Page 38 of Swordheart
She wasn’t sure what to do next. Get up, probably, but Sarkis was really very warm and the air was cold. He hadn’t let go of her, either.
The arms wrapped around her were hard with muscle. So was his chest. It was like lying against a surprisingly comfortable brick wall. Halla might be a respectable widow but she’d have to be dead not to appreciate that.
“Aren’t I heavy?” she asked.
“Both of my legs are asleep. Lady.”
“Oh dear.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t! You can’t feel your legs!”
“There is a certain point after which they cannot get any more asleep. Now that they have passed that, it’s fine.”
“I’m so sorry!” Halla groaned and rolled off him. He released her immediately. The world seemed much colder outside his embrace, and she had a strong urge to return to it at once before she froze.
Don’t be stupid. He’s your guard, not your pillow. And he’s stuck with you. Don’t assume…well, anything.
She rubbed her hands over her upper arms, then dug through her pack for her hairbrush. Her wretched hair was so thin that it tangled if someone so much as looked at it, and then broke when she tried to tease the tangles out.
Sarkis watched her combing out her hair and scowling furiously at the knots, and hid a smile.
He had not quite told the whole truth about how Halla had ended up in his lap. She had indeed latched on to his legs in hersleep, but it hadn’t stopped there. She had thrown her arm over his thighs and burrowed against his hip.
Sarkis found this amusing at first. Her expression was one of dogged concentration, as if sleep required a great deal of thought. It was… well…cutewasn’t a word that was used often in the Weeping Lands, but there you were. He tucked her cloak up under her chin, shaking his head.
Then she had shifted in her sleep and rolled partly onto his legs, with her head in a rather indelicate position.
This was a problem.
It was certainly not the first time that a woman had had their face in that vicinity, but Sarkis really preferred them to be awake and enthusiastic about it, not snoring.
“Lady?”
More snoring.
“Lady Halla, I’m going to have to move you.”
Definitive snores.
He picked her up and settled her on the ground beside him, whereupon she rolled over and attached herself to his side again.
Sarkis sighed. He’d had plenty of wielders, but this was the first one who had been determined to use him as a mattress.
“All right.”
He lifted her into his lap. She mumbled something, eyebrows drawing down.
“Is this all right?”
Snore.
Sarkis gazed briefly at the sky, or what he could see of it through the tree branches.
He drew her head down against his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. “I suppose I don’t have much choice.”
She snored agreeably against his neck.
