Chapter 14 #2
I knew I couldn’t be trusted with attachments, and here’s the proof.
You’d think what happened before would have taught me that lesson, but apparently, I can’t get it through my dense skull.
I have the urge to twist Maia’s cord in my fingers, to feel the rough leather grain, but Alanna’s trembling body, so fragile against my own, yanks me back to the present.
“Alanna.” I set her down gently on the worn couch, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “Can you hear me?”
Her eyes flutter open, hazy but aware. “Did we make it?”
“We’re safe,” I tell her, relief flooding through me. “The wards will hold.”
For now. But I know that thing isn’t done with us.
Good. I’m not done with it.
“I’m so cold,” she says, her voice sounding small.
Her lips are tinged blue, and her teeth are chattering in an increasingly frantic rhythm. Shit. The couch isn’t enough. It’s too exposed, and she needs blankets, warmth, rest.
“I’ll fix it,” I promise.
All she can do is nod while her body shivers violently. She’s looking at me with total trust in her eyes and it plunges me straight back into a familiar self-loathing. If she only knew the things I wanted from her. Things I don’t deserve.
I scoop her back into my arms, ignoring my injury, and carry her across the den to the bed. It’s a nest of thick furs and blankets, and even better, it’s close to the old wood-burning fireplace in the corner.
Laying her gently in the center, I start piling blankets over her, pulling them up to her chin. Then I add the furs, mostly soft and insulating rabbit pelts, until she’s buried beneath a mountain of warmth.
“Better?” I ask, kneeling beside the bed, my hand resting on her forehead. Still too cold.
“Maybe a little,” she manages, but I am certain she’s just trying to be accommodating. She shouldn’t pretend, not to me, and not when it’s this serious.
“Don’t lie, aine,” I say, the endearment slipping out unwarranted.
I slam my lips together to shut myself up.
If she wasn’t so drained, she’d never let that slide without finding out what it means.
As it is, her eyelids are drooping and I’m not even sure she heard me.
Small mercies. My fingers itch to reach for her, but I just felt her forehead and there’s no good reason to touch her again.
I pull back instead. “Wait here,” I say, standing.
“W-where are you going?” She tries to sit up, sounding panicked through her chattering teeth.
“The fire.”
“Oh. Th-thanks,” she says quietly. Then, I almost miss her strained whisper: “Don’t leave me.”
My heart gives an uncomfortable squeeze. There’s something so vulnerable, so lost, in how she says it. Like it’s not just about what’s going on right now, but something deeper, more painful. I crouch back down beside her, my hand automatically going to her arm in a silent reassurance.
“I won’t.” As if I could ever leave her.
As if I could stay away, even if she wanted me to.
I don’t know what I’ll do when she’s gained enough control not to need me anymore.
Follow her around like a pathetic puppy, probably.
Real dignified. “Just going to warm up the den for you. I’ll be right back. ”
“Okay,” she says, settling back into the furs. I can feel her watching me as I go, like she doesn’t quite believe me.
Who made her feel like this? Like she’d be left alone in her moment of vulnerability, abandoned when she needs help the most?
I mull it over as I cross to the antique stove fireplace, wondering if she’d mind if I hunted down whoever it was and made them regret it.
With practiced movements, I swiftly arrange the kindling and logs, starting a roaring flame dancing inside the stove in short order.
Soft orange light and the smell of woodsmoke fill the den.
Most importantly, heat pours out and permeates the room.
I feed in an extra supply of logs to make sure the fire keeps going strong for as long as possible before returning to the Librarian’s side.
Her eyes are closed when I return, but she’s still aggressively shivering.
Carefully, I check her forehead again. This may be the most I’ve touched her since we met, but there’s nothing pleasurable in seeing her this way.
My desire to protect, to care for her, overshadows any other impulses for the moment. How is she still so cold?
“Mmm,” she sighs, lifting her head to chase my hand as I move it away. “Warm.”
“The fire’s helping.”
She shakes her head, a new shiver overtaking her entire body. “No. Just, you. Your hand.”
I swallow, suddenly on alert. “What?”
“It’s . . . only warm where you touch me.” Her eyes find mine, glazed with confusion and need. “It’s like the blankets aren’t helping at all.”
I go completely still. “You sure?”
“Yes. But I don’t understand.” Her brow furrows even as she shakes. Undeterred by her current state, her mind is still trying to make sense of things in its never-ending quest for knowledge.
I slowly reach out, this time cupping her cheek with my palm. I’m trembling but at least she’ll never notice, not with the way she’s shivering. “Like this?” I ask, my voice going hoarse.
I don’t know whether I want to hear that it’s working or that it’s not. Already my instincts scream at me to pull her close, to encase her in my heat and protective embrace. But if I do that, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to let her go.
“Yes.” Closing her eyes, she turns her face toward my hand, nuzzling into it. A fresh burst of heat runs through me at her affirmation and the way she leans into my touch.
Understanding washes over me. Of course.
Only something like a mate bond—magical, powerful—can counteract the unnatural chill of a creature like the echo-beast. Unable to stop myself, I sweep my thumb over her cheek, noticing how beautiful and delicate her cheekbones seem underneath it.
Her skin is smooth and soft, divine. When she moves her face again, I see that her lips have regained some color, just from the few moments spent absorbing my warmth.
But the rest of her body is racked with shivers.
She opens her eyes, looking at me past my own hand, and I can’t help but thrill at the way she looks in my grasp. My instincts are humming under my skin again. Mine. Mine. Mine.
The more I get to know her, the harder it’s getting to fight the mate bond.
If I had any self-control, I’d give her up now, before it gets any worse.
Put another Warden on her case. That would be the smart thing to do.
The right thing. But even though the current situation is totally fucked, the very thought of someone else taking my place sends a spike of possessive jealousy through me that eclipses even the growing agony in my arm.
It would be a betrayal of my deepest instincts.
Someone else to protect her, to watch her master her powers, to be the recipient of her shining smiles when she uncovers a new piece of information?
Fuck no. No one else touches what’s mine.
“I’m so cold.” In between her chattering teeth, she continues, “I know you don’t . . . like to. But maybe . . . a little? Please . . .”
I know what I have to do.
It frightens me how much I want it. Fuck, it’s torture enough that she’s spent the last weeks enveloped in my furs, my bed, my scent.
Now she needs . . . my body. The thought of that proximity sends off warning alarms in the rational part of my brain, along with something deeper, something dark and desperate and ravenous.
I don’t trust myself. Not with her. Not like this.
My control is already stretched thin, frayed by the mate bond, and the fight, and the agony of watching her suffer.
Don’t be an idiot, Kade. She needs you.
Why am I even making her ask?
“All right,” I grit out, my voice rougher than I intend, moving around to the other side of the bed. This is going to put my self-control to the test.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, cracking something open behind my ribs.
“Shhh,” I say, trying to remove all the roughness from my tone.
I climb onto the bed beside her, sliding under the blankets while the mattress dips around me.
“Nothing to be sorry for. It’s just my own .
. . issues. Not you, okay? You’re perfect.
” I reach out to her and smooth her hair back from her forehead with as much gentleness as I possess.
She rolls toward me, pulled into my gravity, desperate for my warmth.
The moment my side presses against hers, she releases a deep sigh and pushes closer, burying her face against my chest. Her cold skin is a shock, but within seconds I feel her begin to warm.
My arm, the one the echo-beast tore, protests with a fresh throb, but I ignore it. It’ll heal.
I take a deep breath to fortify myself, but with her auburn hair in my face, I only succeed at inhaling a concentration of her scent.
The acrid tang of fear is gone from it now, and it’s as intoxicating as ever.
I can feel my instincts both soothed and emboldened by it.
My mate is here, safe with me, and I’m giving her what she needs.
At the same time, this is not happening because she wants this.
It’s not because she wants me, because she wants the bond.
I haven’t claimed her—and my instincts know it.
The dichotomy is an exquisite hell.
“You’re so warm,” she murmurs, muffled against my shirt.
She sounds drowsy and content. I’m beginning to feel drowsy too, like I’m finally where I’m supposed to be.
I release just a sliver of my tightly held control, and allow myself to slip my arms around her, holding her flush against me like I’ve needed to since the moment we met.
Her body molds into mine like it belongs there, and fuck, this is goddamn torture.
I can’t help but tilt my head down, inhaling again at the crown of her head, losing myself in her.
I stroke her back, her hair, her face. She needs it, I tell myself, beginning to drift. I’m warming her. It’s all for her . . .
“How . . .?” she asks sleepily.
“It’s part of it,” I say, the words slipping out as I’m falling asleep. Part of the bond.
“Mmm,” she hums, and I can feel her pulse slow as she drifts off. Even asleep, she presses closer to me, her soft curves molding against my chest.
I never want it to end. I wrap myself around her, dozing lightly, as her breathing deepens.
I’d keep her like this forever if she’d let me.
A jagged ache gapes in my chest, an uncomfortable yearning taking hold in the open space.
Every soft breath she takes against me, every subtle shift of her sleeping body, tightens the unseen chains around my heart.
She moves in her sleep, lodging my large thigh between her shapely legs.
Even while I’m half-asleep, the primal urge to take her, make her truly mine, is a constant roar in my blood.
But I can’t. Not when my touch makes her magic flare, drawing monsters to her.
Not when my basic ability to assess a situation is compromised, my judgment clouded.
I hold my mate, the one person meant for me, and contend with the torment of knowing I have to deny us both.
This is my penance. It’s no less than what I deserve: to keep her safe, even if it means this perpetual, gnawing hunger that promises to devour me from the inside out. I will burn for her, a slow, silent immolation, if it means she stays out of the fire.