“You’re ambidextrous?”
He smirked, needling the tip back into the sheath and angling me to find the buckle at my waist. “I’m better with my right hand, but I’m trained with both.”
I made a noise low in my throat, glaring up at him. “Why am I wearing this stupid thing, then?”
My sour voice captured the corners of his mouth. He bit down on his lips, failing to subdue a dark grin. “You offered to.”
I snorted. “Only because I thought you couldn’t. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Kye clicked his tongue. “I liked how it looked on you.” Golden eyes shifted over mine, mischief crinkling at the corners, before dropping to the straps I wore. “And it was cute you thought you could help me by doing so. But that’s enough fucking around. Besides, we both know you don’t need it.”
My heart skipped a beat as he toed the line of things I couldn’t explain, but he didn’t meet my eyes. His focus remained on his hands, the pads of his fingers deftly sweeping under leather and brushing softly against the bare valley below my breasts. My skin simmered to life, a soft throb expanding between my legs as his scent draped over me like heat under a heavy sun. I watched his veined hands move to the second buckle, secured under my collar, and felt my knees wobble under my own pulsing blood, hot and loud in my temple.
He gave a quick glance at our surroundings again, eyes sharp for movement, then returned to me. I’d stopped breathing, fully enrapt in the motion of his fingers as they worked the leather loose from my form. His throat rumbled as he cleared it. “You have to turn around for the last one.”
“Oh,” I swallowed, coaxing moisture back into my mouth. Pivoting on one foot, I leaned into Kolibri’s nearby saddle. “Where do you want me?”
Kye chuckled darkly. “Fully bent over, if you’re offering.”
My eyes snapped to his, mouth agape, though my blood roared in my ears.
His mouth curved as he popped the final buckle open, relieving my shoulders of the blade’s weight, then wiggled the fingers of his injured hand at me. “Help me put it on?”
I gave a stiff nod. “Turn,” I commanded, hiding my stupid grin until after he faced away. He continued surveying the trees, the tendons of his neck flaring slowly as he rotated his head. I worked the straps loose, his frame wider than my own.
My cheeks blazed as I scuffed the hardened muscle through his shirt, and I avoided his eyes, failing to suffocate the heat pooling over my face and neck. Finished, I made to draw away, to climb on Kolibri and let the cool air chase the lingering shivers from my spine, but his palm grasped hold of my arm, holding me in place.
“Wait.” He threaded fingers through my hair, and something crinkled behind my ear. A leaf came away in his hands, wrinkled and dry and patchy with browns and golds. He let it twirl to the grass, his thumb smoothing over the ridge of my elbow. “There. Ready. Let’s see where this trail leads.”
25
Maren
We rode until the sunshine ebbed away from the world, settling on a high scrap of ground without any sort of cover for camp.
“The skies are clear,” I said, mouth twisted in irritation that the trees had thinned.
Kye followed my gaze, then shot his own around the sparse site. “Wind might chill us, though,” he warned.
Without civilization, the days blended together like blood in water. Bedding down next to each other, we placed our horses on either side of us, Kye offering to take the first watch. I slept fitfully, my dreams as obscure as the days, moving images in my mind.
A man with golden eyes, drowning in a room dry and dark. He banged against the wooden walls, his face purple then blue—the color of the sea, deep and silent. Muscles went slack, body sinking to his knees over the floor. His jaw fell open, and water surged out, falling down his front and eating him whole, until the wooden room was full of waves, and he was no more than a pile of clothes heaped on the watery floor.
My eyes opened to the darkness of night, sweat slick over my skin.
Kye sat beside me, his eyes quietly shifting over mine. Heavy warmth sat over my palm, and I realized he was holding it.
“Sorry if I woke you,” he murmured.
“You didn’t.” I sat up, pulling the blanket over my shoulders. “Your turn to sleep.”
Crickets sang in the autumn grass. Kye stretched his empty hand as though it were sore, and I wondered how firmly I’d latched to it. “Wake me if you hear anything. Or if you see anything. Or if you just want to talk.”
“I don’t need to talk,” I said softly.
His eyes held mine for a moment, glittering even in the dark. Then he loosed a silent sigh, laying back over his bedroll.
I waited for his breaths to grow peaceful and heavy with slumber as he stared at the sky. But he stayed awake for a long time.
