Page 55

Chapter 24

A volatile reaction to his touch, to his words, twisted Anrid’s features. Her eyes widened and her lips parted. Were those tears he glimpsed shimmering on the precipice of her eyelids? Shifting to rest on her lashes?

Was it possible she didn’t despise him for the trouble he had brought into her life? He wanted to press her, to ask all the questions and peel back the reserved and friendly layers she kept wrapped around her heart.

But, stones help him, he was a coward. He didn’t want to frighten and drive her away.

His fingers itched to reach for hers, to hold her hand the way he had in their shared dream. But, no, not quite like that. That had been a holding of need and fear. What he wanted to do now was fueled by a different sort of desperation and a different sort of terror. He longed to reach out and tease her emotions, to catch a glimpse of what she was feeling, but he didn’t dare. It would be so easy to let down the guard he’d been trying to keep between them to allow her the privacy she deserved.

He flexed his fingers and forced them to remain at his sides.

“Say something?” He meant it to sound like a gentle order, but it came out as a breathless question.

She snapped her mouth closed but didn’t turn away. “What—what should I say?”

Anything at all, his heart whispered back. Say you’ll stay here forever. Say you’ll stay with me forever.

But of course, he couldn’t say any of those things. To speak them out loud would be to bare his soul and make himself vulnerable before her. It would be too easy for her to take his heart in her hands and cast it aside in favor of that dark elf groom he was beginning to hate with every fiber of his being.

He recalled how he burned when Anrid laid her hand on Kora’s arm, that searing sting of jealousy. When he thought of her touching her dark elf groom, even in such an innocent and simple way...

That monster didn’t deserve her. Any man who would force a woman to marry him didn’t deserve her.

“It’s good of you to take care of us,” she said at last, breaking through his mental barrage. He’d been just about to imagine himself punching a certain faceless dark elf on his haughty dark elf nose. “We shouldn’t be your responsibility, but you’re being good to take us on.”

Good. He considered several other words he would rather her use to describe him. Good wasn’t a powerful enough response from her. He wanted so much more.

“Yes,” he said tiredly, woundedly, “I suppose it is rather good of me.”

She choked and pressed a hand over her face. He gaped at her, wondering what he had said to upset her. But then her fingers slid over her chin to rest at the base of her throat. Her freckled cheeks curved beneath her eyes, narrowing them to sparkling slits, and he realized she was laughing.

He’d made her laugh. He managed a confused smile in return, allowing his pride to feel a bit mollified even as embarrassment warmed his face. The heat crawled up to the tips of his ears.

She smoothed her nightdress with both hands and schooled her features. The expression she now wore reminded him of the one she used on the children when they were getting out of hand and needed to be get back on task.

“So.” She clipped the word, all business. “How are we going to protect the children?”

He knew they needed to discuss this, but he didn’t want to change the subject. He wanted to hear her laugh again.

Instead, he followed her lead. “I don’t think they should sleep in your room anymore.”

She flinched, pained. “Any of them?”

“Any of them,” he confirmed. Before she objected, he lifted a hand to stall her arguments. “It’s possible that putting a little distance between you and them while you’re sleeping—while you might be dreaming—could keep them safe.”

She worried her lower lip with her teeth, her eyebrows tugged together. She was probably trying to come up with another solution, but the pained look on her face suggested she wasn’t having any success.

“I’m sorry. I know you like to stay close,” he said as he watched her to catch every flicker of emotion. “It will be hard on them, yes, but until we understand this better...it’s safer to keep them away. Just while you’re sleeping.”

Footsteps scuffled against the stone walkway. She nodded to him but still looked pained as Math appeared, his nose in a book.

“I found that chapter I told you about,” he mumbled, riffling through the pages. “It’s not as detailed as I had remembered...I mean...when I first read it, I didn’t have this in mind.” He stopped talking abruptly when he saw them standing so close together beside the fountain.

Anrid took a hurried step back and folded her hands in front of her, a picture of demure innocence.

Jael wasn’t feeling at all demure or innocent and would have preferred to tuck her under his arm and dare Math to say anything about it.

Obviously, he didn’t do either of those things.