Page 29 of In Darkness Forged
After several minutes beneath the water, Tal’s lungs began to burn, so he surfaced with a groan of reluctance, brushing his hair back and squeezing the water from it along with the dirt. Perhaps he had no soap, but he already felt cleaner, and…
Suddenly, he felt the pressure of eyes, heard a quick gasp of shock, and glanced up to see the human on her knees, only a few paces from the edge of the water.
So she’d finally awakened. But from the look of things, she was only a few moments shy of fainting yet again.
Surprise or fear, Tal decided—one of the two had frozen her in place where she crouched on the bank of the pool. But now that her ice-blue eyes were open once more, it was difficult to see her as quite so vulnerable or helpless. Those eyes burned somehow, with either courage or conviction, and Tal felt his lighter mood slide right back towards frustration.
He was going to have to leave her behind somehow, but every time he told her no, every time he turned his back, he would be thinking of the last time he’d seen Lani. She’d always been too sheltered—too willing to believe the best of everyone—and it had killed her in the end.
“Hoping I would drown?” he said, and the words seemed to jolt the human out of her shock. “So dreadfully sorry to disappoint you.”
“You weren’t coming back up,” she stammered, settling back onto her heels as her cheeks turned color again in that odd way humans had. One side of her face was merely pink, but the other bore the dark purple of an angry bruise. “The… wolf-thing”—she waved towards Cuan—“didn’t seem worried, but I was afraid…” Her words broke off, and her shoulders slumped. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she murmured. “And thank you for not leaving me behind.”
“Don’t get the wrong idea, human,” Tal growled as he strode out of the water and up the bank. “I have no intention of taking you with me. The moment you’re slightly less than half-dead, you’re going right back to the settlement where you belong.”
Strangely, her answer was not an argument but a smile, as sad as it was beautiful—somehow both twisted and resigned. She turned her bruised cheek away from him as she murmured, “I do notbelongthere, night-elf. But I do have a task and a purpose here, and I will not abandon it.”
“Is your purpose to die?” he asked harshly. “Because that is the only fate that awaits you.”
She shrugged. “And if it is? At least I will have died doing everything I could to survive. At least I will have tried instead of sitting and waiting for things to change. Waiting for my father to come home, waiting for my mother to be well, waiting to be accepted for who I am instead of who they wish me to be. Now that I have a way to save my family, I beg of you—don’t take that away from me.”
Tal’s hands clenched into fists as he contemplated the side of her bent head, the dark hair that escaped her braid, and the hollow curve of her cheek. The human was as hopeless as he was. They would both die in pursuit of this thing, but if she wanted it so badly, who was he to deny her?
“I won’t need to take anything,” he said curtly. “If you follow me any farther, human, this forest will require everything you have… and more.”
CHAPTER8
If.
Aislin’s head snapped up at that word.
Ifwas not the same asno.
She kept her gaze fixed firmly on those blazing amber eyes, because if she let her focus wander even an inch…
She’d awakened to find herself in a different part of the forest than she recalled, and only the enormous, furry bulk of Cuan had quieted her initial sense of panic. But then she’d made the mistake of looking around her and spotted…
She really needed to learn his name instead of continuing to think of him as simply “night elf.” A former prisoner. Her fellow traveler. Whoever he was, he was notsimplyanything. And she genuinely wished he had not chosen to bathe right there in the middle of the forest, because once she’d laid eyes on his unclothed torso, every single coherent thought fled.
It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a shirtless male before. The guards at the manor often practiced their swordplay without shirts, and the village boys doffed theirs as frequently as possible during the summer heat. But no man—not even the unquestionably gorgeous Sandric—had ever dried out her mouth and left her so completely incapable of speech.
Aislin had tried to look away once she realized what she was seeing—truly she had—but then the night elf had vanished beneath the surface of the water and stayed there, and she’d panicked. It was somewhat humiliating now to consider that she’d ever feared he might drown.
He’d emerged from the water like some terrifying forest deity, water streaming from his shimmering white hair and the silvery skin of his shoulders. Then he’d tilted his head and glared at her with those amber eyes, and she’d nearly passed out again.
Thankfully he’d still been wearing his trousers, or she probably would have died of embarrassment right on the spot.
From broad shoulders to a trim waist and narrow hips, he could have been some ancient god of the hunt—sculpted by a fierce but loving hand. Muscles draped his form, not merely for show but molded by the rigors of survival. His chest and stomach appeared capable of stopping a blade without the need for armor, and his arms… Corded and strong, they might have been shaped from steel by a master smith.
Seeing him like this, Aislin had no doubt of why the other night elves feared him. He would be death with a blade, and even without one… She wasn’t sure disarming him would help. Some form of power lay leashed and quiescent behind his eyes—magic, most likely—perhaps an even greater threat than edged steel.
Swallowing her sudden attack of nerves, Aislin tried to project courage and determination as she wobbled to her feet and faced the dripping wet night elf.
“Following you is exactly what I’m going to do,” she said. “So you might as well let me help. Even if all I’m good for is bait, surely two are better than one.”
His forbidding expression barely shifted as he regarded her, seemingly unbothered by his wet and shirtless state. “Do you even know what you’re suggesting, human?”
“My name,” she responded fiercely, “is Aislin. What’s yours?”