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He offered it to me without meeting my gaze, remaining still as I crawled toward him. I lifted it gingerly from his outstretched hand, then scooted to my spot on the floor on the opposite side of the tent. The book smelled musty and old, and by the faded cover and smudges on the interior pages as I flipped through them, I knew it was more than a special book to Ruslan. “Thank you for sharing it with me,” I replied, studying this more vulnerable side of him.
He cleared his throat, still not looking at me. “Well, I hope this helps you feel like you have some power over your life. We can work on it before we go to bed every night, then you can try to reread the pages when you can’t sleep. That’s what I do, at least.”
“You have trouble sleeping?” I asked.
“It’s the nightmares, mostly… they are so real sometimes, it’s as if I am actually reliving my memories.” He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes pinching shut.
“I get them too,” I confessed, glancing down at the book in my hands. Nightmares and flashbacks, like the one that had occurred only minutes before.
Maybe we did have more in common than I thought.
A finger under my chin lifted my gaze to meet his smoky one, and I nearly startled at his sudden proximity. “We’ll get through them together,” he promised, his voice a hoarse whisper. His face drifted closer to mine like he wanted to kiss me, but I dropped my head, breaking contact. I flipped to the first page, then said, “I think I’d like to start learning now. It’s been so long, I need a review of my letters.”
“Then I will show them to you again,” he murmured, passing me so he could settle on the makeshift bed of furs on the floor. He pulled back the blankets and stripped out of his armor.Pretending to be engrossed in flipping the worn pages of the book, I watched out of the corner of my eye as his tattooed body was revealed, inch by muscular inch. His bare body slipped under the covers, and I caught a glimpse of his hardening erection before he covered the lower half of his body.
“Did you really have to get naked to teach me?” I hissed.
He chuckled, the low rumble emanating from deep within his chest and stirring heat between my thighs. “I’m not lying in bed in dirty riding clothes, and I prefer to sleep this way. You don’t have to sleep in the clothes you traveled in all day, either. I have something else for you to wear.”
I dropped the book from my face, narrowing my eyes at him. “I’m guessing this something else is basically no fabric?”
“Correct. But it’s cleaner than your current attire,” he smirked.
He had a point. And I did exercise in these clothes, so wearing them to sleep was not my first choice. I sighed, “Where is it?”
“I’ll retrieve it for you.” He threw the covers back, revealing his nakedness. I slapped a hand over my eyes, not out of modesty but out of self-preservation.
He chuckled again when he noticed my position. A silky fabric landed on my face, but I didn’t move until I heard the whispering of furs covering him again. Then I cracked an eye to ensure he was covered.
“You have to turn over. I don’t want you watching me change.”
His sly grin told me he would watch no matter what, but he obliged and turned his back to me. The book thudded to the ground as I hurriedly stripped out of my jacket, tunic, and pants. Without looking at it, I threw the delicate silky material over my head. I should have checked before I put it on. The hem barely brushed the tops of my thighs, and the straps were thinner thana lock of my hair. My pebbled nipples peeked through the white fabric as the cold air caught up to me. I glanced up to find Ruslan's gray orbs on me, the male, as predicted, not keeping his word. My glare was an icy dagger as I rushed under the fur blankets, pulling them up to my chin.
He rolled to his side, propping his head on his fist as he pulled the book to him and flipped to the first page. “The Throne of the Earth.” He pointed to the title, but the letters looked more like a jumbled mess than the words I knew them to be. “Which letters do you recognize?”
I chewed my lip and turned to my stomach so I could see the book better. “None of them.”
Without a hint of judgment he said, “Okay, we’ll start with the basics. This is the letter T,” he pointed to four letters mixed within the words. “Trace it with your finger. It will help you remember.”
Reaching out a tentative hand, I brushed my finger over the first letter in the title, the silky parchment smooth against it. I traced the rest of the letters as he named them, then he flipped through the book until words I was familiar with appeared on the page. I couldn’t help my smile when we landed on ‘horse.’
He stifled a yawn, then said, “Flip through the pages until you find ‘horse’ a dozen more times. You can leave the lantern on as long as you need, but I need to sleep.”
“Thank you,” I whispered, already searching for the word of my favorite animal. Pulling the book to the pillow in front of me, I propped my chin in my hand and studied the pages.
Ruslan settled on his back, eyes drifting closed. The hushed turning of pages filled the space between us until he murmured, “I waited for you for so long… but I will wait longer if that means you are mine willingly. All I wanted my whole life was to be loved, and real love is worth waiting for.”
My breath hitched as his words tapped the same wound thatscarred my heart. I wasn’t sure how to respond to his statement; it was so much easier to fight him and bite my words. He had a sensitive, vulnerable side, only adding to his complexity, and the more time I spent around him, the more I could empathize with him.
“I’ve always wanted to be loved too.” Another confession, pulled from my soul.
He said nothing, and I continued to search. When my eyes grew too heavy to ignore, I closed the book, a small smile tugging at my lips because I had found nearly twenty words in the tome. With a long breath, I banished the light in the lantern, then settled beneath the heavy furs as far away as possible from the naked male who shared this makeshift bed. The hushed voices of whoever kept watch were the only sounds in the cave that provided us shelter from the ice and snow of the Agrenak Mountains. Despite my earlier trepidation, I was warming to Ruslan. Maybe his soul was just as tortured as my own.
Whether or not he was my mate was still up for debate.
9
Este Castle buzzed with activity as I packed the last of my things, the air thrumming with anticipation. Pulling open the heavy wood drawer where I stored the scraps of fabric covered in Izidora’s scent, I brought each to my nose before tucking them into a smaller bag that would accompany me on Fek’s back.
