by Alana Serra
The latter she didn’t mind so much. She could have done with much more truth to those rumors, honestly. The idea of sneaking into Desmond’s quarters at night sent a thrill through her that she found she could no longer suppress. But the former was a problem. Desmond had bled for her in the past and he’d do it again without question, she just wasn’t eager to cause that particular outcome.
It couldn’t wait until morning, though. He needed to know what’d happened. With her three gold pieces and his take from work as a guard, they could both train and be admitted to the guild within the year. He was going to be ecstatic, she just knew it, and she couldn’t wait to see that dazzling smile of his. Maybe he’d be so grateful and so excited that he’d forget himself for a moment. Hug her tight, hold her a little too long, their bodies pressed together as they sat upon his bed.
Maybe he’d pull back, still holding her, and look into her eyes the way men did when they were about to kiss a woman. Her whole body tingled with the anticipation brought by that particular daydream, and Rhia felt like she was floating as she crept through the back entrance he’d shown her. She knew his room by heart, and was grateful once more that he was old enough and established enough now to not have to bunk with anyone else. Even if his quarters were tiny, they were his alone, and Rhia was able to slip in unnoticed.
As soon as she entered, she caught the spice of an herbal cream he often rubbed into his muscles after a particularly rigorous day of training. It’d begun to remind her of Desmond himself—of his broad shoulders, barrel chest, rippling muscles across his torso as he rubbed the cream in. Rhia’s mouth went dry just thinking about it, and took on all the characteristics of a desert as she saw him now. He was turned away from the door, lying on his side on the small cot that his entire body seemed to take up. The moon painted soft, complementary light across his light—and very bare—skin, his back on full display.
Rhia ached to touch him, something she’d longed for more and more these past few years. She’d known Desmond from the time she was fourteen years old, and it was hard for her to remember there was a time when she’d merely seen him as her lanky, safe, certainly not desirable best friend. He was still safe. The safest person she knew, even when she secretly wished he wasn’t. He was absolutely still her best friend. But he was far from lanky. He’d filled out in all the right ways, drawing Rhia’s notice with such sharp clarity that every one of her adolescent fantasies involved him.
It wasn’t just his looks, of course. He was strong and handsome and his smile made her heart flutter as if someone had loosed a thousand butterflies in her chest, but it was who he was that truly made her yearn for something more. Desmond had always been kind to her, yet fierce when he went up against anyone who treated her poorly. He made her laugh and he made her think. He supported her dreams and shared his own with her, as well. To Rhia, it wasn’t any wonder that she’d fallen hard for him.
She just wished she’d had the same effect on Desmond.
Throughout their friendship, she’d always gotten the impression that he saw her as a younger sister. Someone he needed to look out for, and certainly not someone he’d ever take a romantic interest in. She pined for him, burned for him, but always in secret. If he gave any indication that he felt the same, she would gladly be the one to take that leap, but so far, he hadn’t.
And because his friendship was not a consolation prize, Rhia had to remind herself that she was all right with that. She wanted him in her life, no matter what. Right now, that meant waking him as gracefully and quietly as she could manage so she could share the news that both of their lives were about to change.
Naturally, Rhia did so by rushing over to him and shaking him, too giddy to even stop and think (much) about the fact that her hands were touching his warm, bare skin. “Des! Des, wake up.”
She felt like a girl, which was an entirely new sensation. Growing up in an orphanage, surrounded by so many other children in a crowded home, made to keep quiet and follow the strict rules lest she be beaten for her trouble, Rhia wasn’t sure she’d ever had a normal childhood. What she felt now was what she hoped others felt in their more carefree days.
Desmond groaned, but not in a way that sounded like someone who was merely annoyed because his sleep was being interrupted. That was a groan of pain, and Rhia looked down to realize something she’d missed earlier.
“Goddess, you’re hurt,” she gasped, drawing her hands away as if her very touch might cause him even more pain.
He was covered in bruises—great swathes of ugly colors that marred his pale skin. They were purple now, beginning to turn a sickly green color that made every inch of Rhia’s body hurt in sympathy. Despite the pain he must be in, Desmond pushed himself into a sitting position immediately, his eyes filled with concern as he looked up at her.
“What’s wrong? Has that bastard hurt you again?”
Rhia opened her mouth, but couldn’t manage to get any sound to come out. She’d been careful to avoid Desmond after Bertram’s discipline. She’d even practiced healing herself before she saw him, just so he wouldn’t have to worry. But the deep furrow between his golden brows told her he’d been worried for some time. She ached to smooth it away with her thumb, or her lips, but she settled for her words.
“No, it’s nothing bad. It’s nothing bad at all,” she told him, her voice sounding distant to her ears as she looked over the extent of his wounds. “What happened? You look like all of the guards took a turn at you.”
Desmond winced and gritted his teeth. “You’re not wrong.” His deep, soothing voice was contorted slightly by pain. “Strenuous day at the training yard, that’s all. My captain wanted to… test my mettle.”
The way he said it, with the slightest bite to his words gave Rhia pause. Something wasn’t right. Desmond never talked in such a way. He might not have been rainbows and sunshine all the time, but there was never any bitterness in him. She sensed it now, and that meant whatever had happened wasn’t something he’d expected. Nor was it something that should happen, if she had to guess.
“Des…” She returned her hand to his shoulder, resting it there gently.
He flinched at first, but quickly relaxed and looked up at her. The depths of his clear blue eyes called to Rhia, beckoning her in as they always did. She wanted to tell this man all of her secrets, lay all of her worries at his feet. But right now, the only “secret” she had related to what she’d come to tell him anyway, and her worries were firmly centered around Desmond’s current state.
“I’ll be fine,” he assured her, his voice softening. He rested a big hand atop hers and Rhia felt warmth suffuse her entire being. “I just need to sleep it off.”
“Let me heal you,” she said, turning pleading eyes upon him. “I’ll tell you the news I have while I work.”
Desmond let out a sigh, but she merely fixed her gaze on him and squared her jaw. He was stubborn. Extremely so. But Rhia could be just as stubborn when it came to him.
“All right,” he said with a warm, throaty laugh, throwing his hands in the air. “I surrender.”
She grinned at her friend, giving him a nod of satisfaction. “Wise choice.”
“Do you need the light on?” he started to reach for a lantern on the bedside table.
Rhia nearly stopped him. There was a softness to his form in the moonlight, and it made his hair shine like spun gold. But it also concealed the extent of his injuries from her, and so she nodded, drawing in a sharp breath as the dim light began to fill the room. He really was covered in bruises, and worse. Small cuts, scrapes, even a burn mark if her eyes weren’t deceiving her.
“Desmond…”
Her heart broke for him, the pain of seeing him like this flooding her voice. She expected him to fight her on it, to tell her he was fine. But he couldn’t meet her gaze, and when he spoke, he was evasive.
“Tell me what happened. What has you so excited that you came in here like a bull bursting through a barn?”
Rhia drew in
a breath, weighing out just how much she wanted to know about all of this. She felt a surge of that same instinct Desmond must feel over her, matched by a desire to go down to the captain’s quarters right now and demand to know why one of his guards looked as if he’d been attacked by the enemy, not “trained.” But she knew that would disgrace Desmond, and even if the gold she had now would afford them better lives, he wouldn’t shake the reputation.
He’d made his decision to suck it up, and so Rhia tried to do the same and just focus on healing him.
“Lie down,” she instructed softly, helping him as he did so.
He was moving so stiffly, and in such obvious pain. Tears pricked at the corners of Rhia’s eyes, but she ignored them. Desmond didn’t need her to be some simpering little girl about this. He needed a friend who could be strong enough to help him. He needed—
“If I’d known I was going to have a beautiful woman standing over my bed, I would have tidied up a bit,” he said, his hand rubbing over the day’s worth of stubble on his cheeks.
There was a teasing smile on his lips, a light in his eyes, and Rhia should have taken it as exactly that. He’d said such things before. He was a charming man; a flirt with everyone. Yet the more she came under his spell, the more those words unraveled her. She melted beneath that attention, completely abandoning the inner struggle she’d been having moments before. Now she could only focus on trying to touch him while keeping her thoughts decent.
It helped that she had something to focus on. She drew the magic from deep inside of her, pulling it up as though she were mentally grasping at the end of a thread. She missed it a few times, and once the entire spool threatened to come undone, but eventually she managed a hold. It was slow. So frustratingly slow, and exhausting. But Rhia kept at it, channeling that magic into her hands until warmth spread outward from her palms, a soft white light bathing Desmond’s skin.
He shuddered beneath her in a way that seemed almost like pleasure, yet she told herself it couldn’t be. It was just the shift in temperature. An involuntary reaction.
“One of the regulars spoke to me today. Meliva, the one with the great axe?”
“Ah, yes. The one who looks like she could crush me with her bare hands,” Desmond mused.
“That’s the one.”
Rhia smiled, some of that tension in her easing. She shouldn’t be hung up on things she couldn’t have. Not when she’d been given such an amazing gift.
“She knows I want to join. She asked me about it after most of the others had left, and she gave me the means to go after it, Des. For both of us to go after it.”
“Oh? Is she going to put in a word?”
His question was tempered; pragmatic. That was who Desmond had always been. He wasn’t a pessimist, not by a long shot. But he also didn’t get his hopes up too high. He and Rhia had both learned that it hurt more to fall from such heights, and people like them never made it to the top.
Until now.
She eased back from him, drawing her magic inside. Rhia’s head swam and she staggered backward, nearly toppling but for Desmond’s quick reflexes. He grabbed for her, one hand gripping her arm securely, the other settling behind her waist.
“Easy,” he said, and she felt her knees buckle for an entirely different reason.
Focus, Rhia. Giving him a grateful smile, she reached into her coin purse, her fingers slipping past a small, secret pocket that she’d sewn into it herself. Once to protect the rare silver piece. Now it held three gold. She pulled out one, enjoying the weight of it between her fingers, and the way Desmond’s eyes widened when he saw it. They widened comically further with each coin she added, until she reached the total three.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, breathless. “Goddess, Rhia. You didn’t… you didn’t steal it, did you?”
Hurt flared through her chest, sinking its vicious claws into her heart. She’d had her moments as a child. She’d done what she felt she had to do back then, but she’d learned her lesson. The path forward for her and Desmond both didn’t involve becoming yet another statistic.
“Of course you didn’t,” he corrected himself, shaking his head, “I’m sorry. It’s just… that’s more money than I’ve seen in my life.”
“I know,” Rhia breathed. “Meliva gave it to me. She wants me to use it to get the training I need and said I could pay her back once I’m brought into the guild. But it’s more than enough to pay for my training and yours.”
He looked up at her, his eyes searching hers as if he was looking for this to be some kind of joke. It was the same defensive maneuver she’d performed with Meliva, so she didn’t take offense. She just smiled brightly at him and dared to reach out, her palm resting against his cheek.
“This is… this is big,” he whispered, his mouth staying open, an expression of awe on his features. “This changes everything.”
He laughed, the sound so free and full of delight that it shone upon Rhia like the force of the sun. Without warning, Desmond stood and wrapped his arms around her waist, sweeping her off her feet and spinning her around the small room. She laughed in turn, forgetting for a moment that she needed to keep her voice down. Desmond’s joy was contagious, and when he pulled her in to hug her tight, she didn’t think anything of it beyond the fact that he was happy and excited. This was what they’d always wanted, and finally they were on the cusp of it. This was no place to linger on girlish thoughts of too-long embraces and eyes locking.
Only… he didn’t let her go. The embrace lasted a beat past when it would have naturally ended. Then another. Rhia became acutely aware of the hard planes of his chest, the scalding warmth of his skin, and the feel of his breath tickling her skin. Her arms were around his neck, where she’d looped them to keep hold as he spun her, but he wasn’t urging her to remove them. He wasn’t urging her to do anything at all, judging from how slowly he pulled back.
His arms were still around her and Rhia’s heart leapt into her throat when she looked up into his eyes. There was warmth there that far exceeded anything she’d seen from him, and a yearning she felt to the depths of her soul. She was almost afraid to look away, afraid to even breathe for fear of disrupting it, as if what existed between them in this moment was some frightened little animal that might flee at the slightest provocation.
Rhia thought she should have felt that way, as his half-lidded eyes fixed on her lips and he pulled her closer, until her body was flush against his. But she wasn’t scared. She wasn’t uncertain. In fact, she’d never been more sure of anything in her life. She belonged here in his arms, and the only thing that was missing was that his mouth still wasn’t on hers.
A situation she sought to remedy, rising up on her tiptoes to bridge the distance between them.
The sound of pounding filled her ears, so deafening and disorienting that it stopped Rhia short. Was that her heart? No, it couldn’t be. Desmond went stiff against her, his arms tightening on her as if to defend her from some unseen danger. Unseen, but not unheard. The pounding grew louder, fear lancing through Rhia’s heart as it came closer and closer, faster and faster. Then there was nothing.
She looked up at Desmond, opening her mouth to say something. The words were swallowed by a sudden, booming explosion that shook the walls of the barracks, threatening to bring the whole thing down around them.
Chapter 3
The walls shuddered around them, stone shifting in a way Rhia had never seen before. She stepped back, as far from them as she could, but it wasn’t just the walls. Dirt and dust fell from above, landing in her hair, and Rhia looked up to see the beams of the roof creaking and swaying with every tremor. She was frozen in fear, her instincts telling her to run but her feet unable to actually do it. As she stared, she felt a solid wall of muscle connect with her, Desmond throwing his body against hers. He tackled her to the ground just in time as a beam crashed down.
“We have to go,” he urged, helping her to her feet.
Seeing that heavy beam where the
y’d just been was exactly what Rhia’s mind needed to get a handle on this situation. She nodded, then ran with him, abandoning his room and everything in it as the walls began to crumble. Other guards scrambled from their own rooms, half-dressed and stricken with terror, and they all ran toward the street, having to fight one another to get past the too-narrow entrance.
Not a moment too soon. A shadow passed in Rhia’s periphery and she felt a blast of heat, then bone-numbing cold lick up her spine as something impacted the side of the barracks. She turned just in time to see purple-black energy striking against the stone, an explosion of rock and dust as the structure of the building was laid bare. The energy shrank in on itself, then detonated a second time, sending debris flying in every direction. It was all Rhia could do to hurl herself to the ground and shield her vulnerable head with her arms, Desmond’s entire body soon coming to cover her, too.
The sounds of men and women in agony filled Rhia’s ears, a cacophony of pain that wasn’t quite drowned out by the ringing in her ears. She needed to help people. Her healing magic wasn’t advanced, but if she could ease some of the suffering and maybe save one or two people, she owed it to them. Then again, she couldn’t do any of that if she wasn’t alive herself.
“Go to the keep, Rhia,” Desmond yelled over the din, pulling her to her feet and gripping her shoulders roughly. “You’ll be safe there.”
“I’m not leaving you!” She gave him an incredulous look, then took his hand and began to pull him in the direction of the King’s Court and the fortress within.
She’d always known Desmond could overpower her. All the times she’d sparred with him for fun, all the times she’d managed to knock him prone or pin him, he was letting her do it. It became painfully clear when he didn’t budge, and she turned to see him standing in the middle of the street, his expression grim.
