Chapter 42
Emmerick
Iawoke with my head in El’s lap and her fingers still tangled in my hair. I’d never been more comfortable.
Her neck lolled to the side against the sofa’s backrest, and her features softened with sleep.
The temptation to push a stray strand of hair away from her face grew so strong that I reached up, but I stopped myself before my fingers met the soft skin of her cheek. Finding excuses to touch her would do me no good.
Everything with her already felt too intimate—too easy.
Watching her lose herself to lust before me had been thrilling, but moments like this? They seemed more important. I’d bet few people got to see this side of Elsedora Lamoreaux.
Wildflowers are not for taming.
They grow best when left to their own whims.
My father had told me that once. He’d never plucked them from the cottage yard, preferring to let them take over even his manicured flowerbeds if they chose to.
Elsedora didn’t want to be rooted to me, or any other. My predisposition to get attached easily spelled disaster—I’d end up crushed when she decided she could do without me.
I carefully extracted myself from her lap and rose to stretch. Well rested didn’t describe the feeling, but I certainly felt better after a few more hours of sleep. It was better than the few winks I’d gotten through the night.
The sensation of her fingers against my scalp and the singsong rhythm of her voice had branded themselves into my memory. I’d known many men to depend on drink, or sex, or cards. I wondered if one could develop the same level of need for a person’s voice.
“Sleep well, puppy?” There it was, dripping with drowsiness.
Letting my heart grow fond of El beyond friendship would be unwise. My burning reaction to everything she did needed to be extinguished.
“Yes, thank you,” I answered and dared to glance down at her. “What should I know about our first stop?”
She scoffed. “Bringham is still horrid.”
“Is there anything we need from him, or is he just an inconvenience?”
Her brows rose. “Planning to take him out so quickly?”
I chuckled. “No. So long as he gives me no reason to. I wondered how civil I should be. He may not have been privy to Caym’s plans, but he willingly allied with Barden and Haward. He tried to turn me against the other Corridors...”
“And where do you stand now?” she asked. Her stare landed heavily on me.
“Where should I stand, wildflower? You’re my advisor.”
So much for quelling the hearts in my eyes.
I’d leaked out a name of endearment like I had any right to give her one.
She stood, meeting my gaze with an inquisitive smirk. “You should stand with me. With your people, with your allies.”
I nodded, happy she’d made no comment about my slip of the tongue.
“And wildflower? Where did that come from?”
Waving away her piqued interest, I stretched again and said, “It’s something my mother has referred to you as.”
A half-truth.
It had stemmed from there.
“I’ll ask her about that when we return,” she said, calling my bluff.
Out of the shadows, a figure appeared, clad in a dark-blue cloak. I reached for my phantom dagger in the boot I wasn’t wearing.
“Whoa,” Lark said with her hands up, looking between us as though she’d interrupted something intimate. Had she?
Elsedora gave her a dry, pointed look before she crossed the room toward the hall, where the stairway up to her bedroom was.
Over her shoulder, she said, “I’ll be leaving soon—you ought to get dressed. Lark, can you Shadow down to the stables and let the horses out to graze? You two can follow behind an hour after me.”
El’s niece nodded; she seemed nervous, with both hands shoved into her cloak pockets.
“Yes!” Lark chimed and retreated into the shadows, leaving me alone with my scrambled thoughts as Elsedora trotted up the stairs.
I took a hard look at myself in a wood-rimmed mirror that adorned one of the papered walls above the wainscotting.
Despite nearing my fiftieth birthday, the countenance I remembered from twenty years ago stared back at me.
As I glanced away, in my side vision, a shadow crossed the mirror’s pane. It looked almost like...
My pulse quickened; my fists clenched.
But when I returned my attention to the mirror, only my reflection greeted me.
“I’ll snuff the life right out of her.” Caym’s growl lingered in my memories. He couldn’t reach me. Or El.
The nightmares ceased to wrack me.
Yet his promise to destroy everything I held dear still proved haunting.