“Nightmares?”
“Sometimes. Other times, my head doesn’t…go quiet. It replays things over and over,” I said, the shivering easing a little.
“What is your mind so loud about?” he asked.
The question caught me off guard. No one other than maybe Tawny—not even Vikter—had ever asked me that. Ian would’ve if he were still near. “Lately, it’s been the Ascension.”
“I imagine you’re excited to meet the gods.”
I snorted like a piglet. “Far from it. It actually terrifies—” I sucked in a sharp breath, shocked that I had so willingly admitted that out loud.
“It’s okay,” he said, seeming to sense my disbelief. “I don’t know much about the Ascension and the gods, but I’d be terrified to meet them.”
“You?” Disbelief compounded on top of itself. “Terrified?”
“Believe it or not, some things do scare me. The secrecy around the actual ritual of the Ascension is one of them. You were right that day when you were with the Priestess. It is so similar to what the Craven do, but what is done to stop aging—stop sickness for what has to be an eternity in the eyes of a mortal?”
My stomach shifted with unease. “It’s the gods—their Blessing. They make themselves seen during the Ascension. To even look upon them changes you,” I explained, but my words sounded uncomfortably hollow.
“They must be a sight to behold.” While I sounded empty, he sounded as dry as a whole swath of the Wastelands. “I’m surprised.”
“About?”
“You.” His chest touched my back again when he took a deep breath. “You’re just not what I expected.”
I wasn’t.
Most would look forward to meeting the gods, to possibly becoming an Ascended. Ian did, just like Tawny, and all the Ladies and Lords in Wait, but not me or my mother, and that made us different. Not in a unique way. Not in a special way. But in a way that made it…difficult to be who we were, even if our reasons were vastly different.
I shook my head. “I should be asleep. So should you.”
“The sun will be up sooner than we realize, but you’re not going to sleep anytime soon. You’re as tense as a bowstring.”
“Well, sleeping on the hard, cold ground of the Blood Forest, waiting for a Craven to attempt to rip my throat out, or a barrat to eat my face isn’t exactly soothing.”
“A Craven will not get to you. Neither will a barrat.”
“I know. I have my dagger under my bag.”
“Of course, you do.”
I smiled into the night.
“I bet I can get you relaxed enough that you sleep like you’re on a cloud, basking in the sun.”
I snorted again, rolling my eyes.
“You doubt me?”
“There is nothing anyone or anything in this world could do that would make that happen.”
“There is so much you don’t know.”
My eyes narrowed. “That may be true, but that is one thing I do know.”
“You’re wrong. And I can prove it.”
“Whatever.” I sighed.
“I can, and when I’m done, right before you drift off to sleep with a smile on your face, you’re going to tell me I’m right,” he told me.
“Doubtful,” I said, wishing that he could actually do—
The hand that had been dangling in the air was suddenly flat against my upper stomach, startling me.
My head jerked back around. “What are you doing?”
“Relaxing you,” he said, and all I could tell was that his head was dipped.
“How is this relaxing me?”
“Wait, and I’ll show you.”
I started to tell him that he didn’t need to show me anything, but then his hand began to move in slow, small circles. My mouth fell shut. Somehow, he’d gotten that hand between the folds of my blanket, through the cloak, and under the sweater to move against my thin undershirt. He moved those fingers in circles, first in small, tight ones, and then larger arcs until his fingers reached below my navel and his thumb almost brushed the undersides of my breasts. All he was doing was rubbing my belly, but it was new and different and it felt like…like more than that. A warm, shivery sensation radiated from his hand.
“I don’t think this is making me relaxed.”
“It would if you’d stop trying to strain your neck.” Suddenly, his head lowered, and his lips touched my cheek. “Lay back down, Poppy.”
I did what he said only because of how close his mouth had been to mine.
“When you listen to me, I think the stars will fall.” He followed me down so he spoke just above my ear. “I wish I could capture this moment somehow.”
“Well, now I want to lift my head again.”
“Why am I not surprised?” The sweep of his touch drifted lower, now below my navel. “But if you did, then you wouldn’t find out what I have planned. And if I know anything about you, it’s that you’re curious.”
An answering warmth bloomed under his hand and spread lower. I sent a nervous glance to the guard. “I…I don’t think this should happen.”
“What is this?” His fingers brushed the band of my breeches, causing me to jerk. “I have a better question for you. Why did you go to the Red Pearl, Poppy? Why did you let me kiss you under the willow?”
I opened my mouth, but his lips brushed the curve of my cheek, stealing my words.
“You were there to live. Isn’t that what you said? You let me pull you into that empty chamber to experience life. You let me kiss you under the willow because you wanted to feel. There’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.” His lips coasted back up my cheek, sending a fine shiver over my skin. “Why can’t tonight be that?”
My eyes closed briefly and then reopened, fixed on the guard.
“Let me show you just a little of what you missed by not coming back to the Red Pearl.”
“The guards,” I whispered, and it wasn’t lost on me that they were my concern. Not the gods. Not the rules. Not what I was.
“No one can see what I’m doing.” His hand moved, slipping down and between my thighs. I gasped as he cupped me through the pants that no longer felt thick at all. “But we know they’re there.”
I could barely breathe around the sharp swirl of sensation that settled low in my stomach and made my chest feel heavy, achy.
“They have no idea what’s going on. No clue that my hand is between the thighs of the Maiden.” His voice was a hot whisper as he pulled me back and pressed against me, causing another puff of air to escape my lips. My rear nestled into the cradle of his hips. He made a deep, rumbling sound that sent a flash of heat through me. “They have no idea that I’m touching you.”
And then he was no longer just palming me. He was touching me, rubbing two of his fingers over the seam of the pants, over the very center of me. A rush of damp heat flooded me. My gaze dropped, and I almost expected to see what he was doing under the blanket.
I saw nothing in the darkness.
But I felt everything.
How did we get here? I couldn’t quite figure it out, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I’d had a taste before of what I was feeling now, and just a tease seemed so unfair. And wasn’t that what living meant? Taking more than a sip here and small bite there. It was all about gulping and swallowing as much as you could.
I wanted to feel as much as I could, especially after feeling nothing but pain and anger for so long. I felt none of that now.
I would be in the capital soon, and it was quite possible that my Ascension would happen sooner than expected. And if I came back from it, I knew beyond a doubt that whoever I ended up with wouldn’t make me feel half of what Hawke always seemed to elicit from me, whether it be irritation and anger, laughter and amusement, or this—this consuming, rippling wave of acute pleasure.
His fingers toyed with the stitching, pushing in just hard enough that I felt the touch all the way to the tips of my toes. Every part of my body became hyperaware.
How did he think this was going to help me sleep?
I was wide-awake now, pulse pounding and heart crashing, and he was touching, rubbing me in a way that caused my hips to twitch.
He dragged his hand up the front of the breeches. His palm brushed along the bare flesh of my lower stomach. Those long fingers settled over a throbbing point and moved in slow, steady circles. “I bet you’re soft and wet and ready.” His voice was a lush growl in my ear. “Should I find out?”
I shuddered, half afraid that he would.
Partly scared that he wouldn’t.
The friction of his fingers, the rough material against my flesh…and his words… Oh, gods, they were decadent, purely sinful, and I never wanted it to end.
“Would you like that?” he asked, and my hips rolled instinctively, seeking his touch. He made that sound again, that rumble of approval that was so raw and primitive. “I would do more than this.”
Eyes open only a slit, I watched the not-too-distant shape of one of the guards slowly patrolling the north-facing side of the camp, my skin and body flaming with forbidden heat as my hips moved again. This time, it wasn’t only a reaction I couldn’t control. I moved them purposefully, rocking them against that slow, steady circling of his fingers. I reveled in the spike of aching, biting pleasure that followed.