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Don’t leave me behind.
“What were you dreaming about?” I kept my hand where it was and wriggled down until I was lying on my side facing him. He remained on his back, staring grimly up at the cave’s ceiling.
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t tell me. Just when I assumed he’d shut down entirely, he answered.
“I dreamed of the taklok. Only when you called out to stop it, Thaleo shot you instead of me.”
I stilled against his side.
“You are so small,” he said gutturally, as if that fact physically pained him. “The arrow was so big. It tore right through you. Destroyed you. You were bleeding out on the stone and no one stopped to help you. I ran towards you as fast as I could, but the distance between us widened with every step I took.”
I remembered his feet moving in his sleep. I’d wondered if he’d been running away from something in his dream.
But it was towards something. Towards me.
“I knew that you were dying,” he continued. “I was losing you. And I cannot... I cannot even begin to explain that fear. And then when I awoke and saw you above me, strong and beautiful and alive, I... I was overcome by relief. Relief so blindly overwhelming I could barely tell it apart from despair.”
I knew that. I’d felt it in his kiss.
“I thought you said you weren’t afraid of anything,” I whispered.
His fingers twitched, then curled around mine.
“I lied.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Errok
Icould not make myselflook at Zuh-Tephanie. Could not even enjoy the balm of her touch on my skin. I was too wrapped up in how hatefully weak I’d become.
No wonder she does not want you.
The first time our mouths had met, it was not because she’d given me leave to claim her. It was not because she wanted me. It was because she’d seen me trembling and terrified like achild. She was too good, too generous, and she’d let me touch her out ofpity.
Pity.
