Page 68 of Unveil
I feel more refreshed after the best sleep of my life, let alone since my night terrors started at seventeen. But I’m sure I kepther up, considering whatever she heard was bad enough to convince her to soothe me.
And I can’t muster an ounce of guilt over that. Not when I finally felt her arms around me. Not when I held her like I’ve wanted since I was too young to understand why.
But I do hold back a wince every time I glimpse the evidence of her poor sleep—sunken cheeks, dark bags against pale skin, reddened eyes. She keeps massaging her neck, where a knot seems to come back with a vengeance every ten minutes.
I want to rid her of the pain I caused, but I won’t. The only kindness she’s shown me so far was when I wasn’t conscious to remember it, and I won’t acknowledge it before she does.
When I returned to the cabin, Luna was up and demanded a bath in the small lake, seemingly desperate to get out of the cabin. I didn’t blame her. I’m sure she was bored, and after our swim in the rapids from hell, I’d carried her into the shack to sleep off the tranq and scrubbed off the sediment that dusted every inch of me. With her passed out, though, all I could do was wipe her down with a washcloth, a poor substitute for the real thing.
I only took a dip in my boxer briefs, not wanting to freak her out, then set up shop on this water-slicked boulder, my clean jeans hanging from a branch for later. She splashes near the waterfall, probably passing time since she and her clothes are already scrubbed clean. Her bodice suns beside me, featherless in spots and stained from the muddy river. In the water, her tutu spreads around her like wings as she switches from lathering her skin to working the soap through the tulle.
With the storm-ravaged river beyond the waterfall, it’s a miracle this pond is clean. And while it’s chilly, the water still clings to the last heat of summer, and Luna doesn’t seem to mind the cooler temperature. She’s weightless, serene, her arms long and graceful as she rinses the bubbles trailing down her curves.When she rises to drape her tutu over a dry boulder, the sexy dimples above the swell of her ass flirt with the surface of the water. Each time she turns, I catch sight of the soft contour of her breast.
I shouldn’t be looking, but a man only has so much willpower when it comes to his wife.
Her faint humming drifts like a memory, though I don’t recognize the tune. She’s talkative today, but these last few minutes have been her quietest all morning. Maybe it’s nerves, or maybe she’s trying to distract one or both of us. Either way, I like hearing her when I’m not looking.
I had to be on alert every moment I watched her from afar. Finally having her nearby is a breath of fresh air. She’s safe. She’shere. And she’smine.
Almost.
I’ll claim her soon enough, but not before the time is right.
“You don’t scare me, you know.”
I frown, blinking back into focus to see she’s facing me now, dunked lower so the pond teases the tops of her breasts.
“Whatever you’re doing with that thing.” She nods at the crossbow in my lap. “All those broody, scowling, villainy looks. It’s not working on me.”
I look down, suddenly seeing it through the eyes of someone who has no idea how a crossbow works. I’ve been messing around with it, aiming it this way and that, testing the tension, checking for cracks along the frame, making sure the mechanism I designed for my hands still disengages properly.
No wonder she thinks I’m trying to intimidate her.
“I’ve figured you out,” she continues. “I don’t think you’d actually hurt me.”
Rage surges through me at the mere thought. “Never.”
I set the crossbow aside, keeping a blunt bolt from my quiver to twirl it between my fingers. The exercise is necessary tostretch the scarred skin and keep my palms from tightening up, but hopefully the movement is more playful than menacing.
She juts her chin. “So who taught you to use a crossbow?”
Pain slices through me, sharp enough that it takes me a second to realize the hit wasn’t real. I clear my throat.
“I taught myself. My momma gave it to me for my seventeenth birthday.”
Something furrows her brows before she spins away. Her voice is light when she replies over her shoulder.
“I’d ask what kind of parent gives a weapon for a birthday gift, but my Dad gave Nox a dagger when we turned sixteen.”
I’m about to say I got one of those too, but she tosses her hair in a dramatic flip, smiling. “Iasked Daddy for a sweet sixteen yacht party, naturally.”
I chuckle. “Naturally.”
She doesn’t know I know the fullstory. As the NOLA grapevine tells it, Luna invited her whole class on that luxury yacht, something most of the kids probably wouldn’t have even dreamed of experiencing. It was fairytale themed, and she gave crowns and costumes to anyone who wanted them, complete with professional styling and makeup. Not a soul was left out. The party was legendary for that alone.
People were still talking about it two years later at her eighteenth birthday. I’d been there less than a week when I heard the story, and I’ve been smitten ever since. My brothers and I grew up isolated in a county with a smaller population than the French Quarter, so it’s entrancing to watch someone not only make so many people feel included, but actually include them. She’s never met a stranger.
My father taught us every King kin carries a fight inside him that he’ll never win until he finds the peace to his fury. Momma was that for him, his perfect opposite. When we find who’s ours,Fate carves our mate’s name into our souls. We feel that peace deep in our bones, but we won’t be at rest until we claim it.
