“I’m okay,” I croaked, offering a weak smile. Cal’s thumb began tracing circles against my shoulder, the sensation blurring my senses more thoroughly than the smoke had.
She gave me another assessing look before meeting Cal’s gaze briefly and turning to my mother. “Irabel?”
“My legs,” she whimpered, “I think they’re burned.”
“Let’s get you both somewhere safe. You can stay at my house for now,” Solise said.
“I think I’d like to lay here for a while longer,” I answered, face heating at the idiocy of asking a healer to leave me lying in the rain. She raised a brow, her keen gaze pinning me in place.
“I’ll deliver her to you safely,” Cal blurted. “I promise.”
Solise pursed her lips before giving a slight nod. “I have a salve for you,” she muttered to my mother as the pair turned to leave.
I turned my face back to Calomyr. His gaze was so heavy, so intense that it felt like his very soul was staring directly at mine. I felt his look in every fiber of my being, and I could have sworn I saw him break and come back together all at once. It was a look I’d never seen and didn’t think I would again.
“What?” I whispered.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered back, raindrops falling from his hair to his slick leathers.
I grimaced at the compliment, turning my head away in embarrassment, but his hand found my cheek and pulled my face toward him again.
“Petra, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he breathed, voice full of the same pure need I’d seen in his eyes in the alleyway. My chest swelled with emotion as his eyes searched mine. I fumbled for words, but each time I tried to speak they tangled in my charred throat. “I didn’t know if you were going to make it out.” His features contorted into dismay, his chest rising faster against my cheek as his arms pulled me closer to him.
“Thank you,” I started, “for getting my Ma out.”
His grip loosened slightly, his face relaxing. “I, uh… I may have dropped her on the ground,” he mumbled, his eyes finally tearing from mine. “Yeah. As soon as I was far enough away from the house, I dropped her. Apologies for that.”
My face broke into a smile. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“I didn’t drop her hard, I just needed–”
“She’ll be fine, Cal,” I said again, reaching my hand to cradle his face. His eyes closed momentarily against the touch.
He ran a knuckle over my cheek, his brows upturned as anxiety crossed his features. “I needed to get you out.”
His words set my mind spinning as I remembered the last moments before the smoke took me under. I had lost consciousness in the house, which meant… “You…you pulled me from the fire?”
Calomyr’s only answer was a slight nod, pulling my hand from his cheek to press his lips to my knuckles. He held them there, eyes closed in a silent prayer.
My breath caught in my throat at the sight, and I knew I needed to look away before I lost consciousness again. I let my gaze wander behind him, to the pile of rubble. The house…it hadcollapsed, wisps of smoke creeping through the air as the last of the embers sizzled out under the rain.
“Areyouokay?” I asked.
“I’m more than okay,” he answered, finally opening those heart-stopping eyes, his lips quirking up in a roguish smile. “Never a dull moment around here, huh?”
Despite the sorrowful truth of that statement, I returned his smile. “Such is life, Cal,” I whispered.
His tongue ran across his lips, the smile still lingering. “Such is life, Petra.”
And in the muddy street, in the pouring rain, Calomyr lowered his face to mine and kissed me. I surrendered fully to the moment, his movements slow and intentional, as if the world had halted just so we could lose ourselves in each other. He caught my bottom lip between his teeth, smiling against my mouth as he let out a breathy laugh.
This brief moment was my lifeline in a stormy sea of loss.
???
The high of kissing Calomyr quickly disappeared as reality set in once again, my worries beginning to deepen the more I thought about all that had happened.
“Your breathing should improve soon, dear,” Solise said as she mixed a small vial into a mug of steaming tea. Every breath came with a slight wheeze. My mother sat in the chair next to me with her hand over mine, silent tears still adorning her face. “Drink this. Good for the throat and lungs.” I nodded as I accepted the mug, wrapping my hands around it and savoring the heat. I had been rain-soaked and freezing when Cal walked me to Solise’s, and the healer was kind enough to dress me in some of her late son’s clothes since hers were far too small. I tried not to think about the fact that we buried my father in the same man’s clothes just a month earlier.