Page 28 of Feral Guardian
My mind inadvertently wanders back to the docks, to the chained men and women being led out of Yelesna, and a fresh wave of anger ripples through me.
“Alastair?” Lily pulls me back from my thoughts and I find my hand is flexed on her stomach. I relax it a measure, then ease my posture.
“He just seemed very dedicated to his work,” I say.
She hums thoughtfully. “All right, what else has happened?”
“Honestly, princess…” I sigh. “I trained as I awaited your return. Nothing was important to me. Nothing held my attention. I could think only of you.”
Her fingers tense on my forearm. “Oh.”
My stomach burns with some feeling. Nerves? I don’t know. This sensation is so unfamiliar, so strange. I want her to want me to have been thinking of her. I want her to like the fact that she’s the most important thing to me.
“I thought a lot of you, too,” she says, breathlessly, and we fall quiet.
The tension in my gut both eases and intensifies. I don’t understand how I can be relieved and also ridden with anxiety.
“What did you think of me?” I ask, seeking to end the long silence and settle my nerves.
“I wondered if you were okay.” She laughs. “I wondered if you found any more of my surprises.”
I chuckle. “I did. Three of them.”
“Only three?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at me. Her face is radiant and joyous.
Osselna, hold me in stillness, for this moment, she’s so beautiful.
My hand trails up to her jaw, keeping that gorgeous grin pointed up at me. “How many are left?”
She nibbles her lower lip and her cheeks bloom with color. “Twenty or so. Twenty-five, unless someone else has tripped them.”
I trace her bottom lip, pulling it out from between her teeth. “You wear a smile well.”
“So do you,” she says, her eyes rounding as the color in her cheeks deepens.
I suck in a breath and put my steadying—supportingonly—hand back on her stomach.
Our ride is quiet again and within the hour, we crest the hill overlooking Yelesna. It’s another hour ride in, and it passes in awkward silence.
Fuck.
We had always spoken to one another so easily. Or at least, she had always spoken to me. A hundred leagues a minute. Everything that had happened to her, every thought, every desire. She’d told me everything about herself before she left. And now…I’m not her confidant. I’m not the one she wants to tell everything to.
“Why did you make me stay behind?” my imbecile mouth asks when we’re but a few minutes from Yelesna’s gate.
Lily sucks in a breath. “I had to.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
I huff out a disgruntled breath through my nose, my hand tightening on her stomach. “Why?”
“You’re too persistent, Alastair,” she says with a laugh. “I cannot withstand you.”
“So tell me,” I say, my voice pleading despite myself.
Her shoulders rise in a deep breath. “No.”
