Not only could he undoubtedly feel the hammering of my heart, but also the searing heat of a blush spreading across my clavicle, my neck, and my face.
“Neither,” I snapped, batting his hand away and pressing my back against the metal behind me. “And you’ve already asked your questions.”
“You wanted me to show you, did you not? How to detect a lie in the human body. You may thank me for that insight whenever you wish, though now would be most polite.”
“You will not touch me again.”
Can one hear a smile? For I could swear to the beyond that I heard it crack across his face.
“Worry not. I will not touch you again, for it is you who must touch me. You will feel my heart,” he explained. “Hunt for changes in its rhythm; if it stutters or speeds. My blood will quicken if I am nervous…orlying.”
“I am to feel your heart?” My own pumped harder.
“Yes. If you’d like.” He was calm, seemingly unphased. Meanwhile, my palms grew embarrassingly slick.
“I—very well.”
I steeled myself, reeling from the knowledge that my hand would soon lie upon a druid’s heart. A learned experience indeed, to discover if they possessed one.
“Come here.” His hand enveloped mine, which I had absentmindedly brought to my sternum, tracing the ghost of his palm. My fingers vanished from sight. With deliberate slowness, he settled it upon his upper chest, pinned beneath the weight of his own.
His tunic was thick and soft—a finely woven wool designed for the chill of autumn in a templum of stone—though warmed slightly by the body beneath.
“Can you feel it?” he asked, his body vibrating under my touch, voice low and deep.
I concentrated, a surprisingly difficult feat, on the rhythm of his heart. A faint flutter, its thump just an echo.
“The material is too thick. I can barely feel a thing,” I admitted, unable to track its muffled beat.
“Did you have designs to get under my shirt from the beginning?”
I sputtered. “Of all the—”
Before I could finish, he manoeuvred my hand beneath his hem.
Wool gave way to flesh, and suddenly, I could feel everything. Every texture and bump. The blazing heat of his skin, the light dusting of hair. The rise and fall of his breath. And the beat. The thunderous beat of a heart in chaos.
Chapter twenty-nine
Lycandor
The Lie
What doth the Blood God require of thee, but to fear and love Him both, and find sanctuary in your abandon to His will. -10:12–13 - The Book of Dendralis
“Pray, a moment,” I said, far more throatily than I’d have liked.
The heat of her skin, dampened with sweat, pressed harder into me.
I was a mess; my heart behaving like a cornered, feral beast, its only plight to jump from my ribs and straight into her waiting palm. This had been a foolish, doltish idea. To allow her to feel me like this. It had been an age since anyone had touched my bare flesh. Almost a decade since even an acolyte had deigned to grasp my arm, let alone press a palm to my chest.
But this. She was under my clothes. Her skin on my skin. And she waswarm, not just from the natural heat of flesh on flesh, but as if I was standing, derobed, under the midday sun. It radiated and spread outward, invisible tendrils weaving themselves through muscle and tendon. Is that what all touch felt like? Had it truly been that long that I’d forgotten?
My heart continued to pound.
I willed myself calm. How many throats had I slit? How many penancings had I enacted? How much grace had I consumed before I’d understood the truth? Andthis?Thiswould be my undoing? A woman’s hand on my heart.
It refused to slow.
