Page 150 of Silver in the Bone

I watched him watch me, his other hand rising between us to gently thumb the tears away from my face. To cup my cheek. His face was so serious then, handsome and shadowed, and somehow, for a moment, mine alone.

When all of this was over, he’d disappear, and this would be only a memory. The look and feel of him imprinted on my mind for as long as I lived. I turned my head to press my lips against his rough palm so I would remember that, too.

Emrys inhaled. His eyes burned with a longing that echoed in my body.

“I have to go after the High Priestess,” I whispered. “I have to somehow get the athame and ring away from her.”

He leaned down so our faces were perfectly aligned, our breath as one.

“But,” I said, “I think you should probably kiss me first.”

His lips brushed softly over mine. “Any guesses on how much I want to?”

I closed that last whisper of distance, capturing his mouth with my own.

For a moment, I felt like I was back at Tintagel, standing at the place where the edge of the rough land met the cold, harsh sea. The water crashing, crashing against the ancient earth, trying to make it yield. The vast, sweeping power of that collision, of those two halves each trying to withstand as much as consume the other.

It was the feeling of the first glimpse of the One Vision, the unseen hidden within the known. The shafts of light breaking through the thick canopy of a forest. A dream and waking.

The hardness of his body turned soft and yielding against mine, and there were no more thoughts but the feel of him, of his skin and lips and coarse hair as I kissed him and he kissed me.

Hands touching and searching. Lips languid and soothing. Desperate and promising.

Alone together, until sleep finally claimed us both.

The next morning, I was the first to wake and meet the gray light pouring through the door. My body ached, but my head was surprisingly clear. I felt rested, riding a pleasant wave of heat.

I was still tucked against the warmth of Emrys, our legs hooked together in a tangle. It took every last trace of willpower I had to pull back from the slow rise and fall of his chest, that center of warmth, and sit up.

The air was cold and sharp in my nose, the chill made all the worse by the absence of him. Through the doorway, a thin blanket of grayed snow had begun to creep into our sanctuary, burying the evidence of our fire.

Realization, icier still, set in. The snow had likely buried the revenant’s trail, too.

Bracing a hand against the dirt floor, I leaned toward Emrys, stealing one last look at him. My heart was painfully tender at the boyishness of his face in sleep. I touched my lips, remembering ... only to grimace at how saccharine my thoughts had become.

I reached for the waterskin and drank, using a little of it to wash my face and hands before taking some of the bread Emrys had offered last night. It had gone stale, but I was ravenous.

When I finally worked up the nerve, I brushed a light finger down Emrys’s cheek. It was rough with the stubble coming in, so different from last night.

My cheeks heated. He let out a groan, burying his face into the blanket beneath us and stretching an arm out, as if searching for me. I placed the other half of the bread in his upturned hand, and he laughed.

“All right, all right,” he said, rubbing his face with his other hand as he sat up. He flushed, adjusting the blankets over his lap. “Let me just ... pull myself together.”

He angled away from me, taking a long drink of water. In the silence, a self-consciousness I hated began to ferment. I reached for my boots, which Emrys must have removed, grateful to find that they were mostly dry now, and the wound on my ankle only hurt a little as I laced them up.

“Hey,” Emrys said softly.

“Hey yourself.”

As I looked back, he caught my face with his hand and leaned forward, pressing his lips to mine. I lingered there, relaxing a bit, simply feeling the new texture of his stubble. As he pulled back, a grin on his stupid handsome face, I realized why he still had yet to move, why he was holding on to his jacket for dear life in his lap, and I burst out laughing.

“Ah,” he said, half groaning, half laughing. “I’m but a man, and you have an effect.”

“Come on,” I said, shaking my head. “We need to get going.”

“Let me look at your arm first,” he said, “then we’ll fly, Bird.”

His touch was skillful as he removed the dried leaves from my arm and reapplied the ointment, but there was a new intimacy to it now. His fingers stroked and smoothed as he examined the neat line of stitches he’d put in the skin. The wound itself looked furious, but no longer throbbed unless I touched it.

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