Page 45

But instead of losing myself to the frustration his relentless ambiguity drew out of me, I searched my memory of Gemma the night before.

I remembered how she’d lovingly rested her hand on my hip, as if she’d felt the need to comfort me.

Concerned and aloof, but not horrified. Not traumatized.

And I couldn’t fight the feeling that despite her uneasiness, she’d had an air of awareness about her.

As if something, maybe Gavin himself, finally made sense to her.

“Fine. You’re clearly not going to tell me.” I looked down and fiddled restlessly with my gloved fingers.

“Aryella.” He enveloped both my fidgeting hands in one of his, stilling my anxiety with his certainty. “I promise you, Gemma and I arrived at a very agreeable mutual understanding where you are concerned.”

“But you won’t tell me what that understanding is.”

He sighed. Still gripping both reins in one hand, he brushed a strand of hair from my face and shifted my hat down over my partially exposed ear. “She knows… how I feel.”

I gulped. “And how’s that?”

He gave me nothing. But this time, I felt his chin brush against my cheekbone. My stomach clenched at the gentle friction of his beard on my sensitive skin.

He pressed a sweet kiss to my temple, right below the edge of my hat.

A shuddering pant escaped my throat. I felt him tense and shift behind me, knowing he heard the unintended sound. Pulse quickening, I clamped my mouth shut and laid my head back, longing to rest in the comfortable crook where his neck met his shoulder.

But thick fur was in the way.

With his protective arms wrapped around me, I didn’t need the wolf’s pelt.

I leaned forward and removed it from my shoulders, then set it in my lap where it could warm my legs—our legs—instead.

To make up for the space it occupied between my back and his chest, I shifted on the mare with every intention of getting as close to him as physically possible.

For warmth.

After a few minutes of my squirming, he locked one arm around my stomach like a steel cage. “I’m going to need you to stop moving, Aryella.”

“Sorry,” I muttered.

He chuckled softly into my hair, the sound lulling me into tranquility.

The entire time we rode, I thought of his confession to Gemma. That he refused to act on his confessed desire just made me want him even more. His care for me mattered more to him than satiating himself. I wasn’t sure there was a truth more capable of driving me straight into his arms or his bed.

Not that I’d even have the slightest clue what to do, given the opportunity. I knew the basics. We’d had goats in Warrich once, after all. But beyond that, I was oblivious.

My irritated breath collected in front of my face in a ball of mist. I’d hardly had time to discuss with Gemma what happened between her and Finn. I’d filled my days with running, training, sparring, and reading, too tired to do anything but fall into bed most nights.

I was going into my marriage with Elias Winterton completely blind. I would be going into everything blind if it weren’t for my training with Gavin and the books from his library.

“What is it?” Gavin asked.

“Nothing.”

“Ella,” he warned. “Talk to me.”

“Oh, it’s not so fun, is it?” I snapped back. “When someone is keeping things from you.”

He released a heavy sigh but didn’t press.

The rolling hills and craggy peaks expanded into vast blue lakes scattered at the feet of staggering mountains, some with apexes so grand, they touched the clouds. The forest surrounding Tovick must have been the last one for a while, because the foliage here was sparse.

The previous night, I’d hardly slept, so it surprised neither of us when I drifted off for most of the morning, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic trot of our black mare and the assurance of his strong body at my back.

My growling stomach woke me a few hours later. At first, I thought I was dreaming. Sometimes how he soothed me felt too good to be real. His warmth. His safety.

“Welcome back,” he mumbled into my hair, his rich bass soothingly real . “You didn’t last very long at all. I missed my conversation partner.”

“Hmm.” I suppressed a smile and leaned my head back against his chest. “Maybe you shouldn’t be so comfortable.”

A low responding hum traveled from his throat to my core. I shivered, and his hand tightened on my ribs.

We sat this way for a while, until my stomach growled again and he felt it, or heard it, or both. He stopped and dismounted the mare so agilely it seemed at odds with his dominating stature.

“I packed us a little food.” I reached into my bag for some jerky.

He stopped me, his hand covering mine. “Are you opposed to making a quick stop?”

“ Should we make a stop?”

The sound of his deep, responding chuckle gave me goose bumps. “I didn’t ask if we should. I asked if you were opposed to it.”

I took a page out of his book and responded with a pointed, narrowed stare.

Unfazed, he asked, “Do you know how to swim?”

“It’s winter.”

“Dodging my questions again? ”

He fished out the jerky for me and handed me a small bag of red berries Damond had kept frozen from the previous summer, along with my canteen of water.

Before taking an eager bite of jerky, I answered, “I don’t recall having ever gone swimming.”

“Well, I know a place. A hot spring.” Gavin pointed north. A harsh, gray, and watchful mountaintop was visible just ahead. To try and see the top of the mountain, I had to bend my neck all the way back.

“Is it dangerous?”

“Would I take you there if it were dangerous?” he countered, brow raised. “I’m not sending you to those Caves without knowing you can swim.”

“Are there a lot of lakes and pools in the Caves?” I intended it to be a joke, but for all I knew, there could be.

“I don’t know.” He offered me his hand to help me down. I accepted, keeping a firm hold on him until my feet touched the ground. “And I don’t care. No death by drowning for you.”

Just ahead, at the base of that watchful mountain, I caught a glimpse of a small pool covered partially by a cave’s opening. Steam hovered above the clear blue water, enticing us in from the bitter wind and gloomy skies.

“You haven’t been to the Caves?” I asked, dragging my eyes away from that beckoning pool.

“Haven’t had a reason to.” I watched him tie the mare’s halter to the one evergreen tree in the immediate vicinity with leather rope. He relieved her of our bags, slinging them both over his shoulder in one effortless movement.

Feeling so at home with him while riding had given me some reprieve from fretting over my friends, but now with the Caves on my mind…

“I’m worried about them.” I wrapped myself up in my wolf-pelt shawl now that my body was no longer protected by his. “About Caz. ”

“They’ll be fine.” He threaded his strong fingers with my free hand and began to move toward the hot spring. “Caz will survive.”

“But his leg.” My eyes burned, even as I followed, taking three steps for every one of his. “He’s going to have a child that he won’t be able to run and play with properly.”

“That child will have a father—a present, living father—because you sent him back, you protected him before anything worse could happen.”

We stopped in front of the hot spring. I folded my arms across my chest and assessed the cave opening framing the intimate pool, the expanse of rock so smooth, it looked to have been purposely built into the base of the mountain.

Swimming—something so relaxed—felt irresponsible and callous the day after my friend was nearly killed in a blast. When people were scared and suffering like that village near Tovick, where we’d buried that poor man. And that little girl…

“It feels wrong to let myself enjoy this.” I fidgeted with the edge of my wolf’s pelt. “When Caz is hurt, when people are scared and fighting and dying.”

“What’s the point of fighting, then, if not for good things?” Gavin dropped our bags to the ground beside the steaming springs. “If you’re willing to sacrifice your happiness for the sake of thousands of people you don’t know, then you deserve happiness most of all.”

“But—”

“Just be here with me, Ella.” He brushed my cheek with his knuckle and removed my green wool cap with his other hand. “Allow yourself to live .”

I closed my eyes, leaned into his touch, and heard the words he left unspoken.

While you still can.

“Here. Wear this while swimming.” He placed a clean, folded black shirt in my arms. His shirt. “So your clothes don’t get wet. ”

I let the black linen drape over my fingers and resisted the urge to hold it to my nose to see how strongly his cedar and leather scent lingered on the fabric.

When I looked up, he was removing his jacket, shirt, and boots. Mercifully, he kept his pants on as he stepped down into the water. Mercifully, because… well, I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing any more of him bare without losing my breath.

His bare, broad shoulders, arms, and torso were even more brutally glorious at a distance. The tally marks inked across his upper body seemed infinite. His scars only made him appear more savage.

And I wanted to feel all of him beneath my fingers.

When I reached to lift my sweater over my head, he turned his back to give me privacy. Water droplets glistened on the scarred planes of his shoulders. His muscles rippled with each shift of his body as he waited for me to change.

I removed everything but my undergarments.

Nerves burned my insides as I stood only in my white briefs and brassiere.

There was nothing fancy about them—practical, comfortable, only trimmed with thin lace on the edges.

If he were to see me this bare, I would want to be wearing something more womanly.

His shirt covered me down to my knees, a protective shield against my insecurities. Just like his sweater. The sweater that I’d kept and sometimes slept in.