CHAPTER 7
Sweat rolled down his pale skin, tracing lines over taut muscles that shifted with each hard breath he took and stirred wicked heat in her veins. His mouth moved silently, the words he said to his sparring companions in the sun-drenched camp beyond her reach, those firm lips fascinating her and setting her heart racing.
Shaia swallowed hard when he rose onto his feet and turned towards her in a single fluid move that caused his body to come alive in a symphony of power, muscles bunching and stretching, drawing her eyes back down to his bare chest.
She had to move.
Her hands shook against the wicker basket of wet clothes, and her feet refused to obey when she issued them a command, a demand that she break away from the stream and the alluring male on the other side.
She didn’t want to leave.
It seemed he didn’t want it either, because he said something else to the males and then jogged towards the bank. He didn’t hesitate as he reached it. He plunged into the stream, splashing water everywhere as he waded through the knee-deep river barefoot, not slowing as he headed straight for her.
Shaia looked around her at the green valley, part of her afraid another member of the village would see him coming to speak with her and would report it back to her parents, or worse.
They would create a scandal out of it.
The rest of her rebelled against everything that had been bred into her, screamed that she had come here wanting to see him and now she could, and she had to take this opportunity.
She needed to speak with him, needed to see him again and bask in his masculine beauty, needed to understand what it was about him that had entranced her so deeply, affected her so swiftly, making him all she could think about.
He stopped when he was barely two metres from her, ankle-deep in the water. “Were you hurt?”
He breathed hard, distracting her, drawing her mischievous gaze back down to his bare chest. Water glistened on it, catching the light. A single bead broke away and tracked over his abdomen, luring her eyes with it as it cascaded over chiselled perfection. She swallowed hard again, desperate to wet her parched throat as her eyes caught on his black trousers that rode low on his hips.
They were wet, moulding the material to his thighs and other places.
Shaia stifled the blush that threatened to scald her cheeks and pulled her eyes back up to his face, ashamed at herself. She had never stared so openly at a male before. She had seen males in the fields with their chests bare, ones larger and more muscled than he was, but none of them had affected her in the way he did, setting her heart pounding and blood burning.
He looked down at himself, grumbled a rather wicked and shocking curse, and bent towards the water. She could only stare as he scooped it up in his hands and washed his chest, sweeping away all the sweat and the dust.
Making him even more tempting.
“You must think me a ruffian or a peasant,” he muttered and pushed his hands down his chest and then his arms, clearing the water from his skin.
“Not at all.” It left her lips before she could stop it, before she could consider the consequences of responding so quickly to him and how he might interpret her words.
He froze halfway through pushing his long black hair from his face and stared at her, his fingers tangled in the wet ribbons and body deliciously tensed.
Gods, she had never spoken so out of turn in front of a male before, so careless and free with her words that she had been in danger of revealing everything to him.
She liked him.
Her thought back in the village just moments before she had met him haunted her.
Perhaps it was possible for a female of barely two hundred years to find a male she wanted to spend the rest of her life with after all.
But her heart had chosen a male far different from the one her family wanted for her.
One who was still staring at her in silence, his clear violet eyes a little wider than usual, relaying his surprise.
“Thank you for your concern.” She struggled to keep the tremble of nerves from her voice and to stick with a more appropriate set of responses, ones her family would approve of and deem correct for the given situation. Ones she didn’t like at all, not when her heart spoke different ones, things she wanted to tell him and couldn’t stop herself from tacking on. She managed to do it in what she hoped society would think an appropriate way. “Though there is no need for you to be concerned, as I was not hurt.”
His tempting lips curved into a smile. The brightness of it stole her breath. It made him even more handsome. She hadn’t thought that possible.
“I am glad… although I think I hurt the reputation of the squad. Your mother seemed rather disgusted by us.”
“Mother is disgusted by most things.”
Her eyes widened and her hand would have flown to cover her mouth if she hadn’t been holding the basket. Had she just said that out loud? Her heart stuttered, and then thumped harder against her chest. She stared at the male, unable to believe she had spoken of her own family that way around a stranger and afraid of what he would think of her.
His smile was slow this time, and a little wicked and teasing, as if he liked the way she had spoken so openly, so not the way she should have been speaking around him.
“I am sorry,” she whispered, although she wasn’t sure who she was apologising to—him or her family.
“Don’t.” His smile held, bewitching her and relaxing her at the same time. “You did nothing wrong.”
She felt as if she had though. What world did he come from where speaking so harshly of a family member was acceptable?
A world a million leagues away from her one, that was for sure.
A soldier on the other side of the bank shouted a name and he twisted at the waist, causing his muscles to ripple with strength, and the ridge that arced over his hip tensed.
“I’ll be back soon,” he hollered and the soldier moved on.
Shaia stared at him.
Fuery.
Was he as violent and tempestuous as that name suggested?
As rough and forceful?
Before she could stop herself, she fell into imagining it, entertaining wicked things that heated her cheeks and would give her mother a heart attack if she knew.
Fuery said something else to the male, his deep voice curling around her and drawing her back to him, making her imagine him whispering into her ear, his breath warm on her throat.
He turned back to her and his left eyebrow rose. “Are you unwell?”
Shaia quickly shook her head, dislodging the fantasy but not the flames scalding her face. If anything they grew worse, roused by the fact he had obviously caught her daydreaming about him.
He looked her over and a little colour touched his cheeks too, reached his eyes and made them darker as he met hers and stared into them. Her breath lodged in her throat, heart racing there, and her hands shook against the basket again.
She had to say something, but her voice felt weak. Lost to her.
A male had never looked at her the way he was, with hunger in his eyes, blatant desire that stoked hers and made it burn hot and fierce, sending an achy shiver over her skin and rousing feelings that she had never experienced before.
She had to say something.
Her mouth moved automatically, her words distant to her own ears. “Where are you going?”
He blinked, a flicker of confusion chasing some of the heat from his eyes.
“You said you would return soon.” Implying he was going somewhere.
Was he leaving the village?
A sharp pain pierced her chest in response to that thought and she wanted to take hold of him and make him stay, something shockingly powerful inside her demanding she not let him go.
Demanding she make him his.
What wicked need was this?
He smiled again, stepped towards her and took her basket from her hands. She shook as his fingers brushed hers, his skin hot and sending electric tingles arcing up her arms.
“I am taking you home. People will start talking if I stand here staring at you much longer.”
Oh.
Not a good idea at all.
As much as she wanted to remain near him, as much as the thought of him walking her home delighted her, she couldn’t allow it.
Shaia reached for the basket. “People will start talking if they see me walking with you.”
Hurt danced in his eyes but he vanquished it a second later. It didn’t stop her from feeling that pain echoing in her chest, wrapped in shame and guilt. She blamed her upbringing. Walking alone with a male at her age was considered a very bad thing to do, something that would bring dishonour to her entire family.
But she wanted to walk with him.
She wanted to walk the opposite way, away from her family, and not stop walking until she was free.
Free to be with this male.
Fuery.
“People won’t see us,” he whispered, tempting her into surrendering to him. “I know a secret way.”
“To my home?” She couldn’t hide her shock on hearing that, but managed to conceal the thrill that chased through her at the thought he had wanted to see her again too.
He nodded.
“How do you know where I live?” She studied his face, searching for the answer there, afraid he wouldn’t give it up easily even though he had been nothing but open with her.
Completely unguarded.
It struck her that she had been behaving the same way, that she felt as if she could be herself around him and didn’t have to hold anything back, because it was the way things should be between them.
“I am a scout.” He looked off into the distance, giving her his profile. Such a noble one. He looked as if he belonged to a strong lineage, one elevated in society, but she hazarded a guess that it was quite the opposite. “The commander charged me with mapping the entire area for three leagues around the camp. I spotted you in the garden of a large stone dwelling… and you seemed at home there.”
“And?” She had the feeling there was something he wasn’t saying.
A touch of rose coloured his cheeks again.
His violet eyes began to darken, his pupils dilating to devour his irises, and his deep voice was low and rough as he murmured, “And I watched you.”
“For how long?” She supposed the correct reaction given the situation should be shock, but she felt more fascinated than horrified. Thrilled. Excited.
His violet eyes slid towards her. “Until you went inside.”
A long time if he had caught her at the start of her walk. She had been spending a quarter of her day in the garden recently.
Shaia started walking and didn’t miss the glimmer of satisfaction that danced in his eyes as he followed her, her large basket of sodden clothes held tucked against his bare chest, wrapped in his strong arms.
She forced her eyes and her thoughts away from them before she could imagine him holding her like that. “When was this?”
“Three days ago.” The look in his amethyst eyes as he glanced at her again told her that he had been back since, watching her while she was unaware of him.
While she had been thinking about him.
She blushed at that.
Part of her knew she should tell him to stop, tell him that it wasn’t appropriate and neither was him escorting her home, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it, because he had only been doing the exact thing she had wanted to do.
She had wanted to see him again too.
They broke away from the stream and headed up a grassy hill towards a sparse green forest that crowned it. Her heart thumped against her chest, a heavy beat that dragged her down and slowed her steps. She took her time in the woods, dragging her heels as she picked her way along the dirt path, a sense of dread building inside her with each step.
The edge of the forest came too quickly despite her best efforts, and she paused under the shadow of a leafy tree laced with violet blooms.
Fuery stared off down the long sloping meadow that stretched before them, forming a barrier between them and a two-storey stone building nestled in the bottom of the valley. Smoke rose lazily from the tall chimneys set into the tiled gently sloping roof at the kitchen end to the left and several of the tall rectangular windows had been opened to allow air into the rooms.
Her home.
He was still, his eyes fixed on that house, distant from her, and she wanted him to speak, needed him to tell her what was on his mind and ached to know if he felt the same keen pain in his chest as she did, the thought of parting from him disturbing her very soul.
Shaia glanced down at the grey stone building, loathing it more than ever because it represented a barrier between her and Fuery, a cage in which her parents expected to keep her until they found a male they believed suitable for her.
She looked back at Fuery and saw the male she wanted for herself, needed more than anything despite only knowing him a short time. Her need for him was woven into her being, stitched into her soul, like a ribbon that tied them together and had been gradually shrinking, drawing them to each other.
He closed his eyes, drew down a slow breath and sighed it out as he turned towards her. Long black lashes shuttered his beautiful eyes as he stared down at the basket in his arms and then he lifted them to meet hers. She ached deeper, fiercer than ever at the sight of them and the regret she could read in them.
He held the basket out to her.
She placed her hands on the thick rim of it, close to his, and forced herself to take it even though she didn’t want to.
He refused to release it. His grip on it tightened, knuckles burning from the force of his hold, and he stared at the damp clothes again, his struggle written plainly across his face for her to see.
She knew what he couldn’t say, because she burned with the same need.
She didn’t want to part from him yet either.
It felt too soon. She hadn’t had enough time with him yet. She didn’t think she ever would, even if they had eternity.
“There is a rumour in the camp that we will be moving on soon,” he whispered, each word lancing her heart and sending sharp pain echoing through her body.
She wasn’t sure what to say.
He slowly lifted his head and met her gaze, and husked, “I know it is wrong… you can say no and put me in my place… but I want to see you again.”
It was wrong.
Or at least that was what her family would believe.
But her family weren’t the ones standing in the shadow of the trees with him, heart racing and blood pounding, feeling alive for the very first time.
She was the one here, and to her it felt right.
So she swallowed her fear and pushed out the words she wanted to say, not the ones society dictated she should say.
“Next wash day.”
The clouds that had been gathering in his eyes parted.
His lips curled into a faint smile.
He nodded and stepped back, his motions stiff and relaying how hard it had been for him to place that small distance between them.
“Next wash day,” he whispered, and turned away.
Shaia watched him go, not feeling the weight of the basket in her hands as her eyes tracked him. Everything felt light and bright. Wonderful. It was as if she was floating.
Warmth spread through her, a sort of lingering heat she knew would never fade.
For the first time in her life, she felt truly happy.
But happiness was fleeting.