I stare at him for a moment. He stares back.
“What?” he asks, voice edged in suspicion.
I let out a breath, and the cloud of steam floats between us. “Thank you,” I finally bring myself to say. “For... helping me.”
Raelan’s shoulders soften a bit, and he gives me a small smile, then tips his head toward the hut. “Go on, then.”
I grip the fabric Raelan handed me, squeezing my fingers around the soft bundle. Then I turn to Cairn’s door and knock firmly—before I can lose my nerve.
On the other side, I hear hooves clop across the floor, slow and heavy. I take a breath.
The door opens, bathing me in firelight, and my minotaur looks down at me.
Chapter 36
Cairn
LYRA WILDER STANDS ON MY doorstep, cheeks flushed, crimson eyes shining in the light cast by my fire and candles. And off to the right, I find an unfamiliar man leaning against my hut, shimmering flecks of gold in his eyes. When I scent the cold air, I detect an odd smell coming from him. Not fully a human, then.
“That’s Raelan,” Lyra says. “He helped me get here without being spotted.”
This draws my gaze back to her. She’s bundled in a sweater and boots, the hood of her winter cloak pulled up over her red hair.
“Why are you—”
“Can we talk inside?” she asks, her breath steaming out around her lips.
I glance at Raelan again. He gives me a subtle nod, then turns away, as if to give us privacy. Does he...knowabout us?
What’s going on?
Moving back, I pull the door open wider, then try to control the rapid beating of my heart as Lyra steps inside. Raelan doesn’t move. Guess he’s staying out there.
I close the door. When I turn, Lyra is still standing in the entryway, looking like a stranger, like someone who hasn’t been here multiple times, like someone who hasn’t shared my bed and laughed with me in the bath.
It hurts more than it probably has a right to.
“These are yours.” She holds up a bundle of fabric.
I eye it. “My what?”
“Clothes, I think.” She bends to set them on a narrow bench in the entryway. “Raelan said he... borrowed them? I don’t know. He asked me to return them.”
My clothes. The ones that were stolen from the clothesline last year.
What an odd witch this Lyra Wilder is. And it seems she keeps odd company as well.
Not sure what that says about me.
Now she’s just standing there, staring at me. It makes my skin tingle with heat.
“Do you... want something to drink?” I ask.
She gives me a small smile and a quick nod of the head.
I move into the kitchen, and she follows, albeit hesitantly. She takes a seat at the table while I pour us each a cup of tea—I use the hand-painted moonflower cup for Lyra, the one that hasn’t been used since last her lips touched it.
When she sits there, does she think about the way we touched each other that night, the pleasure we experienced at each other’s hands? Because that’s what I think of. It’s theonly thing I see. And it’s made eating meals at my kitchen table almost impossible.
