Black Moon Draw(68)

He chuckles. “We will have time to discuss whether you become my queen or my mistress when the final battle is over.”

I’m not sure I like the sound of that. Like I’m not going home. Does he want me to stay? Do I want to stay?

Any confidence I had about being surer of myself fizzles. I’m feeling anxious again, a warm flutter of desire mixed with a whole lot of fear.

“You’ll be sending me home after this, right?” I ask.

The corner of his lips lifts. He doesn’t answer.

We don’t talk anymore, not for another couple of hours. I’m dragging soon enough, the result of not eating in who knows how long and recovering from death, I suppose. In truth, I’m kinda glad it’s quiet. He and his world are no longer fictional to me. They’ve become very real, and I’m not sure what to make of him calling me beautiful or the way my lower belly ignites into a furnace whenever he regards me a tad too long. Every time we talk, I’m a little more confused about what I want.

Night begins to creep across the land. We’re still a great distance from the hold. My well-fitted boots have rubbed blisters into my heels and the outside of one pinky toe. Darkness brings the cold ocean wind and I’m soon shaking and miserable.

“Okay,” I say finally, thoroughly exhausted. “I need a break.”

“We cannot stop all night,” he warns.

“I know. Just for a bit?”

The Shadow Knight relents, albeit unhappily. He leads us off the road.

When he’s not looking, I let myself limp. My god – I haven’t had blisters since I was a kid! I forgot how much they sting.

He chooses a spot at the base of a hill to offer some protection from the wind whipping by and sits down. I sit beside him and lean back against the sweet smelling grass, groaning.

“My warriors can march for two days without stopping to rest,” he says.

“I’m not a warrior,” I mutter under my breath. My teeth begin chattering soon after we stop.

“Never met a battle-witch who could not start a fire.”

“Are you trying to make me feel bad?” I snap.

“Anger keeps you warm.”

Rolling my eyes, I pull my knees in and hug them with my arms. “Maybe it was a bad idea to stop.” I’m too cold to take the nap my body needs.

“I imagine returning from the dead requires rest.” His shoulder brushes against mine as he shifts closer. A moment later, his arm circles my shoulders.

“Um, probably not a good idea,” I say, tugging away. My thoughts go to earlier, when he seemed amused by my rationale behind not wanting to hurt his fiancée’s feelings.

“I respect your honor and your cowardice. You need rest.”

After a brief hesitation, I let him pull me into his body.

Guiding us onto our sides, he wraps his other arm around me and tucks me against him. One of his legs drapes over my thighs, drawing our hips together. Folding my hands to my chest, I rest a cheek on his bicep and breathe in the scent of brownies and grass, unable to recall when I last experienced anything nearly as comfortable.

He’s so warm and strong, his chest wide and firm. He’s not shivering in the cold air like I am, and he’s radiating heat that banishes the chills from me completely. I’d like to think I offer some resistance before melting into his body, but I’m pretty sure I don’t.

Instead, my eyes close, and I relax. He maneuvers me until he, too, is comfortable, my face tucked into the nook of his neck while his chin rests on my hair. He brushes a curl from my face, hand resting briefly on my neck and thumb rubbing my jawline. The movement is absentminded, as if he’s deep in thought, rather than meant to provoke the fire in my blood.

“Are you worried?” I ask.

“I do not worry.”

I sink a little more into Black Moon Draw, a little further from my apartment in the city. The more I think of him, the fewer barriers I can throw up between us. While still barbaric, he’s single handedly trying to prevent this world’s equivalent of the apocalypse. I’d like to think, if given the chance, I could leave my home for twenty-five years to risk my life fighting a war that hasn’t been successfully won in a thousand years.

Then again, I won’t submit a resume to a new position to find a job making more money that might require me to step outside my comfort zone. What does that say about me? What right do I have to judge him?

“You’re so much braver than I am,” I whisper, stricken by the comparison of our two existences. Between us, he deserves to be the real person and me the secondary, cardboard book character thrown into a story so the hero has someone to talk plot points out with. No one can stand that kind of character.

In my place, in reality, he’d change the world.

The single thought cores me. Fatigued, sorrowful, I start crying.

“I have never seen a battle-witch weep so readily,” he complains. He hugs me closer to him, rubbing his stubbly cheek against mine.

I touch his jaw and neck tentatively with the fingertips of one hand, awed by the sandpapery roughness, warm skin, and the pulse beating strong and steady. This reality is like the sunrise, a flare of light in the darkness followed shortly thereafter by the entire world bathed in brilliance.

I am the worst person ever to live. Drawing a shaky breath, I close my eyes and review my life up until now. What the dead warrior queen says clicks, and her words repeat on a loop in my head.