Page 23 of Ember and Eclipse
“Mmhmm,” he rumbled.
When they entered their room, he shut the door with the heel of his boot before setting her down on the bed.
Rel looked from the knife at his waist to his face.
“You’re either trying to finish what you started downstairs or plotting how best to kill me,” he drawled.
“The latter. I wouldn’t choose for you to touch me if my life depended on it,” she snapped.
“The way you were moving against me all night says otherwise. As for the other, you can try, but you and I both know you’ll lose.”
“What was it that you said in my cottage? ‘There’s not a realm in which I lose this fight,’” she mocked his deep voice. “And, if you recall, that was right before you passed out from the poison.”
“I hardly call that a victory. And ifyourecall, your knife skills were inadequate, and your magic nonexistent. I have purposely left you unbound from witchsilver to see if you’d dare use it. And yet,” he smirked, “you have not.”
“I despise you,” she ground out before moving back to her side of the bed, her boots still on. He was right about one thing—she wouldn’t beat him in a knife fight any time soon, especially when she was intoxicated.
“Do you attempt to seduce all those you despise?”
“No, but I’ll add it to my list of strategies since it seems like it left a lasting impression on you,” she said before rolling onto her side and giving the hunter her back.
He snorted a short laugh but didn’t respond. She tracked him through the room by sound alone as he took off his boots and unloaded some of his weapons into the pack he kept on his side of the bed.
When the mattress dipped with his weight, he said, “If that mercenary is going to be a problem, I’ll kill him.”
“He won’t be.”
But gods, she wished he would be.
Chapter XIV
Reldidn’tfallasleep.Instead, she waited. Though she had gotten tipsy, her witch blood helped keep the spirts from affecting her senses for long.
What she was counting on was that the few drinks that Devdan had would help him sleep a little bit deeper.
She kept track of the time based on the number of songs that played, and when the celebration finally died down in the streets, she sat up as slowly as she could. Her back was to the hunter, and she risked looking over her shoulder at him. The moonlight cut a path across his features. He slept on his back, one hand over his heart as if to guard it against the night, the other hanging off the side. His chest rose in the pattern of slumber. Asleep with the pale light upon him, he looked less fierce, but she knew that wasn’t the truth of it.
Waking him wasexactlylike waking a slumbering beast.
She took her weight off the bed in painfully controlled increments until she was on her feet. When he didn’t rouse, she tiptoed to the door. Her cloak sat nearby, folded next to the basin. It was the only thing she dared to pick up with extreme carefulness. Anything else would be too much of a risk to grab.
Opening the door quietly was her main concern. She had listened when he brought her in earlier, and the hinges didn’t protest until it was halfway open. Turning the knob, she pulled the door open silently. It made the softest of sounds, and she froze, her heart pounding so loud she thought it would wake him for sure. But when no movement came from his side of the bed, she squeezed through the opening. She took her time closing it again, and it latched with a quiet snick.
She tiptoed the first few steps, then darted for the staircase, unfolding her cloak and putting it on as she did. Time was not on her side. He could wake up at any moment and realize she was gone, and if she were anywhere in the open, he’d be able to find her. She only slowed as her foot hit the last stair, and she peered into the tavern. It was shut down, though there was a man face down on a table and several others she didn’t recognize cleaning the place up. She pulled her hood up and walked quickly across the tavern floor toward the front door.
“Careful out there, lady. The temperature has dropped,” one said, glancing up from the table he’d been wiping.
She made a noncommittal noise, grabbed a meat knife off the last table, and entered the streets. The rain drummed on the cloth still overhanging the now empty spaces where booths had been before. It was a soothing melody at any other time, except soon she wouldn’t be covered, and she would be out in the elements. The coldandthe rain. Not the best combination for running away.
Where would she even travel to? She couldn’t return to her home; the hunter knew where she lived. With no family or friends, she had nowhere else to go. But when she left Romul, she didn’t have anywhere to go either, yet she survived. Like she always did. Regardless, she would travel south, even if it meant hiding out in the Mark or with a coven for a while. She could maybe intermittently check on her home. Though she didn’t have any money, she had the emerald that still hung around her neck. Tucking it within her cloak, she picked up her pace.
Running would only raise suspicions, but she cut her way through two alleys so she was no longer on the same street as the inn. If the hunter came out, he would have a much harder time finding her.
The streets weren’t completely empty. A pair were lip-locked, pressed against a shopfront, their hands moving in a sloppy exploration over each other. She also passed a group of four men with one slung between them, drunkenly singing a bawdy tale about a mermaid and a sailor. Here and there were people passed out or curled up, unable or unwilling to make it back to their rooms. And there were plenty of watch guards, acting as standing sentinels or patrolling streets.
She prayed to any gods that were listening that she ran into Silas again, but she didn’t think the Fates would be so merciful. They’d given her a chance earlier, and she hadn’t seized it.
She kept a brisk pace, and just an hour later, she was on the outskirts of the town. Stepping out of its barrier, the watchmen unbothered with her late-night venture, she strode into the night and rain. Without any protection from the elements, she had to channel a special kind of willpower that was only possible because the alternative was unfathomable.
