Page 23 of Feral Guardian
I have no magic left to channel into my ring to detect common poisons. But the soup is in their family pot and there is enough leftfor half the week. They wouldn’t poison their only food just to kill us. Trask couldn’t have gotten here. The pirates are all dead.
I take a tentative bite to ensure it’s safe to consume. The rumble in my stomach doesn’t care how sour the broth is, or that the vegetables are mush, it’s food. I swallow and wait a moment, Maria eyeing me with annoyance.
“It’s good,” I tell her.
She laughs. “It’s borscht!”
I rip some of the tender flesh from the center of the bread and soak it in the broth, then set my bowl aside. Gently, I lift Lily’s head so it’s resting in my lap, then brush the damp bread along her pink lips.
She mumbles something and her eyes flutter briefly.
“Eat. You need strength,” I whisper softly.
Her brow scrunches together but she opens her mouth. I place the bit of bread on her tongue and her lips close around my finger. A tight ache of desire blooms from that spot and travels up my arm and to my lower belly.
I retract my finger and try not to outwardly react. I shouldn’t be inwardly reacting, either. I shouldn’t react to her lips on my finger at all. There’s nothing sensual about it.
Nothing.
Lily takes only three more bites, her lips grazing my skin every time. That ache burns more insistently with every morsel I place on her tongue, and it’s a small miracle that she can take no more, because neither can I. She doesn’t rouse again after falling back into sleep.
Despite her attention for me, she too has drained herself almost completely. To alter her own body in this significant waypermanently was an immense display of her power. I only hope she can undo it without ill effects.
My eyelids are drooping as I soak the last bits of broth from the bottom of the bowl with the hard husk of the bread. Maria takes my bowl quietly and returns to the kitchen.
“Rest easy, knight of Fyn. You are safe here tonight, money or no money,” she says.
“I will pay,” I manage, my eyes closing.
“I believe you,” she says.
Consciousness clings to me only long enough to hear her footsteps retreat to the bedroom in the back.
Chapter eight
Lily
I’m warm and achy. There’s a rich coconut scent washing over me with a gentle breeze of breath. Large hands cover my back and massive legs tuck my lower half up against him.
Alastair.
I open my eyes to a dark cabin. Pre-dawn blue and orange whispers through a crooked door and poorly covered window. It smells of smoke and earth, and a little bit of vomit. My mouth is sour, but not with bile.
My back complains about my long-held posture against Alastair’s massive frame. My face is pressed into his chest, my arms wrapped around him, as his are around me. He’s crossed his legs, protecting my lower half and entangling us. We’re in such a mess I couldn’t extricate myself without waking him, but the stab of last night is a painful reminder of a transfiguration I long to undo.
“She’s awake,” a little voice whispers and I jolt up.
Alastair grunts and the sound of a pulled blade comes next. There’s a quiet peep of fear and I turn to see Alastair holding his dagger out at two young children with blond hair and ocean-blue eyes. A small boy who couldn’t be more than four hides behind hissister who looks to be about six. They have soot-stained faces and grimy clothes.
Alastair lowers his blade as he groans in Seterian. “Apologies, children.”
I push myself off Alastair’s chest and rub my aching lower back. “Where are we?” I whisper in Fynish.
“I’m not sure. Kor’Tar found this house in the night, and they let us stay,” he says, cracking his neck and knuckles.
“Are you really a princess?” the girl asks, her eyes glowing as they lock on me.
I want to smile and tell her yes, to give her a bright spot in her ashen life, but we’re on the run. If anyone tracks us here and they admit to harboring me, it could be their death.
