Page 109

One. Room.

Goddess, spare me.

The group of males hanging on Zaria’s every word laughed, and I decided.

“I should see about getting the key and settling up,” I said, standing abruptly.

“Really?” Zaria looked up, confusion pulling her brows.

“It’s been a long day.” I knew I was being was curt, but I couldn’t help it.

She studied me for a moment, then nodded in agreement.

She collected her things while I paid the innkeeper and got the key.I took the bags the stable boy had brought in, and Zaria followed me in silence. I wasn’t sure if it had occurred to her that one room likely meant one bed, but I felt the weight of it with every stair I climbed.

We’d slept beside each other each night under the stars, but in our own bedrolls. This was going to be entirely more difficult.

I put the key in the lock and threw open the door to the tiniest room I’d ever seen. It was hardly more than a closet, and awkwardly shaped, like a triangle with the bed in the biggest portion, and it was barely warmer than the rain we’d escaped.

Goddess, save me.

“It’s shelter to wait out the storm,” I consoled us both. “I’ll take the floor.”

“You’ll never fit.” She eyed me as she edged past and into the room, where she rubbed her hands against the chill, her damp clothes still sticking to every inch of her figure. “Maybe we should have taken her up on her offer to sleep by the fire.”

“We’d get no sleep. Who knows how late the patrons will stay.” Not that I’d sleep here, either. Not when she was in the same room with me looking like that.

“That’s true.”

“It will be fine once you’re under the blankets. You need to get those wet clothes off.”

“You need to get yours off, too.”

“Mine are fine.” I put her bag on the small dressing table shoved into the cutout of a window. “I’ll step out so you can change.” I left the room before she could object, pressing my face into the cool wood of the door once it was closed.

“I’m finished,” she called a few moments later.

I slipped back into the room, avoiding eye contact. “How many blankets are there?”

“Two. But you won’t fit on the floor, Nyx. We can share.”

“I’ll make do with my bedroll. I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

She frowned. “Why would you make me uncomfortable?”

“I…” I didn’t have the energy to dance around the subject.

She slipped into the bed, and I caught sight of her bare feet and ankles.

Goddess, I’d been to shows at brothels without getting aroused. The sight of her damn ankles should not make me hard.

I dug out my bedroll to find it drenched.

Zaria lifted a brow, pulling the covers up to her chin for warmth. “Nyx?”

“I’ll be fine.” I blew out the candle.

“You’re not even out of your clothes.”