Chapter 14 You Were Angry #2
She shrugged, suddenly fascinated by a loose thread on her glove. “Maybe I did. Maybe I just wanted to know if you were still alive.”
His voice dropped to barely above a whisper, a secret just for the two of them. “I wanted to come.”
She let the silence grow teeth between them, then said: “Funny how 'wanting’ and 'doing’ are completely different things.”
Kael’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “I was afraid I'd make things worse.”
Alina nearly choked on a laugh, acrid and bitter in her mouth. “Worse? What, were you planning to set me on fire again? Because unless you brought a torch and some kindling, I think I was safe.”
He stepped closer, his warmth reaching her even through her coat. “You nearly died. I...” He trailed off, like someone had stolen the rest of his sentence.
She wanted to touch him, or punch him in the gut—or maybe even both. Instead, she jammed her hands in her pockets and studied the ground. “I'm not made of glass, you know.”
“You're not,” he agreed. “But I am.”
She snapped her head up. “You? Fragile? Please. You're about as breakable as a brick wall.”
He smiled, but it was as substantial as morning mist. “You only think that because you haven't seen me crack yet.”
They looked at each other, wordlessly, Alina staring, Kael’s golden gaze intense.
After a long moment, he shifted his weight, as if preparing to leave, only to stop and reach into the satchel slung at his side. He drew out a small tin and popped the lid, revealing a bright orange paste.
“In my old squad,” he said, “we’d paint ourselves before a fight. Not for luck. Just to remember that the body belongs to us, even when everything else is chaos.”
He extended the tin to her, palm up. “I can show you, if you want.”
Alina hesitated. It felt stupid, and a little bit desperate, but the truth was that she wanted him to stay.
Here, beside her. If she turned him away now, she was afraid it would be final, and she was not ready for that.
She was not finished with him, not in any way.
So, she deliberately decided to ignore her anger and hurt about his absence from the infirmary and accept his flag of truce.
She nodded, and Kael smiled—with real warmth this time. He set the tin on a stump and dipped two fingers in, then motioned for her to sit.
“Sit down and roll up your sleeves.”
She obeyed, stripping the gloves and pushing her sleeves to the elbow.
The air was icy on her skin, making it erupt in goosebumps.
Kael knelt in front of her, hands careful as he spread the paste in a wide stripe from wrist to bicep.
The sensation was a shock: the ointment was cool, almost cold, and his touch—gentle, but not tentative—left a line of fire behind.
Alina tried to focus on the forest, the distant voices, anything except the way her heart was suddenly beating so hard it hurt.
Her eyes drifted shut for a moment. Kael drew another line, this one swirling up her forearm in a spiral, and the motion made her skin tighten, every fine hair standing at attention.
He looked up at her, eyes lit by something she’d only ever seen in the dark, in secret.
“You can do mine,” he said, his voice rough. “If you like.”
She reached for the tin, and her hand shook a little as she scooped up a dollop of paste and reached for his wrist. His skin was warm, the hair there soft as silk.
She dragged her finger up, slowly, following the veins until she reached the crook of his elbow.
He shivered, just a little, and the sight filled her with wicked joy.
They traded marks, each new line a tentative reconciliation. Sometimes their fingers brushed. Alina’s breath caught, and she didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry.
“You were angry,” Kael said, not a question.
“I still am,” she said, surprised at her own honesty. “Have you lost interest? Got what you wanted?”
His hand stilled on her arm. “No. Never.”
They sat like that, frozen in place, the night closing in around them. Kael’s thumb traced a circle on her skin, again and again.
“Why do you always hold back?” she whispered.
He tilted his head, as if seeing her for the first time. “I’m afraid of what will happen if I don’t. What I might do.”
Alina swallowed. “You don’t have to be.” What kind of demons was he fighting? Why couldn’t he open up to her?
The air between them was thick and charged. Kael leaned in, just enough that she could feel his breath on her face. She closed her eyes, waiting for him to close the distance, to say or do something to end the incessant, beautiful misery of wanting.
He did not kiss her. Instead, he pressed his forehead to hers, their painted arms entwined, and breathed her in. She felt the tremor that ran through him, the war he fought behind his eyes.
She wanted to demand more, but she’d seen how much it cost him to even get this close. She settled for touching his cheek, the scratch of stubble under her palm grounding her in a way no magic ever had.
“I need you to stay alive tomorrow,” he murmured.
She smiled, slow and real. “You too, Captain.”
Kael laughed, the sound low and broken. What had he lived through to become so guarded? What losses had he endured? Despite the hurt that still sat heavily in her chest, forgiveness rose like the tide, slow but inevitable. “Deal.”
They sat together until the fire in the camp burned low and the cold was too much for even their stubbornness to ignore.
He left first, the warmth of his hand lingering on her arm. Alina watched him go, the stripes he’d drawn on her skin glowing like a brand.
She waited until she was sure he was gone, then drew her knees to her chest and pressed her painted arms to her lips.
She didn’t cry. But she wanted to.
The hush of the woods around the camp broke with the crunch of boots and the hollow snap of a brittle twig.
Alina looked up, still hugging her knees, to find Seraphina emerging from the darkness.
She moved with the directness of a hawk dropping into a crowd of pigeons: one arm behind her back, the other hand resting easy on the hilt of her bowie knife, her eyes scanning the firelit edge of camp for her target.
She didn’t waste time with greetings. “We have a problem,” Seraphina called, voice pitched to slice through the night. “Circle up.”
Whatever peace had lingered at the close of the evening fled as the rebels clustered around the main fire, drawn by the promise of gossip—or maybe just the chance to stare down trouble together. The lull in the air was charged, the kind of electricity that meant a storm was about to break.
Kael arrived at Alina’s side before she’d even stood, his shadow cutting across the ring of lanterns. He didn’t touch her, but he might as well have: his presence was a shield, and every rebel in that circle knew it.
Seraphina waited until the last stragglers shuffled in, then produced a scrap of yellowed cloth from her jacket.
She held it up between thumb and forefinger for everyone to see.
The fabric was marked with a crude sigil: three black lines crossed by a lightning bolt, the emblem of the royal signal corps.
“Found this tied to a sapling,” Seraphina said, “fifteen paces inside our perimeter. Same pattern as last week when the city patrol showed up a day early.”
A murmur ran through the crowd. Someone spat. Someone else muttered, “Bastards,” and got a grim chuckle in reply.
“Who else has seen it?” Marcus asked, voice calm but heavy as a hammer.
Seraphina’s eyes swept the circle, pausing on each face for a fraction of a second. “Tamsin found the first two. She’s checking the perimeter now. I found this one myself.”
The implications were as plain as the stench of woodsmoke in the air: someone in the camp was marking their position for the enemy.
Alina felt the suspicion before she saw it—the tilt of a chin, the narrowing of an eye.
She squared her shoulders, refusing to shrink, but her fingers curled tight into her palms.
It didn’t take long for the wind to shift. Maven stepped out from the back row, hand clasped before him, his expression unreadable beyond the faint sneer that cut his upper lip.
“Well, isn’t this familiar?” he said, letting the words unspool slow as honey. “Every time we move, the King’s men are waiting. But we haven’t had this problem until recently. Not until our… visitor.”
He turned to face Alina directly. The lanterns caught the silver in his temples, made his eyes look wolf-bright and predatory. “Care to explain yourself, Princess?”
Alina stared back, her jaw clenched so hard it might have cracked. She wanted to laugh, to throw his accusation back at him, but the crowd had drawn in and she could feel the heat of their gazes, the old resentments waking up in every hungry belly and bruised ego.
“I haven’t left the camp,” she said, forcing each word out clean. “I’ve barely left your sight. If you think I’m planting signals, you’re dumber than you look.”
A sharp hiss of breath, somewhere behind her from someone appreciating the boldness, or maybe just waiting for the fight to go bloody.
Kael stepped forward, planting himself squarely between Alina and Maven. “That’s enough.”
Maven looked at Kael, slow and deliberate, then back to Alina. “Forgive me, Captain,” he said, “but she is the variable. We’d be fools not to consider it.”
“She’s been vetted,” Kael said, his voice flat and final. “If you have proof, speak it. Otherwise, stand down.”
The tension in the circle doubled. Marcus glared at Maven but said nothing; Tamsin, returning from her sweep, hovered at the fringe, eyes narrowed to slits.
Seraphina glanced between Kael and Alina, her face unreadable.
It was obvious she did not like the accusation, but she wasn’t rushing to Alina’s defense, either.