Page 66 of The Traitor Queen (The Bridge Kingdom 2)

“Look the other way,” Aren growled at him before lowering his naked wife onto the sand. Turning up the glow of the lantern, he grimaced at the sight of her sunburned back and shoulders. She was feverishly hot to the touch, both her breathing and pulse far more rapid than they should be.

Digging through the packs on the camels, Aren found the boy’s bag, which contained a spare set of clothing that would fit Lara. She whimpered as he pulled the garments onto her, trying to curl in on herself. The task took up more time than he cared to spare. After stripping Jack of the merchant’s goods, he draped Lara over the camel’s back, using lengths of fabric rather than coarse rope to bind her to the saddle. Then he turned on the boy.

“I’m going to let you go. Find yourself better travel companions.”

Adjusting the boy’s bindings so that it was possible to crawl, Aren pointed back to the oasis. “If you start now, you might make it before the sun comes up.”

Checking that the animals were still secured to one another, Aren took up Jack’s lead and then nudged him with the stick to get him and the others to stand. “Keep your teeth to yourself,” he warned the animal. “I’ve got two replacements right behind you.”

Jack gave him a reproachful glare but dutifully followed Aren as they headed south.

* * *

Lara was sick for days,barely able to keep food down, and too exhausted to do anything but slump in Jack’s saddle. The skin on her back blistered, and where it didn’t, it was a livid red. Her jaw locked with pain every time he applied the salve he’d found in one of the camel’s packs. She was unconscious more often than not, mumbling and crying out in her sleep, though whether from old terrors or new, he couldn’t have said. Yet Aren had no choice but to set a grueling pace across the red dunes, riding through the night and into the day until the heat became unbearable.

Only when they reached the edge of the desert and into the rolling hills of Valcotta, did she recover. And the sight of her striding next to him, sword belted at her waist, was more welcome than the gurgling streams of precious water that appeared. With the return of her health, his mind had the opportunity to turn to thoughts beyond survival.

“We can camp here until tomorrow morning,” she announced, veering off the road toward a copse of trees. A brook ran through them, prior travelers having dammed it with stones to create a pool a few feet deep.

“Barely back on your feet and you’re already telling me what to do. Makes me long for the days when you couldn’t string together a coherent sentence.”

Lara rolled her eyes, then set to caring for the camels, her voice soft as she slipped bags full of grain over their noses so they could eat. Wisps of her hair had come loose from her braid, and they blew in the gentle breeze, the afternoon sun gleaming off them. She started to unload the tent from a camel’s back, but Aren caught hold of her wrist. “I’ll do it.”

She looked up at him, her azure eyes drawing him in. Drowning him, as they always had. “I’m fine, Aren.”

“I know you are. And I know you can do it yourself. But let me do it for you anyway.”

Color rose to her cheeks, and she looked away. “As you like.”

They began making camp, and though his hands were kept busy setting up the tent, lighting a fire, and retrieving water from the stream, his mind was all for her.

And all for that kiss.

He shouldn’t have done it, Aren knew that much. He told himself that it was because he’d been terrified she was dying in his arms. That it was nothing more than a chaste brush of the lips. That it meant nothing.

Except that it meant everything, for that one kiss had shattered the crumbling walls he’d built up against her in his heart, and he knew that if she wanted it, if she offered it, that what came next would be anything but chaste.

After setting a pot on to boil, he retrieved a sack of lentils and what remained of the dried fruit, and then sat across the fire from his wife.

“The pain was better.” Lara lifted her shirt to scratch at her peeling back. “I’ve never been more goddamned itchy in my entire life.”

“You’ve certainly never looked worse,” he responded around the dried apricot he was chewing, then dodged sideways when she tossed a piece of dead skin his direction, a laugh tearing from his throat.

“Asshole.” She pulled out a bar of soap from one of the packs. “I’m going to have a bath while you cook. You might consider doing the same at some point—you smell like camel.”

“And yet you don’t dote on me half as much as you do them.”

Lara gave a low chuckle. “Keep watch, then. I’d rather not have to leap out of my bath and fight ruffians in the nude.”

“Might work out to your advantage.”

“I’m advantaged enough, thank you.” She winked, plucked up a knife, and strode barefoot to the stream, her hips swaying in a way that made it impossible to look anywhere else. Then she called out, “I said keep an eye out for soldiers, Aren. Not keep an eye on my ass.”

“The ass that’s peeling like a ship’s boy with a sack of potatoes?”

Whirling around, she slowly raised her middle finger, giving him a pointed glare before turning back to the water.

What are you doing?he silently asked himself.Why are you acting like everything is right between you when it could not be more wrong?

---