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I move to sit on his lap, making myself comfortable as I wrap my arms around his neck. Riden freezes in place.
“You really don’t remember?” I whisper seductively into his ear. My hands are at his shoulders. I move one down his chest. He’s solid as a rock, but his skin is smooth and warm. When I reach his waist, I drop the key into the pocket of his breeches.
It’s really just thieving, only backward.
Riden exhales and puts his hands on my hips. “Why don’t you remind me?”
I slide my hands down his arms until I can entwine our fingers. “There was some of this.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“And this.” I press my lips to his and kiss him gently. He returns in kind.
“Then what happened?” he whispers when I break away and trace my lips along the edge of his ear.
“Then—” I pause and lean farther into him. “You promised to help me get off the ship.”
He leans me back as if to lay me on the bed. Then he drops me. I hit the sheets with a softplump.
“I think I would remember that,” he says, shoving my legs onto the bed as well.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m sure everything will come back to you soon enough.”
“In the meantime, Draxen will be expecting me.” He walks over to the closet and rummages through the clothes I’ve left in heaps on the floor, grunting in displeasure as he searches.
Once he finds what he’s looking for—a pair of breeches—he starts sliding off the pair he has on, watching my reaction as he does so.
“Stop that,” I say, turning around quickly.
He laughs softly.
I should have kept calm, and I shouldn’t have turned around. If I had simply shrugged as though it didn’t bother me at all, Riden wouldn’t have been so amused. He would have taken his clothes elsewhere, I’m sure of it. But it all started so suddenly that I was unprepared with a response. There’s nothing to do about it now.
“When you’re confined to this room,” he says, “how do you expect me to be able to change into clean clothes?”
“Go get dressed in Draxen’s room!” I snap.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
I exhale angrily as I wait for him to finish. I listen to the rustling of cloth, the cinching of a belt, the thud of newly adorned boots smacking the floor—and I wait for it all to stop.
I’m listening so hard that I don’t even register that the boots are moving toward me until I feel a hand at my lower back.
His lips are at my ear. “It’s safe to look now, Alosa.” He brushes his lips across the side of my head before leaving.
I don’t realize how tense I am until my whole body relaxes.
***
I suppose I should be bored out of my mind during the next few days, but I’m not. Riden comes into his room often to check on me. We talk until he tries to morph the conversation into an interrogation. He wants to know things, like the layout of my father’s keep, how often supply ships deliver shipments, how many men guard the keep, and so on and so forth. I tell him none of these things. I will die before I give that information up. Well, actuallythey’ddie, since I wouldn’t allow them to kill me.
I’ve noticed that Riden’s been keeping me at a distance. Still, he can’t help it when I bait him during the conversation. It’s fun watching him struggle, trying to find a balance with me. Toying with Riden is certainly more entertaining than scouring the ship. I become a little more anxious each night that goes by without the map turning up. I check our heading frequently, gauging how much time is left before I have to present the map to my father. We pass Lycon’s Peak and start sailing northeast.
It won’t be long now.
***
I wake early, even though I made it to bed late. I’m too worried to sleep anymore, so I stare at the ceiling, thinking it all over in my head. I go over every spot I checked, searching for anything that may have been overlooked. My two weeks are almost up. The checkpoint could show up on the horizon at any moment.
