag onto the table and began to remove items. My mouth fell open as she laid each on the wooden table next to my forge.
An entire new set of blacksmithing tongs, far nicer than Isaac’s fifteen-year-old pair, which I still used.
And five new steel hammers, all with different heads.
“I found this book on blacksmithing in our library.” She withdrew a thick tome cased in worn black leather from the bottom of the bag. “Not that you need it. You know what you’re doing, but I thought you might like it. I doubt anyone up there will miss it.”
It was the most thoughtful gift I had ever been given. The cost of it all had to be quite a lot.
“Ella, this is too much. I can’t?—”
“You can.” She lifted on her toes and pressed her soft, full lips to my jaw. “It’s not too much, not for you. Besides, I don’t have many people in my life to give gifts to, so if you don’t accept it, I might cry.”
Chuckling, I returned a gentle kiss to her adorably scrunched up nose. She rested her palm on the side of my chin and caressed my scruff with her fingers.
“Thank you, Aryella,” I said softly, even though thank you didn’t feel like enough. It was insecurity I rarely let myself feel. I was too stubborn to let it keep me from her, but sometimes the truth was hard to ignore. “You know I can’t… afford nice things?—”
“All I’ve ever had are nice things.” She looked up at me with an adoring smile. “Nice things don’t make me feel alive. Warm. Safe. Free .” She kissed the bare skin of my chest, despite the sweat and ash. “But you do.”
Gods, there was so much love inside her. Like honey fresh off the comb in late summer. So sweet that your body can barely take it, and yet, you can never get enough. She raked her fingernails along the nape of my neck in a way that made my body excited for things she wasn’t ready to give me.
I marveled at how she found aches hidden inside the tiniest crevices of my being and soothed each one.
Her touch was the remedy to every depressing and infuriating thought.
Before her, a woman’s touch had been a means to an end, but now?
Hers was a necessity; I needed it like I needed air to survive.
I hadn’t realized how hollow my life had become until she blazed in and filled it to the brim with love and light.
“Well, who am I to deny you that?” I palmed her cheek and brushed my thumb reverently over the arch of her brow. “Gods, you’re perfect.”
She hummed a sweet little laugh, then wrapped her arms back around me, despite the oppressive heat exacerbated by my forge. “I’m far from perfect, but I could get used to hearing you say otherwise.”
She pressed a soft kiss to my jaw, and I took her bottom lip between my own. The sound of her surrendering sigh demolished my restraint. Possession and hunger coursed through me. I turned us both, lifted her onto an empty table, and crushed my mouth to hers.
I would happily chase her whimpering sounds forever.
Our mouths moved together in perfect synchronization, like we were made for each other.
I darted my tongue out to trace her bottom lip, and she responded with a swipe of her own tongue against mine.
I dug my right hand into the table with enough force to give myself splinters.
I was thoroughly convinced that nothing and no one in the history of humankind had ever felt or tasted as divine as Aryella Jay Whitlock. Nothing and no one ever would.
“Ella,” I breathed, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other on her thigh.
Her fingers on my bare skin were intoxicating.
So soft and light, but bold and exploring, sending lightning straight to my groin until all I could think about was her wrapped safely around me while I thrust into her. Heat gathered at the base of my spine.
“Shit!” I pulled my mouth from hers and planted my hands beside her legs. I dropped my forehead to her shoulder. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to blow in my pants.
“Gavin?” One of her hands shot straight to my cheek, the other over my collarbone. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” My voice was strained, and my eyes were closed. I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed her dainty knuckles, reminding myself where we were. Who we were.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” I looked into her eyes and groaned at the way her big eyes were filled with innocent concern. “You’re getting quite good at this.”
“At this?”
Kissing me like you want me to strip you down and do very un?princess?like things to you.
“Kissing.” I pressed a gentle kiss to the right of her mouth and caressed the soft line of her jaw with my knuckles.
“And touching.” My eyes followed my own hand as it went down the elegant curve of her neck to the space over her heart, where I stopped.
“You’ve been practicing.” The words came out with a little more edge than I intended.
We hadn’t confirmed what this relationship was. I’d never been involved with anyone on any permanent terms. I knew she wasn’t seeing anyone else, but even the fleeting thought of another filled me with rage. Not at her, but at them. Men. The world. Everyone.
“Yes,” she giggled, oblivious to the monster inside me. “With this handsome blacksmith I know.”
“Ah,” I sighed, forcing my irrational urges to subside. “Well, he’s one lucky asshole.”
She laughed quietly, pursing her lips. “What do you want to do today?”
Not lose my fucking mind trying not to combust every time I touch you.
“Well,” I said instead, “it’s hotter than the balls of Helios outside. And even worse in here.”
She blushed at my crass humor. I normally curbed my vulgarity around her, but she didn’t like being treated like she was fragile.
“So?” she asked.
I needed us both to be far away from my loft and bed. Preferably somewhere I could force my entire body, and my urges, to cool.
An idea sparked. I knew the perfect place.
“Let’s go swimming.”