She went to rest her hand on his upper arm and that’s when she saw it.
The wound. It was completely healed and not a scar in sight.
She went to touch where the wound had been, but his hand locked around her wrist, stopping her.
“Don’t, not yet.”
He felt the sudden change in her, a ripple of tension beneath his hand still at her waist and for a moment he thought he caught fear spark in her eyes, but it was too brief to be certain.
“How?” she asked. “It is impossible for your wound to have healed that fast and leave no scar to mark the spot.”
He silently admonished himself for forgetting about his wound. She was not meant to see it, not yet. Always not yet. It was getting to be tiresome.
A sudden thought had her stepping away from him, his hand falling away from her waist, letting her go.
“Magic. Is that what healed your wound, magic? I’ve seen that you are familiar with this land. Are your roots in Driochmor?”
“My roots are in Northland, and I am here on a mission for my tribe’s leader. And I can say no more about it. I should not even have told you that.”
“It involves the beast?”
“Aye, it does.”
Bria nodded at the soap on the stone. “You should wash.”
“Are you telling me I don’t have a pleasant scent?” he said, hoping an attempt at humor might help the precarious situation.
“I quite like your potent scent,” she said without thinking and drifted away from him, ducking down until the water skimmed her chin.
At times, her scent drove him to distraction but hearing that his scent did the same to her further stirred the arousal he was fighting to keep at bay.
He grabbed the soap and started scrubbing, anything to get his mind elsewhere.
Bria felt the sand beneath her feet disappear and she began to swim in the deeper part of the water. Her da had taught her to swim when she was young, though it worried her mum. But her da insisted it was better their daughter knew how in case there ever came a day it proved necessary for her to know.
Thoughts of her parents lingered. She lost them two years apart a few years ago. And she missed them every day. Her mum had been a skillful healer and her da a farmer who could coax the land into producing fine crops.
She stopped swimming and tread water, like her da had taught her. If, as Winnie said, her roots were in Driochmor, did that mean her parents came from here as well?
A decision came to her then. She could not leave Driochmor until she learned the truth about herself. And who she truly was, no matter how even the idea of it frightened her. Not so much the search itself but what she might find.
She turned to swim back to Kaelan and bumped into him.
She quickly backed away, having felt too much of him brush against her and how it caused her body to tingle with far too much pleasure.
“How is it you can sneak up on me without me hearing you?”
“I have talents,” he said with a playful smirk, trying desperately to ignore how the mere brush of her body sent his desire for her soaring.
She wondered about his talents but didn’t ask.
“I need to talk with you about?—”
“Not right now,” he said and turned away abruptly.
“This cannot wait,” she insisted.
“We need to leave now,” he insisted more strongly.
