Bow and Sparrow

CH 18

"You can shoot a bow but you can't swim?"

I jumped, releasing the arrow and sending it into the soft earth far from the target as I whirled around and stared squarely at the wide chest in front of me. The smell of earth and soap assaulted my nose and I didn't have to look up to know who stood there. I tried to hide the bow behind my back uselessly. I had been caught.

Rylan held a single lit lantern in his hand. The flame flickered, bathing him in a warm, yellow glow. But that didn't hide the shadows under his eyes or the stubble along his jaw. He was dressed in the same dark shirt and pants that he left in, now wrinkled and stained with dirt on the elbows and knees.

"You're back." The words carried like a whisper in the wind.

"Just got back." Rylan stepped closer to me until our chests were almost touching. He set the lantern upon the ground at our feet. "You weren't in bed."

"I haven't been sleeping well." I didn't -couldn't- look him in the eye. I was afraid of what he thought, catching me out here. I might as well have damned myself.

"Did you miss me that much?" I could hear the smirk in his voice.

The nightmares were the reason I couldn't sleep, but they didn't start until after Rylan had left. I didn't know what that meant, didn't want to know and I very well wasn't going to admit it aloud.

"You're rather good, aren't you?" There wasn't any suspicion behind his words and when I finally looked up at him, he was staring over my shoulder at the target behind me. At the arrows lodged in the bullseye.

"I didn't - that wasn't me." The words were lodged in my throat as Rylan's eyes slid back to me. They had darkened, too dark for even the light of the lantern to reach as he leaned toward me. And grabbed the bow from behind my back.

"Care to prove it then?" He held the bow before him, a silent challenge in his eyes, but I couldn't force my hands to move. Not until I knew I wouldn't be sealing my fate the moment I took it.

"Aren't you... " suspicious?

"Surprised? Certainly. Impressed? Most definitely." Rylan paused to toss the bow on the ground. "But what I am most is curious. Curious about the farm girl that I found in the woods a month ago, and why even when I try, I can't get her out of my head."

"But you left because of me, didn't you?"

A heartbeat.

"Yes." Rylan stepped away and I instantly missed the heat from his body. He paced

"We weren't supposed to be traveling so close to the border. The others urged me to turn around, but somehow, I felt that I was supposed to be there. And then I heard you screaming and I tore off towards it. When I happened upon the camp, they all were laughing. And then I saw you hanging from the tree. I didn't even get a good look at you, but I just lost it. They didn't put up much of a fight.

I remembered his sword slick with blood. "You killed them all? By yourself?"

"I felt a pull towards you that day. One that has only gotten stronger each day I'm around you. I thought, perhaps, if I left it would weaken it, but I was wrong."

"Rylan." The name is like butter on my lips, threatening to slip away. "We can't."

"I know." He winced as if those two words pained him to speak. "We live two different paths that should have never crossed. But Nori-" I looked into his eyes that burned the chill of the night away and left my body flushed. "I don't care where you're from. I only care who you are."

My chin dipped, weighed down by my guilt. If only he knew.

I have to tell you something.

I've been lying.

I'm not who you think I am.

When I lifted my head, lips parted to speak the truth, Rylan's lips met mine and every thought melted away.

His hand curled in the short strands of hair at the nape of my neck, sending shivers down my spine as he pulled me closer, our bodies pressed against each other. My lips parted in surprise as his other hand brushed against the scars under my tunic. Rylan's hand traced the ridges and bumps caused by the monsters that brought us together.

I lifted my hand to brush his cheek, the stubble tickling my palm, and I felt his eyelashes flutter against my fingers. He pulled me closer, crushing me to his chest as he deepened the kiss. I was weightless and breathless and endless.

In that moment, nothing else mattered. Not that worry or fear that I carried, not the hidden past I buried. The only thing that mattered in my mind was Rylan and the solid feel of his shoulders behind my fingertips as I held onto him.

When we finally broke apart, both breathless and heedy, Rylan ran his fingers down the length of my arm, a spread of goosebumps left in its quake. He took my hand in his, tracing the lines in my palm before brushing against the calluses on the pads of my fingers. I didn't jerk away this time and he hummed as if to say I knew it.

"I would apologize," Rylan murmured against my lips, soft as silk. "But I wouldn't mean it."