Page 80 of The Exile's Curse

It didn't take long to rearrange things as he suggested. He moved all the stones to the other side of the fire and then shifted to a spot several feet away from the flames, out of reach of any dying sparks but close enough to maybe benefit from whatever heat the embers gave off. He stripped down to his drawers without any hint of embarrassment, arranged his clothes on the floor, and turned his back while she slipped out of her clothes and added them to the makeshift pallet. She left her underwear on. Her corset, she suspected, would keep her sore rib more comfortable than not, and it and her other underthings were hardly going to add much to the pile of clothes beneath them. A corset, in fact, would only be uncomfortable to lie on.

They settled awkwardly on the pile of clothing and pulled the cloaks over them. At first she tried to keep some distance between them, but he put an arm around her waist and pulled her back against him gently. "Skin to skin is the point, Chloe," he said. "Now, you should sleep. I'll wake you in a few hours."

Warmth crept through her, and the faint hum of him filled her ears as he used the warming charm to make things comfortable. She was still all too aware that beneath the few layers of linen and cotton and wool, she rested on hard stone, but the chill of it receded enough to let her relax. And then, while she was still wondering how she would make it through the night with Lucien wrapped around her, she fell asleep.

"Your turn, Lieutenant."

Lucien's hand shook her gently, and Chloe opened her eyes, confused as to why he was waking her. It all came rushing back as he yawned and pulled the cloak higher around them.

The cave. Theaccident.She wasn’t cold, though her face felt chilled. All she wanted to do was close her eyes again and fall back into sleep. But she sucked in a lungful of cold air instead. She had to wake up so Lucien could sleep.

"All right, I'm awake." She reached for the bond, let the magic rise through her to chase sleep away, and started the warming charm. "You can let go now. Rest."

"You're sure? I can do a few more hours." He yawned again, belying his words.

"You need to rest," she said firmly. "We may yet have to walk back to Deephilm." Goddess, she hoped not. Finding their way might not be a problem once it was light, but it was a long way to walk. Especially when the weather could turn savage so fast. But that was a problem for the morning. And to get to the morning, they had to survive the night. "Rest," she repeated.

"All right. Good night."

She felt it when he let go of the charm, the hum of his power fading. His breathing slowed and deepened, the warmth of him solid at her back, and she peeked through the bond to make sure he was truly asleep. Difficult not to wriggle closer still and soak up his heat, but she was warm enough with the charm and the weight of the cloaks above them. Between that and not wanting to complicate things, it was better to stay where she was. But lying there with him in the dark, staring at the illusion of fire he'd built at the cave's mouth, her thoughts whirled.

Lucien had saved her life today. None of the Andalyssians had come after her—or, if they had, they'd turned back as the storm had worsened. Only Lucien had thrown himself into peril. He could have been hurt, or worse, but he hadn't cared. He’d come after her. Without him, she probably wouldn't have woken up from her fall, freezing to death in the snow and rain.

A difficult thing to come to weigh. Especially considering what happened after the wedding.

She wanted to hate him. If for no other reason than loyalty to Charl seeming to dictate that she should. But he'd been right in the words he'd thrown at her. Charl was the one who'd forsaken them. So what loyalty did she owe his memory? He had shown her none with his recklessness. But Lucien...Lucien had protected her without hesitation. He'd done it the night he'd warned her after Charl's death, too. It could have cost him his career if his actions had displeased the emperor.

But what would people think if she became...friends again with the man who'd condemned her husband? There would be gossip and worse. Near certainty that there would be some all too ready to think that perhaps they'd been together before Charl had fallen.

She wasn't sure she could bear it. Bad enough to be a traitor's widow. But to let people think she had betrayed him first? They would say she had driven him to his bad choices, perhaps. Easier to blame her. She was still here to blame. And what would Charl's family say? She didn't know how things were between them and Lucien now.

Simpler to remain at a distance. But simple didn't always consider emotion. She couldn't ignore the fact that the weight of him at her back and the warmth of his body and the knowledge that he would charge into a storm to save her made her feel...safe. Protected. In a way she hadn't for a very long time. A strange sensation to have lying in a cave in the Andalyssian wilderness, hoping not to freeze to death. But she knew it to be truth.

So what did that mean? What should she do?

Not something she would solve tonight. She tried to tame her thoughts and the heart that beat a little too fast with him beside her, even now in these ridiculous circumstances, back to something calmer. Focus on breath and just appreciating the presence of someone next to her in the dark. It had been a long time since she'd spent a whole night with a man. Not since...Samuel.

Ah, Samuel. Captain Jensen.

There was a memory to distract her.

The man who'd spirited her away from Lumia into exile all those years ago.

She still counted herself fortunate that it had been his ship she'd stumbled across on her flight from the city. He'd charged her a pretty penny, of course, but he hadn't robbed her, nor slit her throat and dropped her over the side of his ship after taking her money. And the advice he'd given her about what to say to the temple in Kingswell to claim asylum had worked.

She hadn't expected to see him again but a month or so after she'd finished her “supervised” stay in the temple, where they'd drilled her into her head that water magic was heresy and an abomination and made her take oaths never to practice it again, he'd stepped out of one of the Portholme laneways to join her on her walk home to the tiny room she could barely afford on the equally tiny wage she'd been making working in the kitchen of an inn.

Checking up on her, he'd said, and then he'd dropped a hint that Ginevra Talbot might be looking for an extra pair of hands. That had proved true, too. The next time she'd run into Samuel, her room had been less tiny, and she had begun to feel as though a life in Anglion might be possible. That time he'd looked her up and down, declared she was looking like she'd found a good mooring, waltzed her off to dinner, and charmed her into bed, telling her that she wasn't going to shed the sadness of whatever man was ghosting her memories alone.

She'd been part guilty, part relieved, to discover the next morning that he'd been right again, in a way. She hadn't forgotten Charl, but she had been reminded that her life wasn't over, too.

After that, Samuel had turned up every month or two. And most times, she let him into her bed, needing the fun and the forgetting he offered. Their liaison lasted, on and off, for nearly two years. At which point, Ginevra had died of an attack of the heart, and Chloe had made an offer to her son to take over the store. To her surprise, he had accepted.

Samuel appeared the night she'd first opened her doors as Madame Montesse's Magical Supplies. He'd brought flowers and wine. She'd made him dinner, let him make her laugh. She'd grown fond of him. He'd taken her to bed. And then he'd told her it would be the last time. She'd protested, but he'd been firm.

"Chloe, sweet," he'd said, sounding resolute but regretful, "you are a delight and nothing less. But you've had trouble enough due to men, and even if I were not too old for you, some of what I do is risky. And some of it just plain illegal. And I won't be another anchor around you, pulling you down to disaster if something goes wrong. You don't need me." And that had been that. He'd assured her she could call on him if she ever needed and instructed her how to do just that, but he’d never turned up on her doorstep again.

After that, her bed had been largely empty. There'd been a few nights where she'd gone to an inn on the far side of the city, hidden her hair with dye, and bedded some passing-through man with kind eyes or a ready wit to ease the loneliness, but none of them had ever stuck past the next morning.

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