Page 100 of A Tale of Ice and Ash

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For warmth. For warmth, for warmth. Only for warmth.

He slid his arm under the cover and pulled her close to him. Any faint remnant of cold melted away.

He’d shared a bed with a woman many a time before now, but not like this. Never had he watched his companions sleeping. Never had he had the urge to sweep back their hair. He wanted to tug Eirwen into him, to fold her body against his until not a fraction of space remained between them. This wasn’t merely attraction. This was something else. He could not hold her tightly enough. Small as her body was, he felt his was the tiny, malleable one, turned to putty by her proximity.

It was liquifying. Horrifying. Irresistible. A part of him groaned with the impossible nearness of her, frustrated by all space between them, but another, deeper part was afraid of the morning, when this would be over.

He did not want her gone from his side.

∞∞∞

Eirwen woke several times in the night, tucked under Cole’s chin, nestled against his chest. She had shared beds before, most often with Juniper or Ivy in recent years. This… this was something different. For a start, Cole was sobigin comparison to them, and they never held her like this, if at all. The closest she could attribute it to was being a small child in her father’s arms, a feeling of safety so long ago for her, it was almost forgotten.

But it was nothing like that, nothing at all.

She was conscious of a hundred different things, of his breath against her temple, his hand in her hair, the slow flickering of his closed lids and the flair of his dark lashes. She reached up tentatively, her fingers caressing the slope of his cheekbones and his slightly-parted lips, as if they were the door to something she didn’t dare open.

She jerked her hand away, wondering if she should roll out of his reach, even when every fibre of her skin ached to close the gap further, pulled by a thousand different threads.

She admired his crisp profile, the soft, quiet surge of his lungs, the steady thump of his heart under her head. His warmth seeped through her, and she wanted to crawl into him further, in a way she couldn’t quite explain. Her thoughts and feelings stuttered inside her, swirling like mudded water.

Give me words,she prayed.Help me shape this mess into meaning. And in the meantime… find a way to keep him here with me. Don’t let either of us be alone any more.

∞∞∞

A stark coldness woke her. Cole was not in bed. She tumbled out of the makeshift tent, heart pounding, imagining multiple scenarios of death and horror and scrambling for her sword.

Something thudded to the floor behind her. An apple.

She picked it up, her breath slowing. Cole was unlikely to have left an apple behind if he prised himself away to check a suspicious sound, or had somehow been dragged away unwillingly.

He was unlikely to have left an apple for her if he’d left because he felt strange about what happened yesterday… or what didn’t happen.

She pulled on her boots and went into the next room. Cole had broken one of the old crates and used it to start a fire.

“Morning!” he said. “The sun’s up, so I thought we’d be safe to start a fire… tempting as it was to stay nestled up with you all day.”

Eirwen glanced down. “Did you leave me an apple?”

“I found it in my pack. Garnet must have snuck it in.”

Eirwen smiled. It sounded like her.

“Did… did you leave apples on my pillow after my father’s death?”

Cole blinked at her. “Yes,” he said slowly.

“Why?”

“Well, you always found apples irresistible–”

“I meant, why didn’t you say anything?”

“It wasn’t a secret. I thought you knew.”

“I thought they were from the servants. Why… why did you do that?”

“Because you were wasting away to nothing and I felt absolutely awful.”