22
“At last,” Ash spoke with pained irony, pulling away, “rescue arrives.”
“Thank you for telling me your story.”
He regarded me with a twist of a smile, already sealing himself off again. “You’re the only one I’ve ever told.”
“I’ll keep your secrets.”
“Not that it matters. Do as you wish—I don’t expect you to protect me.”
I put my hand on Ash’s cloaked arm. “Nor do I plan to, even if I thought you needed it. But I want you to finish your quest. Graves and the others can see me safely to Windroven.”
He looked down at my gloved hand on his arm, still unwilling to see the face, that so troubled him. “What are you saying?”
“I’m telling you to go. Back up the hill and across the border. Your destiny awaits in Annfwn. You deserve the chance to take it.”
“Princess Amelia!” Graves called out, clearly having forgotten his earlier cautions. Though it hardly mattered anymore. “Are you all right? Were you harmed in any way?”
“I’m fine, Commander,” I said, stepping away from Ash and drawing myself up. “We have been concerned for you.”
“It was the damnedest thing.” He shook his head and Skunk grimaced in agreement. “We were climbing that path, thinking you were right behind us, and then we seemed to be going downhill. We found ourselves in the next drainage over, with no path behind us and none of you in sight. It’s taken all night and most of the day to make our way around.”
Sliding off his horse and sinking to one knee, Graves yanked off his helm and bowed his head. “I failed you, Your Highness. As a soldier derelict in his duty, I accept whatever punishment you deem right and just. I only ask that you allow us to try again to reach the border. After that, should you wish to have me executed, I’ll at least die knowing I completed my mission.”
“You weren’t derelict, Commander.” I placed my hand on his bent head. “You faced a cunning enemy who simply waged the battle on a different field. Now rise.”
I stepped back and nearly trod on Ash’s toes, he stood so close behind me. Ignoring him, I said, “Besides, the White Monk and I reached the border.”
The air around me stilled, tense and waiting.
“And the mission?” Graves asked, carefully.
I shook my head. “Neither of us could even see where it was. The rumors are true. No one can enter Annfwn. It’s as if it fell off the map.”
“Sad news, indeed, Your Highness.”
“Yes. I propose to leave the White Monk here, to keep an eye on the border in Glorianna’s name. He can stay at yon cabin through the winter. My midwife is taking shelter there.”
I looked up at Ash over my shoulder, his transparent gaze at last meeting mine. “You’ll indulge me in this request, White Monk, yes?”
He wavered, uncertain. That turbulent mix of emotions tumbled around us. I stared him down, willing him to take the opportunity.
“As you wish, Princess.” He inclined his head. “Tomorrow I will watch you ride away without me.”
I gave him a court smile, full of benevolent pleasure, but a bitter taste of regret lingered in my mouth.
Marin greeted us at the cabin as if we’d only been out for a short pleasure jaunt. Of course she couldn’t know all that had transpired, but her unflappability made for a welcome homecoming.
The soldiers cooked a stew and we sat around the fire, exchanging more of our stories. The only deaths had been the horse and soldier who went over the cliff, which only one of the men had witnessed and seemed to remember only vaguely.
That disturbed me, in a forlorn way, but Graves’s insistent questions about our experience wouldn’t let me dwell on it. Fortunately Ash stepped in to elaborate on my thin story, inventing a convenient cave where we sheltered for the night before trying to find the impassable border once more. He never wavered from my tale, that neither of us could pass through, even when we thought we might have come close to it, for which I was grateful.
Though he carefully avoided looking at me, the bit of silent collusion gave me a cozy sense of companionship with him. Even if we never saw each other again, at least we would forever share these secrets. His and mine, tied together.
Something private for me to hold on to, like my mother’s treasure chest. Perhaps I’d sew something out of the silk scraps I’d saved from the night before. A memento.
I meditated on it while I brushed my hair and Ash—and the other soldiers—pretended not to watch. Here in the remote cabin on frozen ground, he didn’t fill my senses as he had in Annfwn, but I knew enough of him to separate his desire from the idle lust of the others. His had a certain bittersweet flavor to it.
I needed just one more taste—and I had no intention of ever again missing out on something because I hadn’t asked for it.
As everyone settled into their blankets for the night, I announced that I needed to answer the call of nature, yet again. Sometimes being with child offers convenient excuses. As I knew he would, Ash ignored the groans of the other soldiers and said he’d go with me, for protection.
The others were happy enough to leave us to it, though Marin gave me the side eye. As with Andi, though, she didn’t judge. Of course, she liked Ash. More than she did me, when it came down to it. Somehow the thought didn’t sting as much as it once had.
We donned the layers of our cold-weather gear once more and went out into the night.
Above, the same nearly full moon that had shined on us the night before ducked in and out of tattered clouds. Only a few stars pricked the sky, with pale white gleams.
“Why do even the stars look different here?”
Crunching through the snow beside me, Ash shrugged his shoulders. “Why should I know?”
We reached the ring of trees and he pointed to a pile of fallen logs. When Ash led me toward the semiprivate screening, I tipped back the hood of my cloak, letting my hair spill free. A glint from the shadows of his cowl confirmed that my gambit worked. I had his attention. Taking his hand, I tugged him along with me.
“What are you up to, Princess?” He tried to sound stern and genuinely confused, but the way his desire thickened the space between us told me all I needed. He’d lost that calloused membrane of anger that he’d used to wedge us apart, and before he could raise his guard, I slipped inside.
“I’m cold. Can I get under your cloak?” I had already parted the folds and burrowed inside by the time he broke through the shock and tried to refuse me. Then my hand found that hard ridge of his cock that never seemed confused about how it felt, and I had his pants open.
“Ami!” He gasped, a harsh whisper. I stripped off my glove and wrapped my fingers around his length, hot in contrast to the cold night. He made a strangled sound and then buried his hands in the long fall of my hair. “You can’t—oh, Moranu.”
Because I’d found him with my mouth. He felt as velvety as I’d imagined and I ran my tongue over his smooth flesh, savoring the sensation. Not sure what to do, for surely his techniques wouldn’t work in reverse, we were so differently shaped, I followed instinct, letting his intensifying desire guide me.
It seemed to work, because his fingers tightened with brutal strength in my hair, pulling on my scalp. He caused me pain only when he lost his caution, and this was how I wanted him. Just like this. Harder. Bucking his hips and clinging to me as if he were dying.
With a low growl, he tore himself free of my mouth and pushed me to all fours in the snow. He shoved up my skirts—which I’d changed into with expressly this in mind—and groaned to find me naked beneath. Then reached around to cover my mouth with his hand and plunged into me.
He took me as he had at the end the night before, with ruthless strength and wild abandon. Pressing low over my spine, one hand clamping my hip into place, he pounded into me, hot breath in my ear. Coming at me from behind, the pleasure worked me in a different way, and I bit down on the meaty part of his hand because I couldn’t stand not to.
And then I shattered, dissolving under his thrusts, sobbing into the palm of his hand. His body went rigid and he moaned through clenched teeth—so it sounded. Flexing my one bare hand in the snow, I made myself stay awake and alert, enjoying the way he milked himself in and out of me, those last few finishing shudders of his muscles and the way the bitterness of his longing smoothed into sweet satisfaction, if only for a few moments.
“Don’t move,” he whispered in my ear, and I shivered in delight at the gravelly command, then in earnest as the cold air hit my naked bottom when he pulled away. A tearing sound and then a woolen cloth, scraping my thighs and spread tissues, tenderly wiping away the fluids of our union. He must have done this for me the previous night, before he wrapped me up in the blankets. The thought moved me.
He helped me up and, not looking at me, cleaned himself with a fistful of snow before the cloth, then fastened his pants. “You might do the same,” he said, almost as if speaking to himself, “or they might smell it on you.”
“Let them.”
His hands stilled. “It’s a reckless game you play, Princess. Unfortunately I will be the one to pay the forfeit.”
Winding up my hair, I tucked it behind my neck and pulled up my hood. “You will be beyond anyone’s reach tomorrow. And this was no game for me.”
“What is it, then?” His strained voice reached across the gap between us. Nothing of him showed but his cloaked silhouette. But my body still throbbed from his touch and that was enough. It would have to be.
“I wanted more. Something to remember you by.”
“You didn’t have enough already?” He sounded wry, a hint of bitter flavor in the air.
“Stop that,” I snapped, still quiet but with the same demanding force he used. It took him by surprise, the bitterness popping like a soap bubble. “No. I didn’t have enough. I’m starting to learn that we maybe never do. That things and people and pleasures can be yanked away from us at any moment, but it’s not because we had enough. I wanted you while I could have you.
“Also, I wanted something here. Look at the sky, the moon, the stars—even they seem less beautiful. It’s not fair that Annfwn keeps all the magic. I understand you regret our time together, but I needed to know that you still wanted me regardless, outside the sway of paradise. We likely will never meet again. I didn’t want to leave it the way we did.”
“Ami . . .” He trailed off, sounded defeated.
“It’s okay. You don’t need to explain. I’m all right with this.”
In a breath, he closed the space between us, gripping my arms and staring fiercely down into my face from the depth of his hood. “You don’t understand,” he ground out.
“Then explain,” I answered gently. “Tell me, Ash.”
“I don’t regret knowing you. Being with you, touching your skin, and drowning in that insane passion burning in you—I feel as if I’ve been immolated.”
“Burned to ash?”
“Yes.” He laughed soundlessly, under his breath. “That’s what happens when you stare into the sun.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“No.” He was shaking his head, slowly, from side to side, eyes fixed on mine. “Never be sorry for this. I’m not.”
“But you said—”
“I lied.”
I absorbed that. “Why?”
“Why does anyone lie, Ami? To hide the truth.”
“And what is the truth, Ash?”
“I’ll give you one. The most important truth. That you own me, body and soul. I’m helpless to resist you. My only freedom will be to stay far, far away.”
“Annfwn is far, far away.”
“Yes.”
“Then go.” I’d said it earlier today, but this felt more final.
“I have no wish to burn a man alive, much less you. Go, if you have to.”
“I think I have to.”
“I understand that.”
“You’re different now,” he observed, hands relaxing and flexing on my arms in an almost caress. “I’m not quite sure how to define it.”
“Good. I wanted to change. I didn’t like who I was.”
“I liked you.” He searched my face, his longing as quenching as water in my parched mouth. “I always will.”
“No matter who I become?”
“You will always be my sun.”
“Will you kiss me good-bye?”
Instead of replying, with an urgent gasp of breath, he released my arms, knifed his hands inside my hood, and wound his fingers in my hair. Clasping my skull, he held me tight and plundered my mouth with his. It was less a kiss than a devouring, and I held on to his wrists, though I couldn’t have fallen over if I tried. I opened my mouth to him and let him take whatever he felt safe to have of me.
When he let me go and turned away, I didn’t mind. I would let him go, too.
It was how things had to be.
My internal voice said so, and I was learning to listen to her.