Page 36 of A Dream Shrouded in Fury
I crouched in front of her.“What can I get you?”
Cliff slapped me on the back on his way to the entrance.“Don’t worry about it, fae.I’ve got dinner covered.You lot may as well come with me and make yourselves useful since you can see.”
Hethyr let out a whoop of excitement and headed out after him.“I’ll get the herbs.”
“Not without me, you won’t,” Pimmin said, catching up to her.“You know how to combine them, my love, but I can’t have you mixing up your greenroot with your ashvine again.”
Ria sighed.“I guess that means I’m going too.The rest of you stay out of trouble.”
With Birch already asleep and Corban immediately turning away from us, Kalla and I were left alone.We didn’t speak, which was more than okay.I didn’t need to hear her voice, but by the sky, I needed to be close to her.
I was still trembling with residual terror when Cliff returned carting a coyote over his shoulder.
He dropped it in front of Kalla with a cheerful “Enjoy,” and her expression grew heavy with longing.
Moving faster than I could follow, she pounced.Her fangs tore into the coyote’s throat, and her throat bobbed with every hard swallow.Her eyes rolled back in her head before they closed, and I hated how jealous I was of a dead animal.How frustrated that anything other than me should bring her this much pleasure.
I balled my hands into fists, buried my rising desire, and left her to feed and recover.I was in no place to be with other people tonight, and staying here was self-inflicted torture.
When I stepped outside, I passed Ria and the others, and at Hethyr’s questioning glance, I shook my head.I didn’t want to explain.There was nothingtoexplain.I was a fool who needed to get my head on straight.
I didn’t go far, not wanting to betray the vampires’ trust in leaving the blindfold off, but I wanted space.Choosing a direction at random, I strode through the trees, keeping the cave in view, until I was finally alone enough to take a deep breath.Punch a tree.Tear at my hair.Pace back and forth among the wide trunks and vent out the energy coiling through my blood that would have made sleep impossible.
What I really needed was another fight.Just me versus the guards.It didn’t matter if I survived as long as I was able to shed some blood and eviscerate something.What I wouldn’t give for a single person to beat to the brink of death.
Or my lyre.
The sudden yearning for my old instrument hit me harder than any of the strikes the guards had landed tonight, and I staggered backwards until my spine met a tree trunk.My fingers crawled over my chest, clutching at my armour, desperate to loosen the tightness around my lungs.
Music had always been my refuge.Not the violence that had been my life lately.The lulling notes of a simple song had never failed to calm me, and the pure act of strumming a set of strings could lure me into an almost hypnotic state.
But not in so long.
So.Fucking.Long.
I tilted my head back against the bark to stare into the branches, feeling scattered and cramped all at once.I’d gone years without suffering this nagging draw, but playing that flute for Kalla had unleashed the old pain.
“Are you okay?”
Kalla’s soft tones nearly made me jump out of my skin, and I whipped towards her, my dagger in my palm in an instinctive reaction.That tingle in my chest—the one I hadn’t believed possible—surged with my need to defend myself, but when I reached for it, it flitted away.
Kalla stepped back, hands raised in a show of peace.She hadn’t put her armour back on after the attack, leaving her in a sleeveless black shirt that showed off the mounds of her breasts and the sharp peaks of her nipples.I devoured the sight of her curves—remembering, wanting—before jerking my gaze back to hers.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said.“Again.”
I sheathed my dagger.“No, it’s fine.I was just...”Thinking of you.Trying not to think of you.Lost in my craving for everything you are.I cleared my throat.“Shouldn’t you be inside?”
When I gestured vaguely to the sky and the approaching sun, Kalla shrugged.“We’ve got about an hour before it rises.I needed some air.”
My shoulders dropped.“Me too.”I looked her over.“How are you?”
“Alive because of you.”She stepped closer.“The blood helped.What about you?You looked like you were going through something just now.”
My fingers flexed with the desire to stroke the string of my lyre.Or her hair.This close, her rich, earthy scent—mixed with the tiniest hint of copper—made my mouth water.Her cheeks were flushed after her dinner, and her eyes were bright—and still hungry.
I licked my lips to work some moisture into my suddenly dry mouth.“Just a long day.Trying to unwind.”
There was so much more I didn’t say.That I was trying to forget those few brief heartbeats when I thought she’d left me and how, in another night, that’s exactly what would happen.The squeeze in my chest was too much to bear if I let my thoughts travel down that road.So I hauled them back, desperate to find the void that had sustained and protected me for the past many years.
