Page 48 of Desire

“It’s not safe to love me.”

“Then love me back, and we can be dangerous together.”

I tugged my hands free and backed away from him. The corners of his mouth lifted in a sardonic smile.

“And where do you think you’ll run to?” he asked.

“Ass,” I breathed.

He laughed and let me walk away.

“Is he better?” Brandle asked when I approached the table.

“Yes.”

I strode into the cottage and, with a flick of my hand, slammed the door behind me.

“Kitten?” Brandle called. “Did he do something that upset you?”

I realized what I’d done—without thought, I’d connected to the air’s energy and manipulated it with my own will to close the door. Nothing I’d read had talked about it. I’d just done it.

My control frayed further.

The chair beside the hearth shook and jittered against the floorboards. The dinnerware rattled on the shelves.

I could feel Brandle on the other side of the door. His worry. His need to comfort me.

“Sing to me,” I said as I sank to my knees. “Anything.”

Brandle immediately began singing a lullaby I recalled my mother singing to Eloise and me when we were young. Iwrapped my arms around my legs, closed my eyes, and emptied my mind.

When Brandle’s song ended, Eadric started a jaunty one. Liam sang something he likely heard from traders. Garron sang something about the stars and the moon sharing the sky.

Slowly, the shaking inside the cottage stopped.

So did the singing.

I dropped my head to my knees and thought of my mother. If she were there, I would have told her that Edmund had confessed his feelings to me. I would have shared my fear that they would start fighting and I would lose the help they’d promised me.

Thoughts of my sister filled my head, and the first tear tracked a path down my cheek for the second to follow.

No one knocked on the door or tapped at the window. They left me alone as the sun set.

I fell asleep on the floor in front of the unlit hearth.

When I woke, I was curled against one of them with another one behind me. I didn’t open my eyes, but I knew it was light out. How did I know? It was simply there, like feeling the distant weather.

“How long are you going to sleep, Love?” Liam asked softly. “I’m not sure how much longer the rest of them will be able to keep Edmund out.”

I sat up abruptly and looked at the door as I tried to quell the panic that was threatening to rise.

“Why did hearing that he cares for you upset you, Snow?” Garron asked from behind me.

“He didn’t say he cares,” I said. “He said?—”

My attention shifted from the door to Liam, who was watching me closely.

“That he loves you?” Garron supplied.

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