Sin reached out and touched her hair. He ran his fingers through the silken strands ever so gently. He ached with yearning. Her light green eyes were filled with the same fear and uncertainty that ate at him.
Hold me, Callie. It was a silent plea that tore through his soul.
He’d known painful desires all his life. For food, for shelter, for love.
But what he felt for her made a mockery of every one of them. Morbidly, he wondered if she would ever protect him the way she had protected her brother.
Would she care if he were dead? She’d told him as much, but he couldn’t quite accept the reality of it.
In his heart was the fear that she would leave him soon. That the last few days were all some imagined dream and that he would awaken alone in his castle with no one but servants who feared his very presence. He couldn’t imagine a day without her gentle teasing. A day without her laughter.
He didn’t want to even try.
“Would you two go on and kiss already.”
Callie laughed and turned to face Simon. “What?”
Simon opened his eyes and pinned them both with a bored stare. “I’m not dead and I wasn’t really asleep. I feel like the devil used me for tilting practice, but still I’m quite sure I shall live. That is if someone will stop trying to tie my intestines into a knot.
“Being as I am in pain, the last thing I want is to watch the two of you all lovey-dovey over there. My stomach is quite queasy enough. Sin, tell the woman you love her for Peter’s sake. Callie, do the same and let me lie here in my sweet misery all alone.”
Sin stroked his jaw with his thumb as he eyed his friend irritably. “Little brother, at the moment I should like to tie your intestines into a knot myself.”
Simon was completely unperturbed. “Have at it, then, just make the pain stop.”
“Can I get you anything?” Callie asked Simon.
“Nay, just promise me the next time I see a cake, you’ll slap me before I take a bite of it.” He rolled over. “Now may I preserve what little dignity I have left?”
Sin smiled. “Look to the bright side, Si. You didn’t empty your stomach on a guest.”
“So say you. Now leave.”
Callie led Sin toward the door, then paused and looked back at Simon. “If you need anything, call.”
Simon rolled over and gave her a peeved glare.
“We’re going,” she said, taking Sin’s hand and pulling him from the room.
Sin thought he had a reprieve from Simon’s tirade until Callie cornered him in the hallway outside Simon’s room. She pegged him with a penetrating stare that let him know he was in serious trouble. “What did he mean by that?”
“By what?”
“That you love me. Do you?”
Sin swallowed. He thought he did, but who was he to know the difference? So he answered her honestly. “I don’t even know the meaning of that word.”
She looked as though she couldn’t decide if she should kick him or strangle him. “Stubborn man. But at least you’re not like the others of your kind, quick to declare your heart and then ever quick to reclaim it. At least this way, should you ever say the words, I shall know you mean them.”
He stared at her in awe of her inner strength. “You’re not mad at me?”
“I am merely mad for you, Sin. One day, I hope you’ll feel the same for me.”
Stunned, he watched as she walked off.
“Oh, I am a fool,” he whispered under his breath. She had offered him so much of herself and he had offered her so little.
And for what?
