Page 57 of Ember and Eclipse
When her eyes traveled back up the length of his body to meet his expecting gaze, she nodded once. It wasn’t like she had many options.
“Good,” he exhaled heavily. “We need to move quickly and quietly. They know you’re missing and are already looking for you.”
“How long have I been here?”
“A little more than a day,” he said as he sat his pack on the ground.
“Why didn’t you just wait to get me until—”
“Because you were dying,” he bit out. “You wouldn’t have made it another hour, let alone a day. I was preparing, but your display at the celebration turned execution changed everything.” He pulled two garments from the pack and tossed them on her lap. “Put those on.”
Rel sat the pants and cloak aside to put the food back in the pack, leaving the knives out. Pulling off the thick blanket, she realized she had nothing else on besides his tunic. When she looked up at him to inquire about her lack of clothing, he was shirtless. His muscles shifted as he poured water over his hands to wash them of gore.
“Who did you kill?”
He didn’t respond to her, tugging on the clean tunic after he dried his hands.
“Devdan…” she warned.
He offered her his hand. “It’s irrelevant. The decision you need to make now is, do you trust me?”
Rel studied his palm, then flicked her gaze to his. “I’m willing to try.” She said it more to herself than him but placed her hand in his anyway. He helped her to her feet carefully. She swayed, but his fingers tightened around hers, and he gripped her hip to steady her.
She hated that the simple act of standing left her so dizzy. Taking deep breaths, and begrudgingly using Devdan for support, she put on the pants.
When she had them secured, the fit was surprisingly accurate. She tucked his overly large tunic into the front. Lastly, she hooked the two knives into her waistband, putting the tunic’s excess fabric over them, and threw the cloak over her shoulders.
“Here,” Devdan muttered, moving to the front of her. In his hands were the boots she had traveled to Romul in. He kneeled in front of her and when she didn’t make any move, he looked up. Her breath caught in her lungs.
Gods, he was beautiful.
“Unless you’d rather go barefoot?” he asked.
She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak as she held his shoulders to step into the boots, and he quickly laced them up.
When he stood back up, she cleared her throat and said, “I didn’t see you in the crowd after you spoke with Asear. You saw me?”
“Yes, I saw you. I was hoping you’d for once not do anything… rash.”
“The mage and witch, are they…”
His features shifted into something like sympathy. “They killed the mage, but they took the witch away.”
A sudden horror filled her. Rel had condemned her to a worse fate by saving her that night. “We have to get her. We can’t leave her to die here, to suffer. What—”
“I’m handling it,” he said as he moved away to pack up the bedding and connect the smaller rucksack to his.
She tracked him. “And that object that was draining my magic. We need to destroy it so they can never use it on another witch again.”
When he finished and shrugged on the load, he said, “I’ve already handled that.”
She eyed him skeptically but found no reason that he would be lying. Finally, she said, “I have questions, and I want answers.”
“I know.” Picking up the lantern, he strode into the hall.
After a pause, she followed him into the darkness.
Chapter XXXV
