Page 80 of Falling Princess

“I wasn’t t-t-trying to b-be.”

He pried the blanket out of my weakened hands without difficulty. I moaned at the pure misery of cold air striking my chilled skin. He tugged the skirt up over my hips. I’m not wearing anything underneath this dress, as is customary. This princess crap gets so awkward.

Lorcan lifted me by the waist, as best he could with me shivering so violently. He unceremoniously yanked it up. I meekly raised my arms, shivering even harder as cold air met skin that had been comparatively protected. The wet dress landed with a plop. Immediately, he put the blanket back around my shoulders and pulled me up. He rubbed me through the rough fabric, carefully avoiding things like breasts and bottoms and other parts of my anatomy. As if this is remotely sexual. Drying me off. When he finished, Lorcan turned me around and pointed.

“In.”

I hadn’t even noticed the thick bedroll set out beside the fire. My scope of vision is barely a slit. Drowsiness took hold as my body slowly began to give up shivering. Hypothermia. It’s already so late in the day. We’ll never get back down the mountain to safer temperatures. This will be my last visit to the Sky Temple, I realized with terrifying calm.

Lorcan guided my feet into the fur-lined bedroll. We don’t have polyester or technologically advanced fibers here to make sleeping bags for cheap. What we do have are lightweight spidersilk bedrolls that rival any petroleum-based product, with thick wolf-bear pelts to protect from the cold ground.

Luxurious softness enveloped my naked body.

I was too frozen to really feel it. I managed to unhook the heavy gold jewelry with stiff fingers and discarded it in an unceremonious pile near my head. Lorcan gathered my hair into a thick rope and coiled it outside the bedroll, away from my skin. He then went to the bottom to unbutton it. He dropped two warm rocks, one each, into a pair of socks, folded them over, and placed them next to my feet. I watched all of this dispassionately, with the knowledge that I might die.

I didn’t, though. With the return of warmth to my body came agony.

“Ow.”

“What hurts?”

“My feet. Like needles pricking them.” Lorcan rubbed them through the bedroll. “That’s not helping.”

For the first time since Lorcan saw me in the white dress, he smiled faintly. “I think you’ll live, Zosia. This time. Promise me you won’t do this again.”

“Annual requirement,” I murmured. Shivering returned, long, violent shudders punctuated with momentary stillness.

“I see why you’re atheist.”

“My life in service to the goddess,” I quipped, echoing his vow. My jaw trembled, stuttering my words. “Whether I like it or not.”

He didn’t respond. He was busy unbuttoning his jacket and removing the fur-lined vest beneath, unlacing his boots and toeing them off. He unbuckled his belt with his back turned to me. I watched this process, uncomprehending, until I realized I shouldn’t and closed my eyes. A second later, I heard fabric hit the ground and opened them again, only to see him clad in nothing but a thin undertunic and close-fitting black Covari underwear.

“What are you—”

A thunderous look from him cut me off mid-sentence. I tucked my head deeper into the bedroll. Lorcan crouched, opened the flap and squeezed in next to me, his thinly clothed front pressed against my completely naked back. My heart surged. His skin was fiery hot against mine. His loose embrace burned. I couldn’t get enough of the pain.

“If you tell your father I did this, I’ll be hanged,” he whispered into my hair. It’s so much warmer now. I sighed with relief and pulled his arm around my stomach.

“I won’t. You won’t,” I promised, chattering hard enough to crack enamel. I shifted, working my way around until my front faced his. I tucked my face into the crook of his neck and breathed him in. Lorcan’s arms came around me gingerly, trying not to press against me. As though I was in any condition to think about sex. Tucking my arm around his waist, I sank into the sheer comfort of being held, like a drugged woman.

I slept. When I awoke again, I was alone. The sun hung low in the sky. The fire was still going—I don’t know where he’s finding all this fuel—and my bladder was dangerously full. I pushed my way up to sitting. Every muscle ached. I felt weak and chilled in a way that made me think I would never be warm again.

“Lorcan?”

“Right here.”

“I need clothes.”

He placed a pile of dry clothing and my boots next to my bedroll. It wasn’t easy to get dressed this way, but I managed. I stumbled out into the cold and went as far as I dared before squatting.

Who says I can’t hack it,I mused wryly.

“Can you make it back down to the meadow? I don’t like the idea of staying here overnight. You’re already hypothermic and the temperature will drop below freezing before dawn,” Lorcan asked when I returned.

“I can try.”

We hiked down the mountain at painfully slow speed. Lorcan carried my pack as well as his own, for which I was grateful, because my trembling muscles threatened to give out every few steps. A couple of times, my knees buckled and I fell.

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