Page 35 of A Highland Healer Captured
Zander nodded and then made his way back to his chambers for the evening.
Sleep would not come.
Skylar lay on her pallet in the narrow chamber, the quilt drawn up to her chin, her journal shut beside the candle. Her eyes burned with weariness, but every time her lashes touched she saw the wrong things.
She saw Zander.
Standing below her window where she’d caught him looking back at her as if…as if he skipped supper and she was the only thing that would sate his hunger?—.
She growled at the thought, annoyed, and turned onto her side, then her back, then her side again.
The stone walls gave no comfort. Her body remembered the scent of the draught, the sound of Zander’s low voice reading about birds, the warmth in his eyes when she said his name.
Shouldnae have said it?—
The way it had felt leaving her lips had been more intimate than the kiss they shared…
The kiss…
Her breath caught. She pressed her fingernails into her palms as if she could crush the memory away. But her lips tingled traitorously, her skin alive with heat.
He had lost control that night, and I had let him.
Now her veins thrummed as though the man himself had been in her very chambers just then.
“Ariella. Grayson,” she chanted softly, as if their names would pull her from the furious feeling burying itself in between her thighs.
She rolled again. The journal hard under her shoulder, as if mocking her for crossing out the brief unsettling note she thought she’d smelled when she lifted the cup. She had crossed it out in her journal. Better to think herself overtired than mad. Better not to invite shadows where the boy needed only light.
Better nae wonder whether Zander’s eyes burned of gratitude or somethin’ else.
Her belly ached.
He hadn’t turned away when she had leaned into the lattice as though daring him.
Fool.
She should have shuttered the window at once. Instead, she’d let him stand there, both of them held taut by something neither of them wished to admit.
The restlessness pressed.
At last she shoved the quilt aside, swung her legs down, and hissed when her bare feet touched the chill of the stone. She tugged on her cloak and tied it tight, as though the wool could bind her sense back in place.
She needed to check on the lad. Just to be sure. Just to count the pulse once more with her own fingers.
At least that’s what she told herself she needed as she slid into the corridor.
The keep was hushed—just the mutter of guards at the yard, the wind pressing at shutters. She climbed the stair slow, holding the rail, breath shallow. Her heart pounded too hard for the errand she claimed. She told herself it was for Grayson, for certainty, for the lad who she was trying to heal.
But when she reached the landing and saw the faint glow seeping from the solar door, she knew it wasn’t only for him.
Warmth bled into the hall, carrying the faintest sweetness of herbs and smoke. Her fingers hesitated only for a moment, and she hated herself for hoping that Zander would be there. His broad shoulders bent over his son, dark head lifting when she entered. That maybe he would look at ther again with the raw, unguarded heat that left her marrow burning.
She eased it open with care.Saints, if ye’ve ever granted me one thing, let it be that he isnae in here just now. Please —
Her pulse betrayed her. Her mouth betrayed her.
Katie alone sat on her stool by the hearth, mending in her lap, lips moving with a half-song. A lullaby, Skylar thought, though too quiet to be meant for ears. The fire burned low and steady, painting the stones with amber.
