“Kitten,” Roarke is saying. “Don’t. Pass. Out.”
He pats my cheek sharply, and I roll to my side and heave up everything I’d eaten during the night. When I’ve stopped retching, I’m gasping.
Roarke scoops me up, not caring that I’m covered in mud. I rest my head against his chest, snuggling in under his jaw and finding a spot where I can breathe without inhaling the rain. The scent of old paper fills my nose as he carries me the short distance to the cottage. I concentrate on the smell, trying to ignore each step and its jarring effects on my body. Roarke’s smell, the man who knows so very much about the world and is just starting to let me in. Me, a nobody from the other side of the border. The idea alone is comforting, that I might intrigue him. Roarke, drawing me right in and folding me in his pages. Carrying me to safety, like I mean something. Old paper, books, wisdom – Roarke – comfort.
When I push my eyelids open again, we’re moving off the stairs and into the bedroom.
Then I’m on the floor, and my eyes won’t open anymore. Everything happens in pieces.
“Sorry, Kitten, but you’re wet and freezing,” he coos.
My shirt is tugged, then slipped over my head, leaving me shaking with cold. Or maybe I was already shaking. I don’t know. He slips the wet bandage from my chest; the freedom feels good, but it’s not enough to drown out the throbbing and shaking.
“I’ll get you dry,” he says.
My legs are bare while Roarke pulls the dart-cuff from my calf, and then the ground is replaced by something soft, and blankets are wrapped around me. The world stills, but inside everything is still ringing and throbbing.
“Pain,” I manage to groan.
“I know, Kitten, I know,” Roarke says. His voice comes from nearby, floating through the agony.
I try to hug myself, try to curl into a ball, but everything chuckin’ hurts so much. My arm feels like the pieces of my broken bone are shaking against each other. Small whimpers escape between my shivers.
Roarke’s hand smooths over my head – over my still-wet hair. Drawing the ache out of my body. I press into him, and his arms wrap around me.
“Shhh,” he says, the soft sound carrying on in my mind long after it’s stopped existing in the real world.
It slips through my skull and forces everything else down. My soul goes still.
Empty.
Calm.
Sleep.
Everything is still, except for Kitten’s low whimper every time I try to move. Without direct contact, she slips back into agony. I can sense my power’s effect on her, but I can’t feel what the damage is – Killian would be able to. He’d know down to the exact bone or muscle.
This is torture. The naked length of her back against my chest. Her curves under my hands as she leans into me – like this isn’t hard enough already.
I don’t even care that her hair is muddy. I just want to warm her up and take away her pain.
And hold her.
I’ve had three wives. Three other women in my entire life that I have actually slept next to in a bed, and then only because we understood each other's need for space. Usually, waking up next to someone after an Allure-induced tumble in the sheets just doesn’t happen.
Allure burns hot, then burns out. Even with an Elite SeductionSeed, my power couldn’t care less about their comfort or their feelings.
But with Kitten – I care too much.
I’ll never tell her that the first time she was in my room, when I found her under my bed, I used my power just as much to distract myself as I did to dig under Pax’s skin.
Even when I didn’t know her, I had this overwhelming need to see her wake up in my bed. Wake up with me.
Probably followed by more tumbling in the sheets. I’m not going to lie, seeing her naked is one of those desires I keep shoving down, deep deep down. I need those gray eyes to look at me with white-hot lust and not be held back by her fear of what I might do.
Which is never going to happen – because the minute it does, she’s dead.
So I need that fear in her. A healthy level of it to keep her from pushing my boundaries.
And, oh, how I want those boundaries pushed. By her hands, by her body.
And not in pain. Not like now. As the rain pelts down outside and the day wears towards afternoon, and I wait for her to stop shaking.
Then stop whimpering.
Then fall into the kind of sleep that lets the mortal body heal.
The hours slide on. I don’t move.
Eydis had sixteen books on mortals – an excessive number for any Silvari. I do plan on devouring them all. Eating requirements. Evolution. Anatomy. I feel drastically underprepared for Kitten to be in my life – even at arm's length.
Which she isn’t right now. Right now, she’s wrapped in my arms, and I’m doing my best to keep my arms around her middle – and not her bare chest.
And… I’m winning.
The realization jerks inside of me. My power is recognizing her needs and has been for some time – I just couldn't see it. What my power wants right now is to fix her, not … other stuff. She’s naked in my arms, warm against my chest, her curves tucked perfectly against mine. Not teasing lust to the surface, but a desire to comfort her, to make this right, and to hold her until I know it is.
I’ve never had that happen – even with other Allures. Aeons, I broke Kiana’s leg in training, and the most I did was hold the door open as she limped into the healer’s office – while thinking that once her leg was in splints, I would have to
