Page 59 of Heart’s Rescue

Nothing. I remember being a kid, pretending to sleep as Phaedron sang his lullabies beneath the trees and the glowsoft orbs sent out their faint, nighttime light. Well, fine. If Arryn wants to be cold and miserable, is it really my job to fight with her about it?

Nope. Not my job at all.

I shift back on my heels and crawl around the fire. The bedroll is soft and warm, welcoming even before I pull off my long pants and sweater and crawl into it. Voids above, it even smells like her. I shouldn’t notice that, and I really, really shouldn’t enjoy it, but I can’t stop myself. I turn my face into the fur of the bed roll, sleep already tugging at the edge of my mind, and I let myself imagine it’s Arryn’s hair I’m feeling, Arryn’s long, dark curls I’m sinking into, Arryn’s shivering body and chattering teeth.

I drag myself back to full consciousness, close my eyes, and hold my breath. Yup. I can hear Arryn’s teeth chattering from here. Voids damn it. I sit up and let the fur of the bed roll pool around my waist.

“Okay,” I announce, with a sigh. “This is freaking stupid. Arryn, get in here.”

“It’s y-your night,” she replies.

Voids, she’s as stubborn as a mule. I take a deep breath. It’s only going to be awkward if I make it awkward, right?

“Get in here with me, then,” I say, knowing this is a terrible, terrible idea but not seeing any other moves open on the board. “It can be both of our nights.”

There’s silence, and then Arryn sits up. I turn around before I can see the look on her face. Whatever expression she’s wearing, however she’s reacting to this idea, I don’t want to know. I just want her to not freeze to death, and I don’t want to argue anymore. And if that means she’s going to be close to me, close enough to touch and to smell, I don’t care.

I sink back into the furry warmth of the bed roll and stare at the canvas wall. There’s a lot of rustling as Arryn does things with her clothing that I try very hard not to picture, and then a rush of cold air across my back as she pulls the bed roll down.

The bed roll isn’t big. It wouldn’t be possible for her to climb inside without touching me, without her legs rubbing my back, her hand brushing my shoulder, her breath on my neck. I slam my eyes shut and try to ignore the way my heart has started pounding out a dancing beat and my entire body has very quickly decided it has absolutely no interest in sleep.

Okay. It’s going to be a long night of lying here absolutely motionless and not making things awkward.

“Rowan?”

Arryn’s voice is soft, almost a whisper. Her breath flutters across the back of my neck. I grunt something that’s kind of an acknowledgment.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

I exhale slowly, not trusting myself to speak. If I talk, my voice is going to be a disaster. Arryn shifts in the bed roll. Her hips brush my back. Her elbow touches my shoulder, then pulls away.

“Rowan?” she asks again.

“Yeah?” I was right; my voice is an absolute disaster.

“May I ask what happened to your ears?”

I snort. “Uh, yeah. You can ask.”

“What happened to your ears?”

I can hear the smile in her words and, voids help me, I’m stupidly thrilled that I made her smile. That my ugly, maimed ears made her smile.

“Frostbite,” I answer.

I don’t dare say more than that. My voice is a ragged disaster already, and my cock has gone from mildly interested to so hard it hurts in the span of time it took her to say two sentences.

“Oh,” she responds. “May I touch them?”

My heart stops, and my mind explodes. She couldn’t have meant it like that. She couldn’t possibly have meant those words, in that order. But what the voids else could she have meant? Why would she want—

A single bright point of clarity breaks through the utter chaos in my brain, just like taking a reading on my chart and realizing exactly where I am.

If I say yes, everything changes. The landscape shifts, right here, right now. If I say yes, I’m opening a door that I might not have the strength to close.

And I’m still going to have to let her go. She’s from the Worlds Above, this beautiful, wild creature who crashed into my life with her dark eyes and sharp mind. She came to rescue the monster who almost killed my brother; if I say yes, she might catch me instead.

Not that she’ll ever know. She’ll go back to her world, I’ll make sure of it. She’ll marry rich or whatever it is high-born women do in the Worlds Above, and maybe she’ll think of me once in a while, think of me in the way you think of a dream once the darkness fades. She’ll go, and I’ll be left with memories, and exactly how painful those memories will be is up to me. Right now.