Page 90 of The Blade in the Ashes
I turned towards her, meeting her eyes as we shared the same pillow. “You’re going to stay?”
Accidentally falling asleep in my bed was one thing. Staying was… well, another.
There was a long pause before she answered, and when she finally did, her voice was timid. “Oh, well, it’s so late that I thought maybe I would. But if you don’t want me to, I can—”
In the darkness I sought her hand, and wrapped my fingers through hers.
“No,” I whispered, my head tilting even closer towards hers until we were sharing the same breath. “Stay. I like having you here.”
She grinned at the request, and I thought, for a moment, that she might have the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen.
Her fingers were still in mine, so still in fact that I thought maybe I had made her uncomfortable. Maybe I had overestimated her offer offriendship. Maybe when she saw me, she saw only a girl desperately in need of hope and not someone she actually wanted to offer her companionship.
Maybe her stomach didn’t do the same intense somersaults mine did when our eyes met.
But then her fingers tightened around mine and she whispered, “Okay.”
My eyes darted to her lips as she spoke the word and some part of me had the sudden, unexpected desire to crush my lips into hers.
I swallowed against it.
Before long, Elaina’s gentle snores began to sound next to me, her hand still clutching mine even as I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling.
I’d never felt this way before. Not really. Sure, I’d experienced pangs of longing and attraction, but never accompanied with that sensation of feeling like the world was falling out from under your feet when another person smiled at you.
I’d certainly never felt it for another woman.
But as I clung to her hand in the dark, there was only one aspect of this night that I understood with perfect clarity.
I didn’t like when she had called me herfriend.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Thea
The pain in my wrist was constant and all-consuming, an agonizing ache that radiated up my elbow and shoulder. Just the breath of fabric across the swollen skin from where I’d crudely attempted to splint it myself with strips of fabric, leather, and kindling from the hearth was an acute torture.
It was slowing me down too.
I cradled it awkwardly against my chest as I ripped a cloak out of my wardrobe and tossed it hastily onto the bed. A pile of simple clothing was starting to build there. Riding pants, a clean tunic or two, fur-lined gloves, woolen socks.
Ignoring the pain was easier, at least, when I focused on the task at hand.
And the task was evacuation.
This castle wasn’t safe for me.
That fact was increasingly obvious after what had happened at Hyrax Manor. I couldn’t stay here a minute longer.
Not when Caldrius was a friend one moment and an enemy the next.
Not when Hyrax’s moods were unstable at best.
Not when I was facing the actual possibility that my powers might never return.
So we were leaving, with or without that damned book.
I heard the door to my suite open just as I was gathering undergarments, and I rushed out of the dressing room, eyes scanning for my friends.
