Page 10 of Whispers of Ruin
She removed her pack and searched out her teeth-cleaning potion. She had to get rid of the vile taste in her mouth as she focused on something other than the life she’d lost.
As she gargled some of the liquid, she watched Brokk re-stop his bottle with his teeth, place it on the sky that had become their ground, and shove it into place with the hand he’d used to hold it. He kept his other hand loosely turned up beside him.
Kaylia spit out her mouth rinse and recorked her bottle. “What happened to your hand?”
“I broke it when I punched that tank of a beast.”
Kaylia recalled the cracking sound of his punch landing against that creature’s head. Brokk hit it hard enough to knock it to the side, something she wouldn’t have believed possible until she saw it happen.
Then she recalled his grip on her arm while stuck in that pit of misery and his determination not to let her go. He’d held her withbothhands and never shown any sign he’d broken his hand while clinging to her.
Kaylia shoved the bottle back into her pack and, ignoring the guilt still plaguing her, crawled back to his side with her bag in hand. She sat next to him and waved at his broken hand. “May I?”
When he nodded, she tenderly lifted it into her lap and cradled it to examine the bones. His hand was so badly broken she couldn’t see the knuckles; they’d bent downward, and the rest of his hand had swelled up around them.
“You held on to me,” she said. “How did you do that with this hand?”
“I wasn’t going to lose you.”
Kaylia gulped when his eyes met hers, and something almost tangible sizzled between them. Her fingers itched with the impulse to feel it, but there was nothing to touch…or maybe it’s him I want to feel.
That was very true as she longed to learn the contours of his body. And those words…“I wasn’t going to lose you.”They did something to her insides, made them all warm and fuzzy while they melted her bones and turned her into mush.
If he kissed her right then, she wouldn’t resist. In fact, she’d throw herself into his arms and kiss him back with every part of her being.
And he hadn’t lost her; he’d followed her into this realm while not knowing what awaited him. He could have died, and it would have been forher.
Kaylia didn’t understand the emotions battering every part of her; she couldn’t quite put a finger on what those emotions were, but they made her head spin.What is going on?
Unable to answer that question, she tore her gaze away from him in the hopes of regaining some control. She ignored the small thrill running from him and into her as she delved back into her pack.
It had been centuries since she’d noticed a man, but it was impossible to ignore him as he leaned close enough for his breaths to tickle her cheeks. All she could smell was peppermint on his breath; the crisp, refreshing scent filled her nostrils as his body heat caused butterflies to erupt in her stomach.
She didn’t think anything could feel good after what they’d endured, but he did. While working to gather her supplies, she couldn’t stop studying him under her lashes.
His brow furrowed, and his lips pursed as he stared at their joined hands; she didn’t know if his perplexed expression was because of his broken hand or because he felt this strange connection between them, too.
There is no connection. Your heart belongs to another.
It was true; her heart would always belong to Fabian, but she couldn’t deny that something sizzled between them as her breaths became shallower and awareness of him crackled through her. Taking a deep breath, she tried to ignore the guilt rising to suppress her strange excitement as she focused on his shattered hand.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
Kaylia searchedthrough her bag for something to help him. “How did you fall off the vine? You held on well when you were trying to help me.”
“I didn’t fall off it.”
The hair on Kaylia’s nape rose as an unsettling sensation descended over her. With hands that trembled slightly, she removed the medical kit she’d packed and set it on a cloud passing beneath the ground between them. The medical kit remained where it was while the cloud traveled on beneath the mirror’s surface.
Hesitantly, she met his striking blue eyes. She didn’t know what to say as she searched his face. His lopsided smile caused something more than guilt to tug at her heart.
He used his free hand to brush the loose strands of hair back from her face. “I wasn’t going to let you face this alone.”
Kaylia gulped at the realization she found him handsome, and not in the clinically assessing way she’d analyzed many other men over the past three centuries, but in the intriguing, captivating way she once found another man… the man she loved dearly.
The man who was so cruelly ripped away from her by a vampire… like Brokk.
At one time, the reminder of that would have caused her to fling Brokk’s broken hand away and probably smash it into smaller pieces. Loathing, antipathy, and hate were all too kind words for the way she once felt about vampires.
