“Of course not!” His voice was sharp, obnoxious in the intimate quiet of their room. “I only meant that the fates must have planned for you to save me all along. Perhaps they just wanted you to kiss me—”
“That wasnota kiss!”
“Could have fooled me, Jarl Ailsa.” His brow arched elusively. A challenge. One she wanted to claim and win. If he thoughtthatwas a kiss, then he had no idea what she was capable of. Perhaps she needed to show him.
Ailsa rolled on top of him, pinning him to his back. Their bodies only separated by a wool blanket and limited clothes. Her legs fell into a straddle around his waist, pressing her hands on either side of his face to look down at him. The humored look in his eyes tempered, falling instead on her lips she parted in a plea for attention.
“Oh, sweet Vali,” she sang above him. Her hair falling over her shoulder to skim his cheek. “If I kissed you, there’d be no fooling.”
She couldn’t move as he reached his arm toward her face, his fingers tucked a loose wave behind her ear. His callouses rough against her hairline. “Prove it,” he said. His voice glacial slow, eyes dark and hooded in a trance. The power between them suddenly shifting, and she didn’t know if she had surrendered the upper hand. Not until he muttered, “Please.”
Ailsa let the plea pull her near, until her lips were inches from his. Their chest brushed in the space between them, rising and falling in anticipation for the other’s next move. She’d never been this close to him voluntarily. From the proximity she noticed the flecks of orange in his eyes, the black rim of his iris. Waves of juniper and pine rolled from his body, blocking her last thread of sense.
“Do not move,” she demanded.
His eyes shut; throat convulsed with a hard swallow before he jerked his chin in a nod. The room utterly silent besides the crack of a dwindling fire. Ailsa ducked her head, placing a light kiss upon a cold cheek, feeling it contour as he smirked beneath her graze.
As she pulled away, his eyes snapped open, pupils wide with curiosity. She sat up straight, still seated on top of him, and reveled in the way he was reduced to a mass of complicated desires beneath her. With a smile of her own she asked, “Do you understand the difference now?”
“Clear as rain,” he replied through tight lips.
She rolled off his hips, falling back to her side of the bed with a bed shaking flop. “Good.”
He shook his head clear of the flush settling over his face. “You’re going to kill me one day, Ailsa. If not with a blade than with your mouth.”
“Then you will die a lucky elfin.”
He smiled before asking, “I was curious as to why you brought me back to life, however, seeing as you hate me so much and vowed to find a way to end me.”
She shrugged as if it were obvious. “Because if you die, it will be by my hands. No one else gets to harm you but me.”
He nodded his approval as he chuckled. “I can accept that.”
Her head fell to the side to look at him. “You should do that more.”
“What?” he asked.
“Laugh. It’s nice to hear.” And his laugh was a melodic sound, one she never tired of hearing. He had a smile that touched his whole face, pulling the corners of his eyes into creases. It was rare, but when he laughed, she caught a glimpse of a different Vali. His best kept secret, one he didn’t share with just anyone. “Besides, it’s a nice reprieve to the grating sound of your voice,” she added to maintain the ambiguity of their bond.
“I suppose I can grant you some relief in that way.” He slid his arms over his head and beneath the pillow, his thick lashes dusted shut. “Goodnight, Ailsa.”
“Goodnight,Sólskin.”
* * *
Vali was snoring minutes later.Sleeping just an arm’s reach away, his noisy breathing became quite loud, keeping Ailsa awake the rest of the night. And although she could have pushed him on his side to silence the beastly groans slipping from his parted lips, she decided against it. He was in a deep slumber, and she couldn’t bring herself to disturb him.
At some point, he flipped on his stomach, his arms and legs sprawled and taking most of the bed. She curled into herself to avoid touching him despite the will of her flesh to reach out and stroke his face like the giantess child had done to study her own. Her heart was pulled into a battle of contrasts. She wanted to hit him if only as an excuse to touch him. To hate him yet want to know his deepest, darkest history. She was repulsed by her fixation on her family’s killer and the way she didn’t even blame him anymore.
Her father used to say sometimes in battle there was no good side or bad side. What was right and what was wrong changed with a simple shift of perspective. And by spending a short time with her enemy, she’d learned he was not a monster after all.
His face was softened by sleep, dark hair tousled from his restless head constantly shifting back and forth on the pillow. The worries constantly setting his jaw disappeared, a tenderness replacing the tension, tempered by the bliss found in his dreams. He was so beautiful to her, and his beauty was just another thing she wanted to despise him for—but couldn’t.
She dared herself to move a silky strand that had fallen over his eye, a movement that challenged her to follow the sharp edge of his jaw and the curve of his chin. She traced the outlines of bones and the planes of his face. Her fingers halted their exploration before meeting his lips—his snoring silenced.
Without warning his jaw opened, and he bit her curious finger, holding it hostage in his mouth. Ailsa betrayed a small yelp of surprise at the sting of his teeth. Vali opened his eyes and his lips curled into a smirk.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a garbled language. A smooth tongue flicked the pad of her fingertip as he spoke. She yanked her hand back, but he bit down harder and prevented her escape.