Cowardice churned the liquor in his belly. His life was a lie. He wasn’t the mighty right hand of the king, unmoved by pain and screams, able to dish out punishments and fell men without suffering the pangs of guilt. It didn’t matter that he was the tallest and largest soldier on the field. His muscle meant nothing. His skill in weaponry and battle plans was worthless, his tracking knowledge pointless. A little bird had brought him to his knees.
Hot tears stung his eyes. Why was the ice around his dead heart cracking and splintering now? The whiskey burned with each swallow. The alcohol tasted bitter, too unrefined for enjoyment, but he didn’t want the flavor. He wanted the numbness. He wanted that frosty shell back that kept the world out, blocked him to the sweetness of her touch, the gentleness in her spirit. Softness gave way to cold, hard anger and he embraced it, held it and turned it until he could brandish it like a glacial sword.
Damn her. Damn him. Damn everything.
Lilac swirled in a smoky stream, then human feet touched the stone. A breath hissed from his gritted teeth. “Tell me you’re all right.”
“I am fine, my charge.” She smiled at him.
That soft curve cut deeper than the sharpest blade and it pissed him off. Who asked her to love him, to care for him? Myla had no right. Infuriated power surged through him and he bolted to his feet. He chugged a noisy gulp then pitched the corked bottle on the bedding. He gripped her hem and dropped to his knees.
“Show me.”
Silk bunched above her ass and his palms roamed over her thighs, searching with deft efficiency. He checked her skin as he might check Jester for briars, coldly and impersonally. The creamy swells of her buttocks were unmarred and her thighs unmarked. He shoved the chiton higher. The small of her back lay smooth and soft without a single bruise. Relief flooded him but it was too pale to overshadow the helpless frustration frying in his belly.
“You can see I am well.” Indignation spiced her words at his rough handling and she snapped the silk from his hand. Her eyes locked on the bottle lying flat on his blanket. “Why do you drink when troubled?”
Bryton pushed to his feet, irritation jabbing into him. It had been months since the days when he’d drunk himself sick every night. But now it didn’t matter. His life was on a collision course with Karok in a matter of days. If he wanted to spend every last second so drunk he couldn’t see straight, that was his business. Salome needed to butt out.
No, this he needed, wanted even. He wanted to fight with her. He needed her to scream and rail at him, to shout and blame him for her pain. Salome needed to push him away because he was too weak to walk away from her. If it took whiskey to force her hand, then whiskey he would use. It was a convenient crutch, a club he’d place in her hand and dare her to swing.
He stomped to the bed and defiantly took another pull from the flask, his eyes locked with hers. A searing burn in his throat masked the frost thickening around his heart. She was too close. Bravado forced him to swallow again and again. Each move of his Adam’s apple tightened the lines around her mouth.
“Are you trying to get drunk?”
“Yep. Don’t knock it until you try it, sweetling.”
She quirked a maple brow and cocked her hip. “You’re a fool, Bryton.”
A snorted laugh shook his shoulders. “Try harder. I’ve been called a hell of lot worse in my life.”
Ire seethed in her eyes, turning the soft gray to polished granite.
Not enough.
He needed more and so he poked harder. “What’s wrong, birdie? Cat got your tongue?”
The granite hardened to a glossed sheen of steel. “No, I’m not the one who is less than whole. You are blind.”
“What?” The word barked from his mouth, his voice gruff with the scratch of whiskey.
“You cannot see what is before your very eyes. You are more blessed than most your age. You have people who care for you—parents, a child, friends. You have respect and wealth. You’re able-bodied and quick-witted. You’ve loved and been loved. You have lost those close to you but you push others away. For a selfless man, you are incredibly selfish.”
“Selfish? You think I’m selfish?” It wasn’t funny but a huffed laugh ripped from him. The frayed edges of his honor quivered with the verbal slap. Wretched, weak and walking on the edge of sanity he might be, but he was not selfish. He had spent his entire life putting others first.
Her finger whipped up and poked hard into his chest. “Selfish and cruel and blind as a newly hatched bird. You can’t see beyond your own grief, won’t open your eyes to see the riches still left in your life.”
“Screw you. You’re a fucking spell. You don’t know a damn thing. You can’t even figure out how t—”
“I know that you march toward your death by your own will. You gave your child to others to raise. You walked from your duty to feed your own revenge. You’d rather hold fast to your misery and lie beside a dead woman than mourn and move on, living the life you were blessed to be born into.”
Raw agony choked his breath. She went too far by bringing Katina into the argument and he lashed out, shaking finger pointed toward her face. “Fuck you.”
“You did.”
His eyes bugged wide and his jaw dropped. “Excuse me? Who stripped bare-assed naked for who, birdie? It wasn’t my dick hanging out. I didn’t hear any complaints, either.”
A haughty laugh reverberated in the cavern, bouncing off the stone and shrilling through him. “Then hear this, Sir Bryton. Wake up. You wallow in a ditch of self-pity. It is tiresome and pathetic.”
“Well, pardon the fuck out of me. I wouldn’t want to bore you so go back to where you came from. Just fly away and leave me alone.”
“As you left Katina alone to face her demons?”
His head snapped back, her words hitting with the force of a closed fist wrapped in iron. The bottle slipped from his hand, shattering on the rock floor. The pungent burn of whiskey creased the air. The breath sucked from his lungs. She knew. He’d never said the words aloud, not to Taric or his father or to his confessor, but somehow, Salome knew.
She knew his deepest and most shameful secret. The marks on his arm and chest proved how many times he’d saved Taric. He’d kept the late King Balic safe. He’d stood between steel and arrow, fist and poison, never letting his charge get too close to the bony grip of death. But he’d left his wife alone. He left Katina alone and she died. It was his fault.
Disgust and dishonor abraded his soul like steel wool, scratching with a bloody sting. Fight bled from him, drained through each raw scrape and left him with a queasy awareness. Bells rang in his ears. His legs quaked and he sank to his knees. Failure was a sour enough brew the first time. To know that Salome knew of his shame made the second draught a thousand times more bitter. Not even facing Kat’s father had been so humiliating.
“How did you know?”
The anger was gone, her face shining in serene calm, a beacon of tranquility his turbulent spirit ached for. “You did more than dream in the tent that day. You spoke in your sleep.”
She’d known all this time and still she stayed, still she loved with him, still she cared. It compounded his ache. His fingers shot into his hair, gripping it until his scalp screamed, trying to block the memories from rushing to the surface. The vision of a wide, wet stare pleading for aid scalded him and he pinched his eyes tight. It remained. “I never meant for her to die. I just wanted…I didn’t think.”
Salome knelt beside him. The pool of whiskey soaked her knees and shards of glass clinked with her movement, but her gaze never left him. Gently she tugged his hands from his head, clasping them in hers with surprising strength. “This burden you carry is not yours. Set it down, Bryton, let it go.”
He shook his head, not recognizing the feeble tone of his own voice. “No, I knew her magic was weaker after the baby, but I still left her. It was my fault.”
“No, my charge. The fault lies with the evil that did harm. You acted honorably and reaped only loss for it. You have no shame in any deed.”
“She wanted me to save her and I couldn’t. She died in fear and I watched it happen.” His nose burned and his throat scratched. Inhaling brought the bite of whiskey mingled with salt. “I’ve saved every person I’ve ever tried to protect. Why not her? Why couldn’t I save her? Why didn’t the vision come sooner?”
A sweet breath tinged with wild honey bathed his damp cheeks. “Destiny cannot be halted. You were meant to save your daughter and not your wife. I can tell you no reason except that is how it was meant to play out.”
Through the crusting of his unshed tears, she swam in golden firelight. She was too pure to be with him, too good. “I can’t see Katina’s face. All I see are her eyes, so scared, begging me to help her.”
“Let go of your guilt. The memories are there, locked forever in your heart. Remember I told you the heart is a gateway. Unlock it, let the good memories come back, let the bad leave. Let peace guide you.”
“I loved her. I want to remember her, Salome. I can’t let myself forget.”
Salome smiled. Her eyes tilted with the rise of her apple-round cheeks, and a twinkle in her eyes borrowed starlight from the sky. A gentle hand caressed down his face. “Peace is not forgetting, Bryton. It is accepting that you are not to blame. Had Katina been in your place, do you think she would change one action? Would she have chosen you or her daughter? Would she have wished you to sacrifice her child for her life?”
Kat would have picked Jana over anything, him or herself or a pot of jewels. Mothers would fight to the death for their children. Hadn’t that been one of the first hunting lessons he learned? No animal is as dangerous as a mother with young.
The she-wolf.
She’d come too close to him, drawn by the lure of feeding her young. She disregarded her safety for her pups, the chance to feed them, to ensure their lives.
A flash of Kat’s frantic cries echoed in his head. She’d pointed to the wagon, then turned to face the Skullmen, flaming torch and weakened magic as her shield. She’d entrusted the baby to him, drawing attention to herself so he could chase after their daughter. Kat had wanted him to go.
His stomach fell to his knees and a vicious quake rumbled in his muscles. It knocked him off balance and he sat hard on the rock, mind whirling like a toy. Kat had sacrificed herself. Maybe she thought she could summon enough magic. Maybe she thought they were all going to die. He didn’t know. She’d stood so tall, so brave, facing the Skullmen like a warrior and daring them to come closer. The rabid fervor in her eyes wasn’t pure magic. It glimmered with protective malice and feral intensity. Maternal rage. She was protecting her cub. The cub she trusted him to save.
Fever-hot blood coursed along ice-cold bones. The hand he pressed to his mouth shook hard and a shuddered breath scalded his lips. Grit stung his eyes, blown from the wind, that was why his vision went wet and water leaked from his eyes. It could not be tears. Those had refused to come when expected, a long time ago. Still, he could not look at Salome until the fire no longer blurred.
Graceful serenity colored her dusky eyes with a hint of violet. She wrapped her arms around his neck. His body trembled so violently he clung to her like a rope cast to a drowning man. Sweet murmurs whispered in his ear but all he could hear was a lullaby in the wind. He felt her smile against his cheek.
“Now the healing begins.”
Her gently crooned song swept the cavern of tension. Bryton’s emotions spiked and fell, twisted and knotted, until his soul was raw. Salome stroked his hair and absorbed as much of his torment as she could, easing him into a sheltered cocoon. Tomorrow his mind would clear and he could sort through the various discoveries and realizations. For now, she simply held him.
The hand on her back stroked with a slow touch. Her chiton grew warm from his heat, melting until his caress felt like skin on skin. It traced up her spine then down again, each inch winding a cord tight inside her. His chin rubbed along her shoulder. Moist breath danced across her neck. Soft lips and a softer tongue traveled up her throat. Tranquility turned to temptation with a single kiss.
The sharp tang of liquor flooded her mouth, stinging her tongue, burning her lips. The fire grew and sank lower. Salt edged the whiskey taste with sadness, heightening the loss, intensifying the sweetness. Never before had his kiss held such timidness, the silent plea for aid as this trembling touch of lips on lips. Salome ached to comfort him, to reassure him. As with her gift of feathers, she had nothing to offer him except the love in her heart, the song in her soul and the willingness of her body. She gave it all to him without question.
She deepened the kiss, boldly gripping his chin and tilting his head back. A low sound of acceptance girded her courage. A whisper of silk and a sigh of leather and she was naked in his embrace. The worn hemp of his tunic balled beneath her hands as she tugged it up, pushing it higher until he leaned back long enough to jerk it over his head. His mouth descended, seeking, and hers was there to answer. He let her guide the depth and speed of their connection.
Tongue danced with tongue until their breaths panted, frayed and jagged. His heart pounded with a bass drum’s strength. The rapid beat fluttered in his neck under her kiss. It increased as she stroked down his stomach, over his waistband. Bryton jerked to a stand, kicking away his boots and reaching for his breeches. Salome gripped his hands, removed them from the material and locked her gaze with his. Only a thin line of blue rimmed his irises, the black wide and simmering with need.
She knelt in front of him, letting her palms glide down his chest, over his stomach, skim his thighs. Bryton gaped with lust-clouded eyes as her tongue slicked across her lips. The taut muscles tightened when she lowered her mouth to his abdomen. His breeches clung fiercely for one moment then slid down his hips. A groaned exhale encouraged her.
Last night he had restrained his need, tempered his desire to take her. Now she wanted to take care of him. Inexperience sank beneath her love. She would return every touch, every kiss, caress and stroke he’d given. He had shown her how to love. She would give that love back to him tenfold.