“I…” My eyes flutter closed, and I take a deep breath. “I’m feeling like I almost died today. I’m feeling overwhelmed and in over my head. I’m feeling furious and frustrated because I don’t know how to feel about all of this.” I pause while Kai waits patiently for me to continue. “And I’m feeling like I owe you a thank you. I would have died today if it weren’t for you saving me.”
He leans closer, eyes brimming with barely bottled-up emotions. “And I’ll save your life again and again, aimlessly hoping you will allow me to stay in it.”
We stare at each other.
Those pretty words of his have my heart pounding, brain puzzling over possible meanings. The tension between us is tangible, taking my breath away as he takes me in. I’m grasping for something, anything, to say, but I’m too busy staring to think straight.
And then a quiet question slips past my lips, snapping the tension between us. “How are you so calm after all this?”
I know the answer, and yet, I find myself wanting to hear it from his own lips. “I didn’t always used to be like this,” he says softly. “But practice makes perfect, and I’ve had a lot of it.”
We stare silently at one another, and once again, I’m struggling for something to say. Then I remember the leather strap I had stolen from him and slip my hand out of his to pull it from my pocket. “Well, I suppose this is the only way I can repay you. Though, it’s yours to begin with.”
He gives me a lazy shrug. “Keep it.”
I huff. “I don’t want your pity.”
“It’s not pity, Paedyn.” He sighs out the words, my name. “Besides, I have another one of my own now, and taking down Sadie was a joint effort.” I level him with a look, prepared to argue since we both know he didn’t necessarily need my help with Sadie. He doesn’t miss the fight in my eyes. “Just take the damn leather, Gray.”
If he wants to offer me the one thing I need to help me win these Trials, then fine.
I’ll take the damn leather. But not before I’ve had some fun.
A smile twists my lips. “Say please.”
He looks away from me, shaking his head at the starry sky. “You have just been waiting to make me say this, haven’t you?”
“Dying to, actually.”
His forearms rest on his bent knees as he leans even closer, face hovering close above mine. The smile he gives me is equally as lazy as his gaze traveling over my face. “Please, Pae.”
A shiver runs down my spine at the caress that is his voice. “That seems to be a foreign word to you, prince.”
“Thanks to you, I have a feeling I’m going to grow very familiar with it. Few have the power to make me plead.”
I swallow, choosing to ignore his words as I shove the leather into my pocket and roll to face the fire once more, suddenly cold and content to be quiet. The temperature has dropped significantly tonight, and my thin tank does little to keep me warm.
“I do have one condition, though.”
I roll my eyes.
Of course he does.
“And what would that be?” I ask through my teeth, not bothering to look at him.
An arm wraps around my middle, carefully avoiding my wound while tugging me against a broad chest. I startle at the sudden contact, and a soft laugh sounds close to my ear. “I get to use you to keep me warm.”
There’s a certain hesitancy to him, the type of timidness he only lets me see in moments like these. He holds me loosely, delicately, like whatever shared fragile feelings between us could shatter if handled with a lack of care.
A question laces every lingering touch, every look too long, every layer of ourselves we choose to divulge to one another. The arm around me is no different, speaking volumes in the form of hovering fingers and hesitant hold.
Is this okay?
I swallow hard. My throat has gone dry.
My answer is agonizingly slow as I slide closer to him.
It’s more than okay.
Eagerness is an emotion I’ve always been able to blame on circumstance, and I wish desperately it wasn’t desire driving my decisions.
I hear him take a breath, only realizing then that he had been holding it.
And then all remanence of hesitation is gone.
His hand settles on the far side of my waist where my tank is slowly beginning to slide up. He’s wasted no time pulling me against him, allowing me to feel the rise and fall of his chest, feel the steady beat of his heart pounding against my back.
“Tell me, does this annoy you?” he asks quietly, breathing the question close to my ear. He’s throwing my words back at me, and I can almost feel him smirking. He wants this to annoy me. Wants this to get under my skin and make me flustered with every finger he has on my body.
Bastard.
I simply can’t allow that. So, I say with a confidence I don’t currently feel, “Not at all. I can’t be bothered, Azer.”
“Good,” he says coolly. Then he lays his head on my arm and shoulder, his soft, inky hair tickling my skin. “Who needs a pillow when I have you?”
I huff with what I hope sounds like annoyance. Thanks to him, I’m now suddenly wide awake and unable to focus on anything else but the heat of his body against mine. He finally drops his head from my shoulder and lays it close to the back of mine, practically buried in my hair.
“Sweet dreams, Pae.”
“Sweet dreams, Kai.”
His hand tightens ever so slightly on my waist in response to the sound of his name rolling off my tongue. And then his thumb is brushing lazy, light strokes over the fabric of my thin tank. I suppress a shiver, swallow, and shut my eyes.
Just go to sleep.
Easier said than done.
I’m far too focused on his sweeping thumb, his arm wrapped tightly around me, his chest rising and falling against my back.
I hate that I don’t hate it.
And that’s when it hits me.
Distraction.
He’s doing it again. He’s taking my mind off the death I just witnessed, off the fact that I watched him kill someone because they were going to kill me. He’s the only thing keeping my thoughts from Sadie’s dead body, the only thing that will chase the nightmares away for tonight because I’m too occupied with the thought of him.
And this is a distraction that benefits the both of us.
I find myself smiling as I think about the calculating boy behind me.
The calculating boy, who for some reason, cares.
Chapter Thirty-One
Kai
we spend our final day in the whispers trying to get out. It was late afternoon when a Sight interrupted our routine of eating stringy rabbit together. The girl was young and timid, only managing to drop a folded piece of parchment onto a nearby stump before she vanished into the forest.
The note, to no surprise, was incredibly cryptic. It offered no details, only informing us that we are to meet at the edge of the Whispers at sunrise.
So, after climbing another Plague-forsaken pine tree to see which direction to head in, we set off trudging through the forest. And after several long hours of this, we’ve grown restless, to say the least.
I hear Paedyn swear, stumbling behind me. “These damn snakes!” I turn around in time to see her flip the dagger in her hand, holding it by its blade before effortlessly sending it flying into the head of a snake slithering by her feet. The hissing dies along with the rest of the creature before Paedyn casually tugs the blade out of its skull.