His fingers paused in their work. “Are you concerned?”
“Not really. She’s not the social creature Naul is.” She glanced over to the wolf cub who was now sprawled on his side, belly to the fire, snoring. His hind legs jerked, as if he was chasing something in his dreams. A smile tugged her lips. “She’s always there when I need her. That’s what matters.”
“Unlike me.” It sounded like a dreadful confession, some deep and terrible sin he had to share. Jeren stared at him, opened her mouth, but couldn’t say anything. Unlike him. Yes, perhaps. She hadn’t meant it like that but still—
Shan pulled aside the fabric of her dress and stood, bending his head so he could plant his lips on her shoulder, where the curve of her neck began. That touch, and the zephyr of his breath stole all reason from her, sending waves of warmth from her stomach to the juncture of her thighs. She pressed her legs tightly together, but that just made it worse.
The words she couldn’t say tumbled out of her mouth. All the things she didn’t want to say, all those things it shamed her to admit. She wanted to cling to anger, to use it as a shield. But Shan kissed her and the shield fragmented.
“I thought you were gone forever. I thought the Fell had taken you. I thought you didn’t want me—I thought— Don’t leave me again.”
“I know.” Shan sighed and pulled her against the hard planes and angles of his body. He closed his eyes, perhaps the only way he could continue to speak. “I told you I was a fool. And sometimes I think it’s you who make me one. My love for you. I must protect you, Jeren. You are everything to me. I’ll do anything, whatever it takes. That doesn’t mean I’ll always please you, but I am always yours. Always.”
“I thought I’d lost you,” she said and her eyes stung. She closed her hand into a fist, ready to strike him, but she couldn’t. Her fingers uncurled again. “And I-I was lost without you.” The emptiness, the anger that had filled her still echoed in her veins. Loss and betrayal had stilled her heart. And terrible things had happened. There might have been worse to come if she had not found him again.
Shan’s lips closed on hers, brushing gently at first, then harder, demanding a response from her.
“Never,” he promised solemnly. “I’ll never leave you again.”
This time she believed him, even though her instincts told her she was a fool. She believed him in spite of herself.
Because if he thought that he’d protect her best by being elsewhere, he’d leave again. She knew he would.
“You went to kill Gilliad, didn’t you?”
“That was my plan.”
Ice ran threatening fingers across her heart. “What changed it? Why come back?”
He paused, trailing his fingers across the braids in her hair, studying them, their shape and texture. “Anala led me to Naul instead. And made me see that protecting one doesn’t always mean killing another. That to save him, I couldn’t go ahead with my plan. And that you needed me as much. I tried so hard to get back to you. But the Enchassa— she kept twisting my path.”
“I dreamed of you, of being here like this. I thought you might be dead, a ghost come to me.”
Shan rested his forehead against hers, drew in a breath. Pain danced across his face, tightening his brows. His eyes moved beneath his closed lids. And Jeren loved him, her heart blossoming again
“I dreamed of you too. It told me I needed to get back to you as soon as possible.”
His hands framed her face and he kissed her again, cradling her head, holding her to him. She didn’t fight this time, but gave herself up to the kiss, drinking it down. Her hands roamed up his arms, across his chest and when they finally fell onto the bed together, she lost herself in him, her husband, her mate who could use the most tender of touches to make her whole again.
They moved together and the world was made of sighs and whispers, of love and need. He filled her and his face took on that unstudied grace that drove her from her cares to a place where all that mattered was the two of them, one soul, joined in pleasure.
Night came too quickly, the northern twilight turning Brightling’s Dale grey and silent. Jeren paced the meeting hall, no longer clad in the dress and jewellery, but in the simple grey she far preferred. Her sword hung at one side, her sect knife at the other. She felt more like herself again than she had for an age.
Shan sat by the fire, his fingers playing idly with the fur behind Naul’s ears. The pup slept again, his chest slowly rising and falling. He must think that fires were a wonder, Jeren thought fondly. Then a cool breeze drifted by her and she shuddered.
They’d left the window open and outside her people patrolled while she waited within. Indarin would have been outside too but Jeren hesitated to send him. He tried to hide the reproach in his gaze, but he didn’t fool her. Regret made her restless. Leithen stood beside the door, silent and determined. With two such guards and Shan beside her she’d come to no harm. That was what everyone said.
They were determined to shut her away—Holter and Feyna. It galled her to admit it, for she knew they meant well, but what they called protection was starting to feel a lot like imprisonment.
She turned her attention back to Shan and recalled when they first met, when they had fled through snow and sleet, over the mountains together, when they had escaped River Holt and its lands. Then she really had been free. Just then. The two of them together. She longed for it again, so keenly that it was an ache deep in her core. Duty meant she would never be so free again.
That thought made her want to break down and cry.
“What is it?” Shan asked. His voice was soft as a murmur, meant for her alone.
“Just thinking.” Even her voice sounded brittle.
“You looked so sad. Like you had lost something, my love.”
She tried to smile. At least her mouth moved, but it didn’t feel right. “I’ll be fine.”
They had reached a sort of reconciliation. And she loved him. But still something nagged at the back of her mind, something that told her this was all transitory, that it was only a matter of time.
Three men passed by the window, silent, watchful. She couldn’t tell if they were from the Dale or her own men. The thought came to her again that this was stupid. Why was she even trying to save Brightling’s Dale? She hated this place. It had robbed them of Anala, handed her over to Gilliad and made Shan his prisoner. Gods, how she hated it here.
And yet here, it almost seemed as if peace had been restored between them. Here of all places. Even if they had not yet talked everything through, had not worked out how they were going to survive this... she thought of the previous night and a smile played on her lips. She had missed their closeness, missed their intimacy, missed him. She could almost pretend everything was all right once more.
In Brightling’s Dale of all god-forsaken places.
“Better to see it just burn to the ground. Better to just destroy it and all its miserable inhabitants.”
Jeren froze, listening in mounting horror to the voice inside her head. It didn’t sound like her own voice. And yet, somehow, it did. It was horribly familiar.