“What can I do to help?” she asked. I locked onto her tired, pissed-off gaze.
How was I to deal with this? I’d kissed her, not because she’d ordered it—that was laughable—but because I’d wanted to. Losing her had scared the shit out of me. Sure, at first it had been annoying, but when I’d realized they had her, irritation quickly turned to terror, the likes of which I hadn’t known since I was a boy.
When I’d seen that now-dead asshole, Drogal, using that spell on her, I’d lost my mind. Turned her into a tree. Who turned a Druid Princess into a tree?
This idiot.
That was a hard spell to live with for most non-nature oriented practitioners. It must have been really hard on her.
Did I… Should I ask her if she was okay?
She glared at me. “Going to answer?”
“Are you doing okay? Since the tree spell?” Not only did she endure one of the hardest spells, we’d spent hours walking, too. How was she still upright after that?
Some of her anger cooled in her gaze. It was like the moon bathed her features in its embrace, making her the most visible thing in the night, ever. It might as well have been noon for as well as I could see her. Beautiful, brave princess who made me hard just by being in my presence right then.
“I liked it.” She sat down in the clearing where we would stop, tucking her legs under her, as though she meant to stay like that for some time. That didn’t look comfortable, and certainly she couldn’t sleep like that.
I sat down next to her. We should make a fire, but it would draw attention to us. “You what?” I couldn’t have heard that right. No one liked the tree spell.
“I liked it. I would have been happy to stay like that forever.” She stared out into the night, her thoughts leaving me and this place to go wherever they traveled. I hated that immediately. No, I wanted her here with me. We were in this fucked up mess together.
I was so out of practice in making conversation. “What did you like about it?”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to try to explain it. I don’t think I have the words.”
I supposed that was fair. I didn’t always know why I felt like I did either. I patted closer to me. “Come on. Hug up next to me. We’ll buckle down for the night.”
She once again did the head shaking thing. It made her hair bounce in a way that made me want to run my fingers through it. “No, thanks. I’m saving that.”
I blinked. “You’re saving your hugs?”
“Yep.” She yawned.
“For what?” That didn’t make a bit of sense.
“For the person who will someday think that I matter to him. I think we probably have a limited amount of hugs we get to give in a lifetime. I’ve decided mine are for him. For the one who’s going to matter.”
Some twisted, sad part of me felt like a child again, sitting alone at the guild and feeling unimportant to the group of mass murderers raising me. I did matter. I wanted to matter. And most of all, I wanted to matter to her.
Even I knew how dangerous of a thought process that was. She could and would never be mine. It was easier to push her away.
And yet...
“It’s not a hug,” I prodded. “I’m selflessly sharing my body heat to keep you warm.”
The quirk of a grin graced her face. “Oh you are, huh?” she asked.
“Absolutely. I need to return you back to your parents in one piece, after all.”
I was lying through my teeth, and we both knew it. I just wanted one more chance to feel her against me. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, and I pulled her closer, her body trembling. I didn’t know if it was because of the cool night air or me, but either way, I wanted to steady her with my palm.
“What are they like?” she asked. “My parents?”
I let out an exhale. Truthfully, they were like what you’d expect. “Regal. They both move in such sync it’s creepy. They seem like kind people. Maybe a little desperate.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just mean they were determined to get you back. It looked like they hadn’t slept in weeks. Your mother looks just like you.”
She relaxed against me, and part of me wanted to keep talking, if only to keep her like this against me for as long as possible. So I told her about her kingdom. I told her about her parents and the good things they’d done. Eventually, her breathing evened out in the way it had the night we’d slept together. She didn’t snore so much as she had a rhythm to the sounds she made. An evenness that was lulling even though she wasn’t a silent sleeper.
The Guild would never have let her be an assassin. We had to be able to sleep in utter silence so no one knew we were there. Still, I liked listening to her. There was something homey about hearing it, about knowing she trusted me with her most vulnerable moments.
Layne shifted slightly, and her breasts pressed even more fully on my chest. I stared up at the sky. If there was a spell I could use to make my cock go down, I’d use it. She was saving her hugs for the one who would matter.
Lucky fucking bastard. He’d get to do this. In a bed. Every night, he’d hear Layne breathe and know he was home, that she would be there when he woke up, when he
