“A box is not a coffin. Besides, they never bury two people in the same grave, right? Therefore it can’t possibly be a coffin.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?”
Well, he’d tried. “Logic. Now stop being crazy girl and do the rational thing here. We’re not exactly replete with alternatives. Quit being stubborn.”
She glared unhappily, but lowered herself to her knees and eyed the interior of the shelter—fine, it was a box—like it held a ravenous tiger. Then she sat back on her heels and pressed a hand to her forehead, then wiped her cheeks. “Jadren,” she said in a fragile, watery voice, “please don’t make me go in there. I… can’t.”
She was crying. And he was a shit. That is, more of one than usual. Moving slowly, he knelt beside her, then ran a soothing hand down her braid. She was trembling, afraid all out of proportion to the situation. “What’s wrong?”
“Closed-in spaces,” she whispered. “There were times… I know you don’t want to discuss these things, but they had to contain me, you know, so I wouldn’t keep running away. Lock me in. I can’t go in there. Even if I make myself, I won’t be able to stand it. You’ll see. I know you’ll hate me for it, but I really just cannot—”
“Shh,” he murmured, interrupting the rising flow of her hysteria, stroking her braid with firmer tugs so she’d feel it and be grounded again. He should’ve seen this coming, should’ve recognized the symptoms in her. Dark arts knew he had plenty of experience with fighting ghosts from the shattered past. “It all right,” he soothed.
She shook her head, the sobs strengthening. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Her frail shoulders shook, and she looked so small and alone that he had to do something.
“Don’t be sorry.” He patted her back awkwardly. “After all, I puked in the bushes. Some reactions aren’t rational and can’t ever be. I’m the one who’s sorry that I didn’t listen to what you were telling me. You don’t have to get in the box.”
“I don’t?” She lifted her head, gazing at him with desperate hope, her eyes bright with tears in the firelight.
Unable to resist, he stroked away a curling tendril from her wet cheek, absurdly pleased to have put that light back in her eyes. It was especially ridiculous since he’d been the one to make her so miserable in the first place. “You don’t,” he confirmed, unable to restrain a sigh. This had been such an elegantly simple solution. “We’ll think of something else.”
“Thank you.” She flung herself against him, embracing him with fierce tenacity, face buried against his neck, her chin digging rather sharply against his collarbone. For a slender, barely-there wraith, Seliah possessed a surprising amount of tensile strength. And she smelled of water in the moonlight, her tough, tense, thin little body vibrating with spiky silver magic, her breasts surprisingly—and distractingly—soft and full pressed against his chest. He couldn’t help a tiny fantasy of how it would feel to be buried inside that intensity, to have that passionate body surging against his, embracing and engulfing.
It’s never going to happen, he told himself firmly.
Are you sure? part of him whispered back slyly.
Yes. Ruthlessly banishing the image, he refused to touch her any more than he already had. Holding his hands out, even more awkward than ever, he kind of waved them around as he waited for the hug to end.
It didn’t. Instead she held on, a buzzing bundle of intoxicating magic and tempting woman. Jadren tried patting her back, thinking maybe that would satisfy her enough to encourage her to go away, but she only purred, snuggling closer, like a cat who’d found the one cat-hater in the room and had no greater goal in life than encamping on his lap forever.
“Seliah.” He squirmed in her fierce grip, which only resulted in her taking advantage of his movement to seal herself closer against him. He’d lost valuable ground in this battle and he didn’t see how he could regain it. Especially with his own resolve to hold her off crumbling. “Sweetling, hey…”
An oily smear across his wizard senses shocked him out of his dithering. Hunters.
Fear galvanized him—although he was petty enough to relish the bit of vindication—and he seized Seliah and set her forcibly away from him. “Hunters!” he hissed, giving her a little shake.
To her credit, she snapped right out of whatever emotional bog she’d fallen into, immediately hardening, eyes glinting in the meager light. Only her wet cheeks revealed the storm she’d suffered. “How close?” she whispered back.
He leaned in so his voice wouldn’t carry, since it seemed safe to come near her again. “Close. My range for sensing them isn’t that good. Maybe from here to the road? Approaching stealthily.”
“Do they know we’re here?” her voice, throaty still from her sobbing, thrummed in his ear, evoking an unfortunate sensory addition to the wayward fantasy that wouldn’t quite let go.
“I think so,” he murmured. “They’re coming closer.”
“Weapons are in your box,” she pointed out.
Yes, where he’d so carefully stowed them in the futile hope that they’d be safely inside with them, warded against an attack of exactly this kind. Best laid plans. Also, he supposed there was no chance of getting Seliah to go in, even to fetch the weapons—not if he wanted her in fighting shape instead of a blubbering mess. “I’ll get them. You…” What? Keep watch? This was ridiculous as she was the one most in danger. His life meant nothing to anyone—and arguably wasn’t at risk anyway—but Seliah had a future. “Stay out of trouble,” he finished weakly.
She grabbed his arm before he could move, fingers clawlike as they dug in. “I’ll get them.”
“They’re at the back,” he replied pointedly.
She took a deep breath, still gripping him way too hard. “It’s my fault we’re not in there and warded. I’ll get them.”
Then, to his utter astonishment, she kissed him. Full on the mouth and—trademark Seliah—far too hard. She was there and gone again like the wind. If the wind was hurricane force, had teeth, and fulminated longing in its wake. With no idea what that had been about, he whispered, “Slide me my machete first.”
She didn’t reply and he really hoped the confines of the box hadn’t sent her into a catatonic state. Though… now would be the perfect opportunity to ward the thing with her inside. Or dive in after her and ward it behind him, forcing the issue. Oddly enough, however, the conscience he’d never before heard from until recently wouldn’t let him. Annoyed with himself, with Seliah, with this entire benighted situation, he scanned the clearing with physical and wizard senses, checking for any sign of the advancing hunters.
