Adaira was quiet for so long that Jack’s heart was pounding by the time she raised her cup and clinked it to his.
“Then let us live out our year and a day,” she said. “I want you to stay with me, Jack. Through autumn, winter, spring, and thereafter should we desire it.”
They drank to each other, and the gra was sweet and pleasant, tasting like mist on the hills, like morning dew on the heather. Jack felt the fire trail down his throat, and he held Adaira’s gaze.
“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly. “I’m sorry for how I hurt you. For leaving you behind. I didn’t realize it would cut you so deeply, but I should have. I should have handled things better that day.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Adaira,” he said. “You did what you thought was best, and you shouldn’t apologize for it.”
She nodded but said, “I don’t ever want to hurt you, not even unintentionally. I hope you know that.”
“I know,” he whispered.
His stomach growled again, ruining the moment.
Adaira urged him to eat, but with his stomach in far too many knots to take in a proper meal, he ate only a little. Adaira noticed.
“Let’s go to bed,” she said, rising. “There’s a sleep tunic in that pile I brought you.”
While Adaira turned down the covers, Jack sorted through the clothes, bleary-eyed. He found the tunic and quickly changed into it, sighing at its softness as he walked to the bed. He sank into the feather mattress.
Adaira blew out the candles. Only the fire burned low in the hearth, illuminating her as she crawled into bed beside him. Jack turned to look at her.
She dragged the blankets up to her chin, but she also lay facing him, watching him as he watched her, the firelight drenching them in gold.
“You’re staring at me, Jack,” she whispered.
He began to move across the bed toward her. “I can’t seem to draw my eyes away from you.”
She smiled as he hovered over her, close enough that he could feel the heat from her skin but not quite touching. He traced her lips, watching them part beneath his thumb, her eyes drifting closed.
He kissed her softly, his mouth trailing to her jaw, her neck. He kissed the wild thrum of her pulse, the hollow of her throat. He ached when she sighed, when her fingers raked across his back. He found the edge of her chemise, easing it up as he slid down her body.
“I’ve thought about this every night since you left me,” he whispered as he kissed her knees, the inner warmth of her thighs.
She gasped when he tasted her.
The sound went through him like lightning, and Jack savored the moment. It was simply him and her in the darkness. There was nothing else beyond the door and the walls; there was nothing else save for her and the fire she stirred in his blood and the ancient vows they had spoken beside a thistle patch beneath a stormy sky. The choice they had made to bind themselves together. There was nothing but the way she said his name, both a prayer and a plea, and he answered her without a single word.
“Jack.” She tugged on his tunic until his mouth found hers again, his body covering hers.
They came together. He looked at her as she looked at him, and he was completely consumed by her. In the way she moved and touched him. The rosy hint on her cheeks and the dark possession in her eyes.
He buried his face in her hair. He breathed her in as he surrendered to her embrace.
They lay like that for a while, entwined, Adaira caressing his shoulders. He was almost asleep when he heard her voice. Her whisper followed him into his dreams.
“Old menace.”
Chapter 24
Torin haunted Sidra.
When she stood on the training green, watching the guard conduct their sparring exercises, he stood beside her. When she walked the castle corridors, he followed her. When she visited her patients, he was with her, attentively noticing how she cleansed wounds and burns. Which herbs and plants she gathered and crushed with her pestle and mortar, and what she mixed to create healing tonics and salves. When she laid Maisie down to sleep at night and told her wondrous stories of the spirits, Torin listened.
He longed, more than anything, for her to see him. To speak with her. To be able to reach out his hand and touch her skin.
He was there when she was sick, vomiting into the chamber pot behind closed doors. When her hand touched her belly, where their child was a spark in the darkness. He noticed that she could hardly stomach her food, that she ate very little. And he saw that, despite her exhaustion and the endless worries she carried, she worked harder than ever to find a cure for the blight.