The Last Namsara (Iskari #1)(85)

Looking at him would give her away. So, to keep her eyes from meeting his, she stared at his collarbone, noticing how it jutted out just a little, swooping elegantly in toward his throat on both sides.

To stop herself from reaching out to touch it, she curled her fingers into her palms, keeping them firmly at her sides.

“Asha. Look at me.”

When she didn’t, he reached for her. The backs of his fingers moved across her scarred skin, tracing her hairline, brushing down her cheek and neck.

Asha glanced up. The look in his eyes made her breath catch. It was like looking into the heart of a star: bright and burning.

“Do you know what it feels like to watch you dance with someone else, knowing that someone can never be me?” His hand fell to his side. “Do you know what it feels like to have you not even consider the gift waiting in your tent . . . might be from me?”

Asha looked down at her perfectly fitted garment. “The dress?”

He nodded. “I knew you wouldn’t have anything to wear. And Callie owed me a favor. I asked her to make it for you.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Suddenly, footsteps crunched along the dirt path.

They broke apart. Torwin spun to face the intruder. Asha stepped back.

The musician who’d taken Torwin’s spot stood before them, gangly and pimply, barely fifteen. He held the lute in one hand as he looked from the daughter of the dragon king to the skral and back again.

“I came to tell you”—he gaped at Asha’s scar—“that they want you back.” He thrust the lute at Torwin. “They say I keep throwing them off tune.”

Do you know what it feels like . . . ?

Asha knew what it felt like.

Torwin took the instrument. “Tell them I’m coming.” The draksor boy nodded, then returned the way he’d come.

“I should get back,” Torwin said, “before—”

“It’s like watching you with Callie,” she told him, “knowing she’ll never endanger you just by being near you.”

Torwin turned to stare at her. “What?”

“You asked me if I know what it feels like.”

Asha suddenly didn’t want to care anymore. About any of it. The wedding or the war or the fact that he was a skral and she was a draksor.

She lifted her finger to his collarbone, tracing the tough scars there. Torwin drew in a shaky breath as her touch trailed into the hollow of his throat, stopping where his pulse beat out a frantic rhythm.

“Asha . . .”

She wanted to take him away from here. She wanted to hear him say her name over and over.

“Asha . . .”

Her fingers followed the arch of his throat, running slowly upward, over his jaw, across his cheekbone.

He dropped the lute and stepped in close. So close, Asha could almost taste the salt on his skin.

He dug his fingers into her hair and tilted her head back. And then, with his eyes burning into hers, he kissed her. Gently at first. Then harder. Like he was hungry and Asha was the only one who could satisfy his craving.

Asha grabbed the collar of his shirt and kissed him back, hungrier and clumsier than he was. Torwin grabbed her waist, pulling her to him.

The smithy lay just behind her. Torwin guided her into the dark mouth of it until her back hit a warm, hard wall. Her palms moved over his chest and shoulders. He buried his hands in her hair, kissing her throat.

Asha made a soft sound. She wanted to hoist herself up, to wrap her legs around his hips, but Torwin grabbed her wrists, stopping her as the sound of footsteps rose up once more.

Asha froze. Torwin pressed his forehead to hers, listening.

“Torwin?” It was the boy again.

Torwin bared his teeth.

More footsteps. “I swear, he was right here. . . .”

A second voice grumbled an answer.

Torwin leaned into Asha, forehead to forehead, keeping her pressed against the heat-soaked wall. Releasing her wrists, he slid his thumb slowly over her bottom lip. When the footsteps got closer, his thumb stopped. When they moved farther away, it started again. Asha leaned forward to kiss him, but he didn’t let her, continuing his gentle torment. His thumb brushed along her jaw and down her throat. It trailed over her collarbone and shoulder.

Asha closed her eyes, tilted her head back, letting him explore her.

It felt like forever before the footsteps moved away. When they disappeared completely, Asha exhaled.

Torwin kissed her throat. “When I finish playing . . . Asha, can I come to your tent?”

“My tent?” The thought terrified her. “You’ll be seen.” Not to mention: she shared a tent with Safire.

“I won’t be.”

It was too much of a risk. It put him in so much danger.

I’m supposed to be keeping my distance. For his own protection.

“Please,” he murmured against her skin. “I’ll be so careful.”

She thought of all the times she’d put his life at risk before now.

His forehead fell against hers. His hand cupped her neck. “What if you came to me instead?”

Asha squeezed her eyes shut. She thought of his tent on the beach. Of sneaking away in the middle of the night. Of lying next to him under the stars.

In the morning, she would go to war. A war they might not win.