The table of Silvari behind us stand and scuttle out of our way, looking at me in particular like I’m a wild animal. I ignore them, jumping at Seth and wrapping my legs around his waist – then massaging the potato all the way through his hair and down to his scalp.
“Ew, Vexy, come on,” Seth groans.
But he’s the idiot with one arm wrapped around me, holding me in place.
His other arm darts out, and I twist just in time to see him grab a small jug of gravy.
“Seth – no. Don’t you dare.”
He pinches his bottom lip in his teeth to try and subdue that damn gorgeous smile.
And those damn gorgeous lips. My gaze hovers on them, my own lips tingling at the memory of our kiss. That was my first real kiss – ever – and I want more.
Just not right now, because right now he has me trapped against him, and he’s armed with gravy.
“Sethy, you wouldn’t,” I say with real pleading in my voice.
He raises the gravy slowly, hovering it in the air above my head. For a moment I squirm, trying to wriggle free, with absolutely no effect.
Then the gooey liquid tickles down my back. I would squeal, but I’m too busy hugging closer to Seth in a useless attempt to get away. I reach up his back and grab a handful of hair – clenching and pulling.
“Aw, ow! That hurts,” he cries.
We topple backward, saved from falling to the floor by Roarke.
“Come on, you two, you’re scaring the locals,” he says softly.
I can’t see the locals over Seth’s shoulder. All I can see is Roarke’s partially amused face and the side wall of the dining hall, but Seth must agree because he turns and carries me toward the back door. As we move, I slip the first thing I can grab off the nearest table – a small bottle of red Silvari wine. Just in case I need it.
Seth puts me down in the hallway, and I follow him outside, the wine half in my hand and half up my sleeve. My other hand is busy over my shoulder, trying to hold my shirt away from my back. Which makes me twitch and squirm just from the gooey feel of the gravy.
Roarke is relatively clean, just a bit of splashed gravy on his sleeve. Seth isn’t even that bad – just potato in his hair.
But I’m covered in gravy, and it’s a nasty, nasty feeling.
The small patch of grass outside the back door of the inn gives me just enough time to weigh my choices. Wine over Seth or wine over Roarke.
I slow, letting Roarke overtake me slightly. His luscious hair is loose, a slight breeze blowing a few strands across his cheek.
That settles it.
I lunge for him, and Seth turns at the same time, pulling roast meat smeared with gravy from somewhere. We surround Roarke before the guy can react. Seth smears the food all over his head – and through his hair – and I pour the wine over the top.
Roarke screams. Trying to shield his head and run at the same time, he sprints across the yard, ignoring the stepping stones.
“That’s childish!” he shouts, ripping his shirt over his head and vanishing into the wash-house – not quite quick enough for me not to get lost in the sudden desire to follow him and watch him take the rest of his clothes off.
Um, no. I order my body. No jumping on Roarke. Not now. Not ever. No.
But I can look, can’t I?
A door on the inside slams shut, and the sound of running water drowns out most of his growls.
“What made you do that? You’ve hurt his feelings.” Seth looks at me with a stern expression and a raised eyebrow.
“Me? You attacked him too,” I argue, following Seth to the wash-house door.
He takes two steps in, then two steps backward. “Are you coming? You can’t go to bed like that.”
He waves a hand to indicate all of me.
I run my hands over my hair, shoulders, and arms. They feel fine. My back, however, is not.
“But I can’t go in there,” I argue.
Because Roarke is in there and he’s naked – logic says that’s how a person would usually shower.
“Wait.” Seth vanishes inside before returning. “There’s no one else in here – and the showers have doors.”
I relent because being covered in gravy is not fun.
The building is pretty basic, timber floorboards, stone walls, four shower stalls, a shelf of clean towels high up on the wall, and two sinks. There’s a lantern in the middle of the room, but as the night darkens, the lamp is creating just as many shadows as it is light.
I reach for a metal bucket under one of the sinks.
“Just throw water down my back,” I say, handing it to Seth.
“With pleasure.”
“Warm water,” I warn.
But I haven’t even got the full sentence out before cold water is dumped on my head.
“Seth!” I genuinely scream this time.
He laughs.
“Not funny!”
“Very funny,” he corrects, rubbing his hand up and down over the back of my tunic. “It’s not going to wash out though. Take it off.”
“What?”
“Don’t turn around. Just pull your shirt over your head, and I’ll scrub it in the sink. Here, let me lock the door.”
“No,” I say, but he’s already locking the wash-house door.
“Why not? That innkeeper would love the opportunity to kick you out, and his daughters are pretty keen on securing themselves a Saber and skipping right past their bonded serving years into the fantasy of prestige and power. If you walk inside wearing that, I’m pretty sure he’s going to tell you to sleep with the horses.”
I growl, grip the hem of my tunic, and pull it up over my head in one sharp movement. He slips the soggy garment from my fingers but doesn’t say anything. Just moves away and flicks the taps on. I hug my arms across my chest – partly to keep warm and partly to save some modesty. I had no idea how revealing being topless is – even from the back.
“Hurry up, I’m freezing thanks to you.”
And being cold and shivering makes a broken bone cranky and achy.
A warm cloth presses to my back, and I both jump in surprise and relax into the pleasant sensation at the same time.
He runs it down my spine, then lifts my hair and trails the warmth along my neck. Shivers rake through my body, and I rub my hands over my arms to wipe them away – to no effect. With his hand in my hair and his body heat so close that it’s caressing along my side, I don’t care that I’m half-naked anymore.
The cloth melts away the cold on my skin, in my muscles, and moves deeper into that knot of fear that has always existed inside me. Daring me to relax.
Because his touch is gentle. His breathing is smooth in the room where the only other sound is the patter of water in Roarke’s shower. For this moment, I know we’re safe, just him and me, and that there’s no reason to hold on to the barriers between us.
Except there is, I remind myself. He’s a Saber and I am not.
Besides, he’s wiping gravy off my back.
Hardly sexual, I try to tell myself.
But I don’t believe it. If it were, my breath wouldn’t be getting caught up in my throat and my eyes wouldn’t have drifted shut.
Just admit it, Shade, you like this. You like Seth… a lot.
I have to bite my lip to stop myself from letting out any sounds that might completely give away the desire unfurling inside me.
“Don’t let Pax see these,” he says, his voice low as he runs the cloth down my spine again, all the way to the waist of my pants.
And his words cut through my inner bliss. “These?” I press.
With one finger he traces a ridge just under my shoulder blade. Whip scars. A side effect of having Lord Martin as a master for a very long time.
“I don’t know how he didn’t see them when you dropped your towel,” Seth says.
“How do you know he didn’t?”
“Because I didn’t see them – and he would have left holes in the walls, and people too.”
“You moved pretty slowly, actually.”
My cheeks flush red, hot, and shamed. Because only I could try to regain some of my dignity by dropping my towel in front of them all. I mean, it was an act of defiance – because they were ordering me to get changed in one of the bedrooms, and I was sick of being ordered around.
“How much of everything else did you see?”
“Only everything. But I closed my eyes, mostly. Honest.” His words are normal Seth, humor poorly hidden in his tone. But the raspy way he’s struggling to speak, the hesitation between sentences, they’re not normal Seth.
Goosebumps run down my arms again, and I hug myself tighter.
“Seth, tell me why Pax would lose his shit over these?” I ask, holding my left hand with its bracelet of blue cloth that covers even more scars.
“His need to protect the small number of people that are his pack extends into retribution,” he says.
“Come on, give me more than that. Is it like an allergic reaction?”
He chuckles. “No, Sabers don’t get allergies.”
Jokes aside, I try for the serious reasoning. “He was a slave, wasn’t he?”
“His reaction has to do with his AlphaSeed,” he says, avoiding my damn question. “It’s as hard for him to control as it is for Roarke to stop being a dick.”
“I heard that,” Roarke says.
His shower flicks off, and without so much as a breath of hesitation, he flings the door open. It smacks against the wall.
“That could be a problem. When you said he shouldn’t see you naked, I hadn’t realized they were that bad,” Roarke says, his voice is gentle, but it still makes me cringe. “Even I want to murder the f –”
“Seth,” Pax calls from outside.
I twist my head in time to catch Roarke’s worried gaze – not looking at my eyes or my face or my arms folded over my chest, but my back.
“Quick, get her in the shower,” Seth says.
He heads for the door, and Roarke, wearing nothing but a towel, storms over to me. Using his body to shield any view Pax might have if he gets past Seth. With a stern wave of his hand, he orders me into the nearest shower cubicle. I move.
“Just stay in there,” Roarke says softly, his hand against the small of my back as he nudges me inside.
I turn the lock before relaxing my arms. Clenching and unclenching my right fist – the broken bone currently not throbbing in pain.
Huh? Odd… I file that away for later, pretty sure it has something to do with Roarke and that there’s a boundary here he’s crossing – but now’s not the time.
Twisting, I try to get a view of my own back. I know it’s scarred – about a million whippings does that to a person. I can feel where the skin was torn and Cook fixed thin pieces of cloth in place with honey. The times Martin brought down the whip again and again until it started to flay the skin from my back. But I have no idea what they were seeing – not exactly. I only know what it feels like.
“She tripped over the table,” Seth begins to say, his voice floating in through the vents near the roof.
“I heard her scream, and I heard your name,” Pax counters.
“Oh, that. I kind of helped the gravy pot to follow her.”
“Gravy?”
“Yep, a gravy bath actually. I’m going to grab her some fresh clothes.”
Silence.
“She’s having a shower,” Roarke says from inside the doorway, making me think Pax has entered the room.
“I organized a bath, so we wouldn’t be playing these games,” Pax groans.
I move away from the door and flick the hot tap on as far as I can bear it. I slip my mostly-clean pants off, hanging them on the hook, then step into the water – my bandaged arm held out and above my head to try and keep it dry.
I can’t hear the guys anymore, but several times I glimpse Pax’s boots under the door. As soon as a fresh tunic is hung over the top of the frame, I turn the water off – then catch a towel with my face.
“Thanks, Seth,” I mutter.
“How’d you know it was me?”
“You’re the only person who throws stuff at me.”
“Huh, hadn’t realized,” he says.
Dry, and with pants and a fresh tunic on, I step out of the cubicle.
My hair hangs wet around my face, the water almost pulling its rough waves straight – but not quite. Exhaustion tugs at my limbs. Sabers might not sleep more than once a week – but I much prefer sleeping every night. More than once a day would also be nice.
Seth and Killian are standing near the door. Killian’s balancing the tip of a short blade on his hand, ignoring the trickle of blood dripping from his palm as he spins it like a child would a ball.
Seth smiles at me, waiting until I’m right in front of him before whispering, “Are you okay?”
My brow furrows.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I whisper back.
“Yes, Seth. Why wouldn’t she be?” Killian stops spinning his blade and shoves it into the secret sheath on the inside of his belt. He grabs his brother’s elbow before the guy even looks like moving.
I try to walk around them, but one of Seth’s arms snakes around my waist and I find myself pulled into the struggle. He draws me in until I’m pretty much standing between them – very closely between them.
“Explain,” Killian says, his gaze now on me.
“No,” I say, pulling far enough back to free myself from Seth. “My past is mine. You guys don’t get to join in.”
My embarrassment ebbs, and what’s left is fear. I’d like to say fury, I’d like to say fire, but it’s not that strong. I’m not that strong, and I don’t need them seeing that.
“Let me past,” I growl, pointing a finger at the two of them. “I will never, ever, take my shirt off in front of Pax. Ever. And we’ll never speak of this again. Got it?”
Seth runs a hand through his wet hair – when he got a chance to wash it, I don’t know – then he turns and leaves without a word.
Immediately, I feel horrible, but I bury that under my gnawing fear. I’m stuck with these guys, I can’t change that and I can’t fix it – but what I can do is try not to make it worse. Or any more complicated than it already is.
Which includes not falling in love with Seth, and not triggering Pax into a rage.
Killian stares at me for a few long moments, then turns and walks off like I don’t even exist. I chase him out the door, hoping he’s heading for the bedroom, because I just picked the crankiest brother to get myself stuck with. If he’s going for a jog in the woods, I’m screwed.
It’s completely dark, but there are lanterns everywhere. Across the back of the building, alight in every window, around the small fenced paddock or horse yard, in long strings between the inn and the nearby town. Four young Silvari are sitting on the grass, talking, one of them lying back and pointing up at something in the sky. Two girls who were patiently waiting for the showers shuffle inside, one of them whispering and the other giggling.
The clang of steel against steel echoes from the space behind the horse yards. Just grass, lit by a single lantern and punctuated with the silhouettes of three guys trying to kill each other. My three guys.
They move in a complicated pattern, fast even when they are at normal speed and impossible to track when they throw bursts of their own kind of super-speed into the mix. Pax is in the middle, blocking strikes from both Seth and Roarke. The two younger brothers are working together against the eldest. There’s no clear winners or losers; each man seems to be expecting their sword to be blocked, then they step into the next move.
“Why are they fighting?” I ask.
Killian stops and follows my gaze.
“Training. You tell me. Why do Roarke and Seth think Pax needs to let off steam before he goes near you?”
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw hurts, turn, and march toward the inn. The back door is narrow compared
to the front, with a single stone step up and a heavy red door that is hanging open. It’s right when I notice all of this that I bump into an invisible wall.
My bubble.
I slip backward with the force, landing partly on my ass, but mostly on my back.
Groaning is the first reaction I have. Getting up could be my second, but Killian is already standing over me, and the guy is chuckin’ smiling.
“What?” I demand, but the word is more like an accented groan.
“Bubble,” the man laughs, stepping over me and into the building.
Leaving me to struggle to my feet on my own.
“You would find that funny.” I half stagger down the hall, rubbing my forehead and my ass. “I just want to go to sleep.”
“Mm,” he says, which might mean ‘I know’. “I’ll stay with you.”
He leads the way through the dining hall, which is still packed with patrons and the same girls madly trying to serve them all. Then up the stairs, down the hall, and into our little room.
I haven’t even shut the door behind me before he’s pushed the window open as wide as it will go, stuck his head out, and sniffed the air.
“What do you smell?”
“Something dark. Tonight.”
“Then why don’t we just leave?” I ask, snatching my boots up from where I left them when I had a bath.
“No point running from Darkness, Shade. Wherever you think you’re going – it’s already there.”
I drop my boots again, stepping out of the way as the man systematically collects the bags and lines them along the wall closest to the window.
“Can I sleep, then?” I ask.
“Boots on.”
“Sleep with my boots on?”
He nods, and I obey, slipping into the boots before staggering the few steps to the bed.
The bed has four pillows – four. When a person only has one head, four pillows is a little beyond luxury. I flick back the covers and begin tugging down the top sheet.
Killian pulls his shirt off, fishing through his bag for one with more leather down the chest. I’m powerless – stuck. Watching his muscled biceps with the tingling urge to wrap my hands around them.
Do these guys not understand how that affects me?
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 45