Page 62 of Found in Obscurity

And then the search.

Relentless, endless, hopeless.

And then Lorin.

Finally, blessedly, Lorin.

Chapter fourteen

Lorin

“K-Kit,” Lorin managed toshiver out between one gasping breath and the next.

Images were still playing behind his eyes, scattered and disjointed. He couldn’t feel his body anymore, both from the cold and his magic use.

Until insistent hands and arms were tugging at his frigid, slippery skin, trying to pull him from the icy water.

Lorin tried to help himself, but his numb limbs flailed like a newborn deer’s, and he was unable to hold himself up or find the strength that had been sapped from him.

He flopped more than climbed over the edge of the creaky tub and would have hit the snowy ground if a pale chest hadn’t been there to brace them.

Barely.

It seemed like Kit was struggling, and Lorin was like a foot taller than him to boot, but he stubbornly held on under Lorin’sarms and around his back, making small noises in the back of his throat.

Lorin managed to get his feet underneath him, sliding up Kit’s body to wrap an arm around his neck for extra support. Lorin’s cold, wet chest was plastered to Kit’s warm one, leeching heat. Lorin held on tighter through instinct, pressing them closer and tucking his chin over Kit’s shoulder as water dripped into his eyes from his soaked hair.

The fact that they were both completely naked didn’t register.

He was so cold, and Kit wasso warm.

He shuddered and shook in Kit’s arms, cold breaths puffing around them as the moon shone down on their shimmering flesh. His toes dug into the earth underneath the snow, making him feel more connected to the world around him than he had ever felt in his life. He was humming with magic. Overflowing.

Kit urged them toward the cabin, knocking Lorin out of his stupor.

The extinguished candles were kicked aside as Kit guided them as quickly and carefully as he could with Lorin koala’d to his front. He couldn’t physically let go. His joints had locked like the water had rusted them into this position forever more.

They stumbled over the threshold and Kit slammed the door shut behind them, trying to preserve the little heat that hadn’t already escaped. He snatched the dish towel from the kitchen counter to wipe Lorin dry, the rough fabric providing friction, before dragging them toward the sofa where all the blankets were. He knockedLorin down like a felled tree, landing on top of him and pulling the pile of blankets there over them.

Lorin’s nails bit into Kit’s soft skin as he continued to shiver in the cocoon.

Kit nosed at him, huffing breaths and distressed noises into the warming air between them as he wiggled on top of him, trying to heat him up.

Lorin closed his eyes, concentrating on trying to get his body back under his own control. He felt like he’d never be warm again.

“S-stupid…i-idea…” he managed to stutter out.

Kit made a noise that sounded like ‘no shit,’ but he nuzzled closer, hooking a leg around Lorin’s and forcing his hands under Lorin’s torso.

Blunt nails scratched at his skin, trying to force feeling back into it, and Lorin arched into the touches. The shivers began to subside little by little as the minutes ticked on.

“I d-don’t know…h-how p-people do…ice b-baths regularly. Th-they suck,” Lorin found himself stuttering out, his jaw aching from how he was trying to hold it still to talk.

Warm breaths washed over his face, disturbing some of the drying strands of hair hanging over his eyes before fingers batted them aside. A hand slid into the wet hair at his nape, pulling the wetness away from his skin and replacing it with a warm palm.

He sighed in pleasure.

He wasnevergoing to take heat for granted again. He was going to build a shrine to the sun. He was going to buy every blanket in the world. He was going to give an award to the person who’d invented thermal socks.