Hunter's Season: Elder Races, Book 4 (9 page)

When he was seated on the ground, he eased himself back until he was prone. She went into the cottage and returned with a pillow.

“Thank you,” he said. The skin around his mouth was white.

“You’re welcome.” She watched for a moment as he selected one of the books and began to read. Then she went to draw water to clean the dishes.

When she was finished, she looked outside. His eyes were closed, his book resting on his chest. She grinned. Each time he fell asleep he woke up stronger. This time, he might even wake up grumpier.

After she had washed and put away the dishes, she puttered around for a bit. She made the bed and boiled the bandages that he had worn. When they were thoroughly cleansed, she hung them in the sun. After they dried, she would roll and store them.

The rest of the cottage was already tidy. There was more than enough food. In a few days, she would have to do laundry, but for now there wasn’t anything that required attention until it was time to cook supper.

An invisible leash pulled her to the sleeping man underneath the shade tree. Silently she eased herself down to sit on one corner of the blanket. She felt as guilty as if she were stealing, but she couldn’t help herself. Studying him at leisure without fear of discovery was an almost unimaginable luxury.

He did not look quite so desperately ill, but he still looked worn. Shadows under his eyes lingered, as did the brackets of pain around his mouth. Tenderness pulled at her.

It was one thing to admire him from a distance for all the fine things he embodied. It was totally different to grow to know him a little, and to see the real man behind the reputation. He struggled with his temper, chafed at illness and injury, carried shadows of loneliness in those kind eyes.

Instead of showing her that her idol had feet of clay, all these things served to highlight just how outstanding his long service to his country had been. How many times had he felt endangered by Urien? Probably too often to count. When he had lain awake at night, did he, too, wonder if he might die friendless and alone?

If he had cared at all about his wife—and she believed that he had for he was a caring man—he had no doubt relied upon her companionship and drew comfort from her support, which would have made the crimes that she had committed doubly terrible for him.

She watched him quietly as the sun traveled through the sky and the dappled shade moved across his long, relaxed body. When he began to stir, she shot to her feet and fled into the house. She had her weapons laid out on the table and her sword drawn and was busy polishing and sharpening blades when Aubrey’s shadow fell into the room. She kept her head tucked down, gaze focused on her task.

He said nothing as he stood and watched her. The moment spun on an enchanted spindle until it drew out, long and golden like a thread of dyed flax pulling taut between them. She would not look up. She could not. She did not feel in control of herself, and she was terrified at what might show in her eyes.

Finally he moved quietly into the bedroom.

Her fingers shook. She nicked one on the blade she had just sharpened. She sucked the injured finger and thought, I am a fool.

When she finished with her task, she sheathed all her weapons and hung them in their customary spot beside the cottage door. Somehow the day had fled so that it was time to cook supper. She had set sweet potatoes to bake in the coals of the lunch cook fire, so all that she needed to do was grill the steaks and prepare a fresh salad of mixed greens and vegetables.

She stepped outside to collect an armful of wood. When she came back into the cottage, Aubrey appeared. He was still barefoot, and he had unbuttoned his shirt. It hung open on his wide shoulders. The wounds on his long, lean torso were already fading. This time when Aubrey raised his hands to his loose hair, he worked with a wince to tie the length back with a leather strip. It caused his chest muscles to bunch and flow under his skin.

She looked at the rippling hollows of his flat abdomen where his muscles were tightened, and her breath grew restricted. She had to force enough air into lungs to tell him, “Once the fire is ready, supper won’t be long.”

He wore a tense, sour expression. “I dislike watching you fix meals and fuss.”

She stared down at the wood she carried, blinking. “Have I fussed? I am sorry. But we must eat.”

He moved abruptly. “That is not what I meant. I’m the one who is sorry. You have not fussed. You’ve done nothing but show me patience and kindness, even when I’m sure I’ve been tactless and did not deserve it. I am frustrated that you are doing all the work. I dislike watching you labor while I do nothing.” He gave a sharp sigh. “I am unused to doing nothing.”

That she could understand. She was unused to doing nothing as well. She looked at him sideways and gave him a sly smile. “It sounds as though you are beginning to feel better.”

He chuckled. “I must be, since my temper has turned so foul. What can I do to help?”

Shocked, her gaze flew wide. “Nothing!”

He advanced on her with a determined expression, and she backed up until her shoulders hit the wall behind her. “I do not accept that answer.”

“You are the one who was severely injured. I am perfectly healthy, and it is my job to look after you and do the work.” She hugged the armful of wood as he tried to take the top few logs. “Stop that! You’re still healing, and you might strain one of those wounds.”

“I am well aware of what my body can and cannot do, thank you.” He tugged and she pulled back, until he pointed out in a plaintive voice, “You know this tug of war can’t be good for me.”

She stared at him in wounded astonishment. Oh, that was playing entirely naughty. She stopped instantly, her hold loosening. As he took the top logs from her armload, she glared at him, mouth folded tight in disapproval.

He paused, and one corner of his mouth tilted up as he studied her. “You should see what you look like right now,” he told her.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she muttered as she hitched her remaining armload up higher.

He folded his mouth tight and glared at her.

Completely off kilter, she stared, and her own mouth dropped open. “I don’t look that bad!”

“No,” he agreed, the expression vanishing. “You are much prettier than me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” She scuttled sideways to get around him then rushed to the fireplace to throw her armload onto the hearth. It scattered wood debris everywhere, and the floor would have to be swept again. She didn’t care. Then her next thought just fell out of her mouth. “You’re the most handsome man I know.”

The instant the words left her lips, she would have snatched them out of the air if she could. Her face burned.

He moved up beside her and squatted to ease the logs he had purloined onto the hearth with hers.

She watched with round, unblinking eyes as he straightened and turned to face her.

He thinks I’m pretty?

He was smiling, and it looked satisfied and very male. “So you think I’m handsome.”

She scrambled to backtrack somehow. Heaven only knew where her poise had gone. The afternoon sun must have baked it out of her head. “Of course you look—distinguished,” she accused. “You know perfectly well you do.”

Of all the ridiculous things to say. She was going from bad to worse. She spun on her heel, retreated to put the table between them and began pulling food items off the shelves without really looking at what she was doing.

He followed at a leisurely pace across the room, almost as if he was stalking her.

Then he came all the way around the table.

He—what was he doing?

“You didn’t say distinguished before,” he pointed out. “You said handsome. I remember that fact quite fondly.”

“DidIIhadn’tnoticed,” she mumbled all in a rush. She had forgotten what she was supposed to be doing. If she had ever known in the first place.

“Xanthe, are you shy?” he murmured. “I didn’t know assassins could be shy. This realization is remarkable.”

“Don’t be stupid, I’m never shy,” she blurted. She had disrobed in front of dozens of other soldiers countless of times. She’d had sex with no more privacy than what the cover of a blanket might offer, and she had probably heard every crude joke or epithet the army had in its repertoire. “And I’m not an assassin any longer, I’m a guard.”

“Semantics, my dear.” His lean, angular features were lit with delight. All shadows and marks of pain had vanished. He looked like an entirely different man from the ill, unconscious man that Tiago had brought into her cottage. He glanced over all the items she had placed at random on the table. His sleek eyebrows rose. “So we are having honey, cheese, onions and tea for supper?”

 
“Of course not!” Her cheeks grew hotter. She scrambled for some kind excuse for her erratic behavior. “I was just going to dust off the shelves.”

He picked up the jar of honey. “Were you going to do that before or after you cook?”

She threw up her hands. “You are distracting me from what I’m supposed to be doing!”

He was laughing then, his face creased with open enjoyment, eyes dancing. “Is that what I’m doing, distracting you? I thought I was teasing you.”

Witnessing him in this unpredictable, playful mode was definitely much more composure-destroying than when he had winked at her. She rushed at him and snatched the jar out of his hands. “Get out of my kitchen, so I can have some hope of cooking something edible.”

He pointed out, “Your kitchen is half the cottage.”

She ducked her head. “You could go outside.”

“I’ve been outside for a significant part of the day already.”

“Go to bed then.”

“I have spent a significant part of the day there too,” he said softly. “And I feel extraordinarily guilty every time I lie in that soft bed. Inevitably I end up thinking of you, and this hard pallet on the floor that must be so very uncomfortable.”

Her breathing hitched again. She picked up the cheese and turned away to start setting things back on the shelves. “I keep telling you, I don’t mind in the slightest. Believe me, I have bunked down under much worse conditions many times.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.” He handed her the onions to set back in their place, and as she turned around again, he handed her the tin of tea. “I propose that I begin to help with the chores around here.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he forestalled her. “I will only do what I feel capable of doing, and each day I will increase my activity. That will help me regain my strength much faster. I simply cannot laze my days away and watch as you shoulder the burden for doing everything. I don’t have it in me.”

She sighed. Increasing his activity each day would help him heal. She also knew some stretching exercises that he could do to help keep his body limber. He was going to carry scars, and those would stiffen if he wasn’t careful. “That makes sense.”

“And as soon as my back muscles have healed enough,” he said, “you and I are going to start taking turns on that pallet.”

“No, we’re not,” she told him.

“Yes,” he said implacably. “We are.”

“I won’t budge on this,” she warned.

His mouth quirked. “What a coincidence; neither will I.”

If they grew stubborn about this, they might both end up sleeping on floor pallets. She clapped a hand over her nose and mouth as a snort of laughter escaped her.

If anyone had told her a sevenday ago that she would be arguing with a barefoot Chancellor of the Dark Fae, she would have thought them deranged. Shaking her head, she turned away from him again to set the tea tin on the shelf.

Then she sensed rather than heard him move up close behind her. She stood frozen, the skin at the back of her neck tingling as she felt the heat of his body along her back and thighs. He was very close, perhaps a scant finger’s breadth away. She turned her head slightly, her attention consumed by his nearness.

She could see him, just barely, out of the corner of her eye, standing there like the shadow of her most secret dream. He tilted his head and put his lips near her ear, still not coming in physical contact with her anywhere.

He whispered, “Am I really the most handsome man you know?”

His warm breath caressed the thin, sensitive area just behind her jaw. She folded her arms around her middle, shaking. A daring stranger took over her voice. She closed her eyes and heard herself whisper back, “Do you really think I’m pretty?”

Pretty. It was a word used for Dark Fae ladies, with their fine clothes, long pale, soft hands and large, lustrous eyes. It didn’t belong to her. Her hands were callused, her skin lightly speckled by the sun. Her feet were callused too. She could kill a man with a single, well placed kick of her bare foot.

The slightest touch stroked along her hair, following the line from her temple, back to her braid. Was that his finger? The end of his nose? It was so light she could almost have believed that she imagined it, yet it sent an intense shiver rippling over her skin. It was—almost as though he nuzzled her. The thought took all the strength out of her knees.

At the nape of her neck, he breathed, “I think you grow more beautiful each time I lay my eyes on you. It’s happened every time I woke up to find you there, helping me in some way. All I want to do is look at you, to experience it again.”