Page 75 of Ella’s Desire

“You can’t stop thinking,” he finished for her. “I can’t either.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I worry that they are hungry, terrified.” He stopped himself before adding hurt, as he did not wish to shove his own nightmarish thoughts to her. Though in truth, she was probably thinking them as well.

“They’re fine at the moment.” Ella slid him a side glance. “Or so I believe.”

He strode to where she sat in the rear corner and lowered himself to the ground beside her. “How do you know?”

She looked down at her feet where the toes of her leather shoes were clumped with rich black soil. “I believe,” she repeated, her words slow with unease.

“How?” he pressed.

When she still did not answer, he gently turned her face toward him. “Please, tell me.”

“Leila.” Her eyes finally met his. “She is an extraordinary girl. Not only because of her ability with herbs and with daggers, but she also has a gift. She can see things that will come to be and can sometimes even dream of the past.”

Bronson utilized every drop of his courtier’s experience to control his expression. He understood Ella’s hesitation for speaking now. Leila was a witch.

“I can feel her,” Ella whispered. “I’ve never been able to connect with her like this before. But now I can feel her on the air the way I can sense rain coming. It is difficult to explain.”

Hope flickered in Bronson at this. “Mayhap it will help lead us to them.” If they didn’t have to comb over the whole valley, they might actually stand a chance of saving the girls and having them all come out alive.

“We can hope.” The furrow of Ella’s brow kept her from looking confident at the suggestion. She shivered.

Bronson put his arm around her and drew her closer. “We can keep one another warm.”

She leaned away from his embrace. “I believe I had a character in one of my books who offered something similar.”

“You should stop modeling men in your books after me.” He grinned at her.

She did not return the gesture. He had hoped the intimacy in the cave as they waited for her father’s soldiers to leave would have been enough to mend what had broken between them. But her coolness toward him indicated it had not. What they had shared had been lust. The same as what they had shared in the beginning when she thought herself in love with him.

Except through all of this, he had fallen in love with her. Truly in love. Not lust, or baseless desire, but love. In trying to unearth her heart to win it over, she had won him over. And he had lost her.

She was angry at him for having read her books, for having peered into her soul to use what he gleaned to manipulate her into loving him. He had been at fault. Egregiously so.

“I’m not one of the men in your books,” he said. “If I were, I would pull a lightning sword from the depths of the earth, or befriend a dragon, or tear off my tunic and defeat them all with the virility of my powerful masculinity.”

Her lips quirked at that.

He set his jaw. “I am only a man, Ella. One who learned early on at court that I had to be liked to survive. I have never had the luxury to be myself without fear my head might end up on a pike if I said the wrong thing to the wrong person. I become who I need to be.” He indicated the battle axe she had on the ground on her opposite side. “The same as you.”

Ella’s lashes swept over her cheeks as she glanced down at her weapon.

“I confess, I do not want you to be here,” Bronson continued. “There is danger at every turn, and it is torture for me knowing you could be killed. Or that I could be killed, and you would be entirely on your own, especially after I have taken your maidenhead. But I know you need to be here, just as I need to, to see our sisters saved.”

Ella’s gaze flicked up at him. “I wouldn’t leave if you asked.”

“That’s the other reason I wouldn’t bother trying.” He smiled. “You’d just as soon go on your own rather than abandon this fight.”

She pursed her lips in silent agreement.

“This is my fault.” The admission tore from Bronson’s soul. “I brought her here, I became angry with her for not being a proper lady. It’s why she ran away. She is in this position because of me. As is Leila.” He locked eyes with Ella. “I apologize for putting your sister in danger as well.”

But the apology did not make him feel better any more than his confession did. Nothing would soothe his ragged soul until the girls were safe.

26

Ella could practically feel the guilt flowing from Bronson. His eyes shone with the wild hurt of it, his forehead furrowed with intensity.

But he was most likely right about Lark running off because of his outburst. And yet she didn’t say as much. Not when he already knew, not when it was so heavy a burden to lay on someone’s mind.