They deserve it all.

Chapter 64

"Are we almost there?" I say. Annoyed at the back of my heels, piercing into my skin.

"Yeah, yeah, just a little more."

I groan, exhausted by the walk. "Alistair, can we stop for a bit."

He does and looks me up and down. "Why?"

I bend down to adjust my heels, to push my toes further into the shoe so the back of my foot can rest for a bit. "These heels, they're just—"

Alistair grabs me by my waist and hauls me up into his arms with one quick swoop. I yelp as he does. I've never really been carried, Emmaline did it a few times, but I was always too big for others to even consider it. If the girls at my school would ride each others backs, I'd always be the one carrying or I'd watch as they exchanged awkward glances, knowing they could never carry me. Ally tried once, but she fell to the floor after failing within seconds.

Like we all know, I'm quite tall, and I'm a woman with good genes and a healthy strong body. And Alistair is a strong man, I see his muscles, unlike Elias's muscles, his aren't just for show, they've come due to training, not to look good, which just accidentally happened I suppose. And I understand he's strong, but I'm very tall, and very healthy, so to say. Which is why I estimate he can hold me effortlessly in this pace for about a minute or 2, maybe 2,5, but then he'll have to struggle to keep his muscles from aching, and he'll inevitable have to put me down within the 3,5 minute mark. But when he does, he'll take a pause, a breath, then to keep his pride standing, he will pick me up again. His muscles are still aching, still hurting, so this round will last a minute at best. And it will just grow more awkward after that. He'll try and find a solution, I'll have to be persistent and prying for him to stop, it'll be embarrassing and awkward and why did he find the need to pick me up anyways?!

While he's walking— up a hill— he's staring into my eyes every chance he gets to. Smiling at me, smirking ever so slightly. And I feel his arms, one arm right under my knees, his hand keeping them together. His other arm is supporting my back, his hand holding my upper body close to his. But because of how ... strong and tall and healthy my body is, I feel quite insecure on how heavy I must be to him. He's trying to play it cool, but even if he does keep it up until we're there, I know I'm heavy, and I know this is a whole ass work out to him. So, I throw my arms around him, around his shoulders, my hand displayed on his back to push me closer to him and have some of the weight lift from the arm supporting my back, and the other hand of mine is awkwardly placed on his chest.

And though I try to tell him I can walk, that we just have to go a little slower, he refuses to put me down. So, there we are, me in his arms, him walking up a damned hill. He's grinning, I'm flushed, embarrassed by how effortless he feels he needs to look while carrying me.

"Put me down, now!"

"No, stop whining. It's my fault after all." He laughs as he pushes his arms out and throws me in the air and catches me again so easily. "And you're as light as a feather."

"Don't do that!" I demand from him. "I swear, Alistair, I swear if you ever do that again, I will cut your throat with dull fucking knife!"

Oh ... what ... fuck. Maybe ... maybe Sir Joust saw it in me, a man so old, who has seen countless wars, he must suspect murderous intent from miles away. Maybe I do want to kill? Why did I even say that? Is he right? Maybe it's not so bad, maybe it's good, maybe it means I'm not completely different now without Willow, maybe I can keep holding onto that intent to keep holding onto her.

"Oh," I half expect him to get quiet after that, but he doesn't, of course he doesn't, he's Alistair. He smirks, grinning widely. "I'll look forward to it."