AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I cocked my head to the side. He was still radiating heat. I felt the rumble of his voice against me, the vibration of it sinking into my skin.
He was…something. Something I couldn’t see. I knew that as certainly as I knew Ishouldstay away from him.
So why was I pressing closer, pleased with his compliment? Maybe I’d been much too starved for affection and intimacy. Maybe I missed the heat and weight of a male against me. Maybe just one little taste of Lorik would be enough.
But I was a healer first and foremost. I couldn’t forget that. I needed to see him well…and then afterward?
Maybe afterward I could explore whatever this was. Maybe afterward, I could go to Grimstone’s with him and drink ale and kiss him in a back booth.
I wanted to uncover all his secrets…even if I feared what I would find.
Chapter
Nine
Lorik was watching me, lounging against one of the largest river trees on my property. His broad back was to the trunk, and he had one knee brought up, his bad arm resting against it. Similar in position to how I’d found him in the Black Veil three nights ago.
“Stop,” I said, though I was trying to hide my smile as I dumped the bedding into the basin.
“Stop what?” he asked innocently. He’d chosen that tree to relax against because it was closest to the washing tub I had outside—a wide, hollowed-out tree trunk that I believed had been struck by lightning once. It was a perfect depth to let bedding soak in.
After Lorik’s infection had passed, the sheets and the coverlet needed a desperate wash. But the afternoon was fading, the sun already beginning to lower in the sky, so I wanted to take advantage before the night chill set in.
“Stop looking at me,” I replied. “Stop smiling.”
He grinned in response.
“I like looking at you,” he told me. “Why does it bother you?”
“Because…because…” I trailed off, uncertain how to respond. It sounded ridiculous, even to my own ears. But how could I tellhim that every time he looked at me, I feltconsumed? How could I tell him that he made me nervous, shy, and elated all at once?
“Because you’re not used to it,” he murmured. “You live out here, alone. My beautiful little witch in the woods. You need to be appreciated. You need to be touched. I think you need to be loved.”
I stopped mixing the soapy water in the trunk to look at him in surprise.
He smirked. “You need a lover, Marion.”
“Are you volunteering for the job?” I asked, flustered but quirking a brow with more confidence than I felt.
I’d meant it as a tease, but Lorik said, “Yes.”
The word was soft in its seriousness.
“Humans can be so strange about sex,” he added. “Even if they grew up on Allavar.”
“And I would argue that Allavari are even more strange about it. Private,” I told him, looking back down at the basin. “Don’t you think? You’re part Allavari, aren’t you?”
“Once,” he replied, his tone breezy.
“You always say things like that,” I pointed out. “Things that never make sense and are only meant to confuse.”
“Maybe I want to keep you guessing,” he said. “Keep the mystery alive.”
“Oh, it’s well and alive, Lorik Ravael.”
“Maybe I’m boring. Maybe I’m quite dull to be around when I’m not suffering from a botched poisoning.”
A poisoning you won’t tell me much about,I thought silently.
