Page 72 of Ember and Eclipse
Rel wanted to say, ‘look at us,’ but all she saw was a man giving her control and the power todecide.Tochoose.
She could either choose him or break him. Accept him or banish him.
“Tell me to leave, Rel. But if you let me stay, I will fight with you and relish in all my victories.”
At this, she scoffed, but he continued.
“But more importantly, I will fightforyou. For us. For this home in this swamp.”
The last time they were this close in this room, he’d been there to drag her back to Romul. And she had cut him with a poisoned dagger. But now…
Before she could say anything, before she could untangle everything that he had confessed to or consider how she truly felt, he stepped away, not looking back at her once.
She stood long after he left the house, rooted in place.
Rel had two bowls of his soup, though it had taken her an entire hour before her hunger got the best of her before she ate it. She cleaned up the kitchen and placed the pot over a holding flame so that it would remain warm for Devdan when he returned.
Ifhe returned.
The thought that he might not made her feel sick to her stomach. She dozed, falling in and out of a fitful slumber, waking suddenly and listening for any sound that could be him. Sometimes, when she awoke, tears would be spilling over her cheeks, puddling in her hand.
Finally, when the swamp’s symphony of sounds took on the tone of deep night, she heard his footsteps. Frozen, she listened as he moved around the home, heard the soft clanking of a spoon in a bowl, and more movement after some time.
Just when she thought she had lost track of him, the curtain moved and parted. His face was carefully expressionless, and she found herself arranging her own in such a way.
They stared at each other for so long that she wanted to break eye contact. “Thank you for the soup,” she finally said.
“You’re welcome,” he murmured.
Rel settled again into the mattress and then shifted over. She patted the bed.
“As I am?”
And somehow, the question was far deeper than those three words. She knew without a doubt that if she rejected him this time, she would be given no more opportunities to do so.
“As you are, please.”
It was surrender. A truce.
He reached over his head, his eyes never leaving hers, and pulled his tunic off. Muscles shifted and flexed as he laid it over a nearby chair.
She didn’t blame him. The nights were still far too muggy and warm. She had even dressed in one of her thin, silky slips that glided against her skin like a whisper. When she pulled back the quilt, his attention moved to that exact item of clothing, and he halted his approach.
“As I am,” she whispered.
He tilted his chin down, his gaze blazing a path from her exposed thighs to her face. “As you are.”
And it was a promise. A vow.
The bed was smaller than even the one they shared at the inn. She rolled on her side, but unless he did the same, a good part of his body would be hanging over the edge.
“Come here,” she said, propping herself up on her elbow. She motioned for him to move his arm, and she laid down again between it and his body, planting her palm against his chest hesitantly. It gave him some more room, but not enough.
“Well—”
But she was cut off by his rough hand around the side of her thigh as he pulled her over him so that her chest was against his stomach and his legs framed her own. He moved them both over more, now fitting entirely on the bed.
“Much better,” he said, his voice holding a different kind of roughness to it.
