AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gahn Errok seemed just as displeased by Valeria’s proclamation.
“I will not have another male watch over me in my sleep,” he spat savagely. “That is an insult of the highest order.”
“It’s not an insult,” Valeria said, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “It’s a necessity. Gahn Thaleo won’t let his healers tend to you and we need somebody to make sure you last the night.”
“I refuse to die tonight,” Errok told Valeria as simply and surely as if he told her he planned to have a bath before bed. “And even death would not dare defy me.”
I held back a shaking laugh while Valeria cast her eyes upwards as if begging some unseen force for patience.
“I’ll stay with him.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.That seems to be happening a lot tonight.
All eyes, human and alien, swivelled to me.
I got out of the heated spring, water dripping down my body. Gahn Errok’s gaze dragged so feverishly from my face to my feet that I had to remind myself I was feeling the hot water droplets coursing downward over my skin, not literally feeling his sight stars touch me. Despite how warm I was, my nipples hardened beneath my wet clothing.
I cleared my throat and reached down for my backpack, picking it up.
“I’m going to get dressed and then we can finalize all the plans for what’s happening next. I’ll be right back,” I said.
I turned and hurried away from the group, desperately aware of the way my soaked panties were clinging to my ass. Not that anyone was likely looking there besides Gahn Errok.
But it was precisely Gahn Errok’s gaze that made anxious heat hurry my steps.
I moved into a little stone alcove area that functioned as a bathroom and dropped my pack. The bathroom had two basins – one built into the wall, and one down on the floor. The floor-level one was an ingenious sort of toilet. Cool mountain water ran through this room from a crack high above in the wall. It collected in the higher hand-washing basin before spilling down the wall and into the other basin. The result was that the toilet basin was continually being rinsed out, the contents disappearing down into a small hole in the rock. There was sudsy moss that acted as soap, too, to wash your hands in the higher basin.
This spot wasn’t exactly like a room in that it had no door. The rock wall curved almost all the way around the little toilet area, but not completely, leaving a gap.
It was through that gap that Fiona slid, uninvited, just as I was peeling my soaked tank top from my body.
I gasped, my exhausted heart slamming in my chest.
“You scared the shit out of me!” I said, tossing my heavy tank top down on the floor, being careful not to drop it in the toilet basin.
“Who’d you think I was?” she asked. She raised an eyebrow. “Gahn Errok?”
“What? No! What are you talking about?” I stammered. I grabbed a small cloth from my pack and started scrubbing my damp skin to dry it.
“I don’t know. I sensed a... A vibe, if you will,” she said, leaning against the curved rock wall and crossing her arms over her chest.
“And just what kind of vibe are you talking about?” I grumbled, even though I knew exactly what she meant. I’d felt it myself. The intimacy.
She could probably tell I was being obtuse on purpose. But she answered me anyway.
“Avibecharacterized by you being all half-naked and wet in the pools and staring at Mister Fallen Angel of the Arrows. And it was avibethat only got stronger when you, the person I thought disliked Gahn Errok most, volunteered to stay by his poor, muscly side all night like some kind of sexy nurse.”
“Fallen angel? Really?” I sighed.I guess I’m not the only one who noticed his darkly angelic looks.“OK, first of all, I was covered in his blood. I had to get in the pool to clean up,” I said tensely, stripping out of my wet bra and underwear and dragging fresh clothes onto my body. “Second of all, you saw how he reacted to the idea of Grim looking after him. He won’t accept it!”
“Since when do you care what he will or won’t accept?” All hints of suggestive teasing had disappeared. Her question confronted me in the small room, stark and unavoidable.
“I feel weirdly responsible for him. When I called out to him during the taklok, that’s when he got hit by the arrow.”
“Yeah, but you calling out also saved Gahn Thaleo’s life, and probably helped avoid an all-out war between the tribes that would have caused way more bloodshed,” Fiona pointed out.
“OK. Maybe,” I conceded. “But still. I feel like I should look after him. I don’t want to burden Grim or anybody else with it.”
“How is it a burden? Valeria said herself her big red lug only needs a fraction of the sleep we do. The only burden for him would be listening to Gahn Errok complain all night.”
