Page 50 of Seized to Sacrifice
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, but then he shivered, his chest clenching.
It was a very specific sort of fear. He’d been picking up on it faintly since she’d been brought here, but he hadn’t been sure. It had been such a long time since he’d felt it last.
Elle was looking around frantically in the darkness. He could hear her heart thudding.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, trying to soothe her. ‘It’s only us in here.’
‘I feel—’ She broke off, not comprehending what it was that was scaring her, but Nyx knew.
Something was coming and shouldn’t be possible. He was glad that they were leaving the next day. They wouldn’t be here when it arrived.
He gathered her to him and hushed her, telling her it was going to be all right. She calmed after a time, and they fell back to sleep in each other’s arms.
In the morning, he got her dressed, making sure the clothes fit and she seemed confused by his efforts but pleased, moving the small looking glass all around to see how everything looked.
Nyx sat in the chair, trying not to show his amusement. It was times like these that he saw the other Elle shining through and it would make him remember the times they’d spent together long ago with fondness.
He’d given her back the old shoes that she’d come here with as well because they didn’t have anything else to fit her at the keep.
She put them on absently, deep in thought.
‘I’ll get you some the right size tonight when we get to the inn,’ he said and her gaze focused on him, her brows knitting together as if only just realizing that there was a point to all of this.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘We travel to the Dark Brothers.’
Her face remained blank.
‘The mercenary army,’ he elaborated.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘We’ve been members of the Army for a very long time,’ he said as he opened a drawer in his table and began to rummage through it.
‘We rarely travel with the Camp now unless they request our help for larger campaigns, but we maintain a place there. They’ve lately got a new Commander, a man we know well. A friend to us. He's asked for our help, and we told him we will give it. Come here,’ he said, finding the comb he’d been looking for and sitting her down on the bed. He kneeled behind her and began to untangle her hair.
She’d used to love him doing this and he was surprised at the contentment he felt while he worked his way up from the bottom of her long hair, getting rid of the knots and making it shine.
He felt more than heard her sigh in front of him and realized that she was feeling the same. Slowly and methodically, he worked through all of her hair and, afterwards, he plated it for her, securing the end with a piece of leather string to keep it in place.
She stood, and he gave her the mirror again to look over his handiwork. She stared at her reflection, and her eye caught his in the looking glass as he set behind her.
She smiled at him.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘It's time to go downstairs to meet up with the others,’ he said, letting his eyes drift over her. ‘We’ll leave soon.’
She nodded and pulled her tunic straight, adjusting the belt that he had cut down to size for her although it was still much too thick for her waist.
He took her hand and drew her out of the room.
She looked back with trepidation, and he wondered if perhaps he had been coddling her, protecting her too much from the outside. It had always been in his nature to shield her, but he had to remember not to stifle her. She wouldn’t thank him for it.
They went down to the main hall and, as expected, Rye and Thorne were already there waiting.
He'd heard Thorne return quite late in the evening but hadn't bothered to find out if he’d delivered the message. Nyx had a bad feeling that whatever had woken he and Elle in the night was confirmation that it was already in the hands of the one it was meant for.
