Page 8 of The Duke and the Disciple

Aesylt froze when her mouth connected with something thick and solid.

Oh, for the love of the Ancestors.

The poor man was rock hard.

Rahn gently adjusted her toward his knee without a word.

“Aesylt,” he said softly. He brushed her hair from her eyes and said it again. “Listen.”

What she needed to do was lift her head, move away, and give them both some dignity, but she was too horrified to do more than nod against his trousers.

“I hear someone.” Rahn’s voice sounded dense, almost choked. “Several someones.” He adjusted forward, straining. “Oh, thank the gods. They brought ropes and ladders. You see?”

Aesylt dragged herself up with a tight, inward cringe. She’d never be able to look the man in the eyes again after rutting around in his crotch, delirium or no. And what would Drazhan think? He might have been joking about having a chastity belt forged for her, but his next stop would be the foundry if he knew she’d had the scholar’s appendage pressed against her mouth, clothed or no.

“How...” She squinted at the large group moving their way. If she focused on the rescue, perhaps she could distract herself from the horror of what she’d carelessly done, which was somehow even more crushing than the throbbing pain in her ankle or the skinned flesh of her palms. “They’re not going to pull the tree down with the ropes...”

Rahn shook his head straight ahead. “Do you remember what you told me when I asked you what you wanted to achieve in the cohort?”

The question surprised her enough to make her do the last thing she wanted to do, turn toward him. “What?”

His cheeks were rosy from the cold, softening his smile. A bang of his dark, wavy hair dipped over one eye. “You said you would take any adventure, in whatever form offered.”

“Well,yes, but...” She laughed and gestured around. The way his grin persisted made her realize he was trying to show her it was all right, that nothing had happened that couldn’t be forgotten when they stepped through the library doors tomorrow, ready to embrace the truths of the world.

How she prayed it was true.

Rahn reached for one of her wrists and angled her palm upward with a tight frown. “Gods. Let me wrap this before we do anything else?—”

Drazhan’s booming voice cut through the quiet forest. “Aesylt? Can you hear me? Rahn?”

“We’re here!” Her voice cracked with her scream. She pulled her hands back in case her brother could see. “We’re here, Draz!”

“Oh, glory be to the fucking Ancestors.” Whatever he said next seemed to be for the men with him. Then he yelled, “Don’t move. We’re coming up.”

Aesylt shook her head. “If we all get stuck up here...”

“We won’t, cub. Sit still, and it will be over soon.”

She huffed a hard breath.

Rahn leaned close, enough for his breath to send a fresh chill ripping through her, and whispered, “When they ask you if your wulf caught you, what will you say?”

Aesylt’s heart almost burst through her chest. The way he’d said it, roguish and playful, was far from the way she felt it. It wasn’t the first fluttery pull she’d felt toward her mentor, a man a decade her senior, but all she’d had to do before was remind herself she was with him to learn and enrich herself, not act like a lovestruck maiden.

The same reminder now only made her pulse shoot to the same stars he’d tried to distract her with.

“Aesylt?”

“I don’t know.” Her attention was torn between Rahn awaiting her response and the melee of men in the snow below. “What do you think I should say? You scaled a mighty tree for me, but is it the same thing?”

“I don’t think anyone could ever really catch you, Aesylt, any more than a man could catch a cloud in his hands.”

You are as inimitable as the stars in our interminable sky.

Aesylt let his words be the blanket that kept her warm and safe as she waited for their rescue.

Chapter2

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