His fingers were still tightly about her, and she worried at her lip, considering her options. “Sit back,” she instructed, and he readily did so, and she returned to her position on his lap, reaching out and snagging his mug of tea and holding it to his lips for him.
He drank, suddenly appearing rather embarrassed for his outburst, but Penryn would not allow that shame. Not here. Not when she had lost all control of her own reactions since he had stepped through that doorway.
Wounds were too near, too raw, to be expected to have full mastery of oneself.
“Tell me,” she murmured, holding him close with her arm about his shoulder, her head nestled against his. She was mindful of his wings, and she felt him shift briefly, only to find that he was pressing her own mug to her good hand, and she smiled, leaning ever so slightly forward to place a kiss to his temple.
She had witnessed few kisses in her time, the first between a kitchen-maid and an undercook when she had snuck down to the kitchens in her early years. She could not have imagined what would spur such an exchange, although their timid smiles at one another had suggested it was a pleasant experience. She had not dared ask one of the sages about it, for she would have to confess her trespass and likely be required to tell of who she had witnessed. Later, when she was older and thought back on the memory, there was an odd sense of longing that she could not begin to explain, perhaps not for the act itself, but to have someone she should want to kiss.
Who wanted to kiss her back.
She could not have imagined the rightness of it, the warmth that could follow. To love, and to be loved completely in return.
She brought the mug to her lips and took a draw, still pleasant even if it was not quite as hot as it had been.
“I doubted,” Grimult commented at last. “That I would find you.”
It was a confession he did not seem very keen to share, and she would treat him gently, despite her first impulse to scoff at such a concern. With all his training? It hardly seemed like it would pose a very great challenge.
Another kiss seemed in order, and she placed two more simply because she could. It brought a small smile to his lips in any case, so they seemed just the thing.
“Did you go very far before coming back?” Penryn asked, wanting to know more, but not wanting to press too quickly or for too much. The memories were clearly painful ones, and that she could well understand.
Grimult sighed and shook his head. “I did not try to go back, Pen,” he informed her, tilting his head so he could look at her, his expression shuttered, as if afraid she would somehow be cross with him for not even making the attempt. “I crossed the Wall shortly after you did, but...” a grimace, a pause that left her scrambling to fill in with all he could not be saying.
If it had been so soon, how could he possibly have thought he would fail to find her? Edgard had not gone at a quick pace, and the tracks of the cart should have been obvious should he have looked for them.
“My wound split open,” Grimult finally continued on his own when she did not supply the explanation on her own. “And I fell. The landing was a poor one and my head was struck on the descent.”
Penryn’s eyes widened, and placed his mug back on the table before moving aside a chunk of his hair, revealing the swelling. The bruises were dark and angry, and she did not doubt that he was left unconscious for some time for receiving such an injury.
“I did not hurt you, did I?” she asked, horrified at the notion. She tried to recall if she had touched him there, placed any errant kisses that might have pained him rather than brought him pleasure, but Grimult was quick to assure her.
“It aches,” he admitted, “but not because of anything you have done, I promise you.”
She felt his thumb at her waist moving slightly, supporting and reassuring, and she felt a moment’s guilt that he should feel the need to comfort her when it should be quite the reverse. “I was disoriented when I awoke, which made everything far more difficult than it needed to be.”
He sounded irritated, as if sustaining an injury to his head was more of an inconvenience than the cause for concern Penryn thought it to be. She would well picture him, deep frown on his features, cursing the wound on his wing, the blood seeping from his head, wanting nothing more than to have flown easily after her.
“Did you hide in the woods?” she asked, fingers skimming down his cheek before satisfying herself by holding him close.
“First day.” A grimace. “Maybe two. It was less hiding and more that I simply could not find my way out.” He shook his head, as if the whole matter was still a source of frustration to him. “Was able to follow the tracks after that, and it was hard to miss where they might be keeping you with all of our kind etched into the very walls.”
She could not disagree, the thought of it morbid even now. She opened her mouth, ready to correct him, remind him that they were hardly the same kind—she was a thing apart, belonging to neither. But she liked the sound of it on his lips, the sense of belonging that might not truly be real, but was a lovely fantasy that she was willing to indulge, at least for tonight.
“The rest is not
