Page 46

Carefully, I lowered myself to the edge of the pool and dipped my feet into the water. Hot and refreshing, the water pooled up to my calves with a welcome caress. I leaned forward and slowly let my fingers drift beneath the gentle surface.

The water rolled in small waves toward me. I looked up to see he’d turned back and now watched me with a gut-wrenching longing I had seen in him only a few times before. Once, when he had found me in that barn after killing the wolf. Again, when he told me about his wife .

I wanted to think of only the former moment, frightening as it was. The first time we met.

“I don’t have a coin on me,” Gavin began, drifting toward me. “But if I did… for your thoughts?”

I smiled down at my hands. “What were you thinking in the barn that night, when you saved me from that wolf?”

“Why?”

My eyes darted to the rings on the leather cord around his neck. Now, that vial of dark liquid I recognized from when I’d woken to him sitting at my bedside our first morning in Tovick was on the same leather cord.

“Because I couldn’t understand why you looked at me like…” My voice, along with my thoughts, drifted off, as I tried to relive that moment without the burden of near-death terror. “Like I was a ghost. And you said you’d found me.”

He studied me, his expression giving nothing away. And waited, appearing to weigh his words very carefully. “When I saw you,” he said slowly, “I knew I was witnessing a miracle.”

My heart fluttered, but I couldn’t help but laugh at the idea. “A few weeks ago, I was depressed skin and bones with hardly any knowledge of the world, no skills, and barely any motivation to leave my house.”

Shadows crossed his face. “And I will never forgive them for leaving you that way.” That angry tendon in his jaw pulsed. “In due time, they will pay for it.”

I swallowed a shudder, forced it back down into my belly. Elowen, he could snap in half. But Simeon? An ancient sorcerer. He threatened him like it was nothing.

“Elowen,” I muttered. “Don’t—”

“I won’t kill her, Ella. She means something to you.”

I gulped. As if that were the only reason not to kill her.

“Can I ask you something else?” I watched him move closer to me. The water was not very deep. He was clearly standing, and his head and shoulders were still well above the surface. The tips of his dark hair that had escaped from his leather strap clung to his wet shoulders.

He waded closer through the water. “Yes.”

“What did Ezra say to you before they left Tovick?”

Gavin smirked. “He threatened to kill me if I hurt you.” I gasped, to which he gave a responding chuckle. “I’m not worried.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“Because if I hurt you, I’ll beat him to it.”

I frowned and watched the steaming crystal-blue pool move in mesmerizing waves around my calves as I made gentle movements. Now that my legs had adjusted to the heat, the rest of me craved it.

“I don’t like that thought,” I mumbled.

My heartbeat thrummed in my ears when I felt his touch—calloused and gentle—on my bare knees.

“Come here.” His expression softened at my frown. “In the water. It’s not deep.”

I rested my hands on his thick forearms and let him pull me off my rocky ledge into the water. Instinctively, I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, adhering myself to him.

“This isn’t swimming.” His voice was low in his chest—breathless—as his hard, carved pectorals brushed against my breasts. My core pulsed with heat and need.

“I’m not worried. You’re good enough for the both of us.” I matched each of my fingers with five water droplets along his chest and collarbone. Our breaths swirled together between us in light, hungry pants.

His eyes were on my mouth, those burning pools darkening.

He cleared his throat, the deep sound breaking my trance. “Swimming.” The strong grip on my waist tightened, and suspended desire crashed violently into the wall of my stomach. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you drown. ”

He lifted me off him and tossed me to the other side of the pool.

I was holding my breath before I hit the water, and when I did, the waves surged around me in a glorious embrace of heat.

Unexpected but igniting. I grinned beneath the water and swore I felt the power of Rainar, God of the Seas, reach through my skin to touch it.

When I came to the surface, I gasped for air and laughed. “So much for teaching me to swim!” But I was still smiling as I propelled my arms and legs down in circular motions against the water to stay afloat.

“Ella.” He gestured at me as I treaded water, his smile warm and proud. “You are swimming.”

The movements of my arms and legs kept my head above water. Thankfully, it was shallow enough I’d used the rocky pool floor as leverage to push up to the surface after he threw me. But with my less-than-average height, I couldn’t stand and keep my head above the surface at the same time.

Swimming felt like muscle memory, just like riding our black horse. Some part of me already knew how to do things I couldn’t remember learning. Things I learned before the accident, perhaps. Or was it the elusive power in my veins? A piece of each god that lived inside me, guiding me?

Maybe I’d never know, but at least I could do this. I let the water lift me up so my hips were flush with the surface as I reclined, floating on my back.

He cursed and sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. I glanced at him and saw his reaction to the sight of his black shirt’s wet grip on the front of my body. And the winter air just above the surface, what it did to my skin, my nipples against the fabric…

He made no attempt to hide how he devoured me with his gaze.

I felt like a flame, white hot.

“What if Elias doesn’t want me?” Like he wanted me .

The water rippled around me as he moved closer. Closer, even though moments before, he’d tossed me away from him like a sharpened blade he couldn’t bear touch.

“That’s not going to happen,” he replied, his rich timbre low and gravelly.

“How do you know that?”

He slid his hands beneath me—one touching my neck, the other on my lower back—and drew me against his chest. “Because it’s impossible not to want you.”

I sighed. “What if he’s not… nice?”

“If he’s not nice… ” He cocked his head in thought, darkness surging in his eyes. “I know more ways to kill a man than the days you’ve lived, and I won’t bother making it look like an accident.”

His words—so full of rage and bloodshed—were so at odds with how he looked at me, how he spoke to me. I lifted my fingers to his bearded jaw. He closed his eyes and leaned into my touch. When he exhaled, I drew his breath into my lungs. Warm and sweeter than air.

“If you had one wish in this life,” I began, “what would it be?”

Because as queen, I would find a way to grant it after all he’d done for me.

I thought of his wife, even though I didn’t want to.

And I knew, if it was what he wanted, if it was even possible, I would spend every possible resource retrieving what would make him happy.

Even if it hurt me to see him with someone else.

He leaned down and pressed his mouth to my temple. “Your freedom.”

I let out a quiet chuckle. “No, that’s for me. What do you want?”

“I just…” He cupped my face in his hand, searching my eyes until I couldn’t breathe. “I just want you to know me … know who I am, Ella.”

“I do.” I rested my hand over his heart. “I know you. ”

His thick throat bobbed as he swallowed. A want-filled stare darted to my mouth. I feared his kiss almost as much as I wished for it. Because I knew it would enliven me and gut me all at once.

But more than I wanted his kiss, I dreaded the separation of our bodies.

And I knew, if I leaned in any farther, he’d toss me to the other side of the pool again just to escape temptation.

So, before he could force a safe distance between us, I wrapped my arms around his neck, my legs around his waist, and buried my face in his shoulder so he couldn’t be tempted. So he had to hold me instead.

And he did.

My eyes and throat burned at the truth I was afraid to admit. I cried silently into his shoulder, realizing Warrich was not my home. Phillip, Elowen, and even Ollie, who I loved dearly and would give my life to bring back, were not my home.

Those Caves filled with my friends, my people, and my betrothed, were not my home.

He was home.

A home I could not keep.