arms extended for him. Kaie stopped the moment he was inside, staring at the offered embrace, wondering why all he felt about it was a bit sick. “Don’t.”
She blinked and dropped her hands. “Don’t?”
Kaie scowled as he dropped to the floor and pulled his blanket up around his shoulders as he lay down. He laid facing the wall, feeling no desire to watch her tears when they came. “If you’re paying attention to me you’re trying to get me to say yes. I hate myself enough already. You don’t need to make it worse.”
A cool hand pressed against the back of his neck. This was a new trick. Usually it was her lips. He wanted it to go away just as much as he wanted it to stay there. So he did nothing. After a moment her other hand was there too. Then they were massaging his neck and the back of his head. It felt good.
“I miss the hill.” Her voice caught him by surprise. “I miss everything, but I think about our hill the most.”
Kaie closed his eyes. For a second, he could almost taste the sweet roll on his lips and smell fall in the stale air of the shack. “Me too,” he admitted.
“I’m sorry.” She sighed and pressed her thumbs into the muscles connecting his neck to his shoulders.
He grunted his appreciation. “Don’t apologize. Feels good.”
“I mean about the way I’ve been. It was wrong, what I asked of you. I know that. I knew it then. I wanted to hurt you. Both of you. I’ve just felt so lost…”
He turned around, catching her hands in his. He smiled because the only other thing to do was cry, and he still couldn’t seem to manage that. “You’re not the only one.”
She kissed his hands, then his forehead. That was new, too. “You’re always there, aren’t you? No matter what I do, what I say, you’re always going to be waiting for me.”
He chuckled. “I don’t have much else going on at the moment.”
She slid down beside him, climbing between his arms and tugging the blanket until they shared it. Her back was pressed against his chest, and she didn’t seem to be making any attempt at his pants. Uncertainty held him in place. He hardly dared to breathe. He wanted this to be her, his Amorette. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t want to be alone anymore. I’m not asking you for anything, Kaie. Not tonight. Tonight I just want to be that boy and girl on the hill.”
He tightened his arm around her waist and pressed his forehead against the back of her neck, trying to imagine that the puff of strawberry hair was long and smelled the way it did back then. “Okay.”
Kaie wasn’t sure when they started kissing or who initiated it. The progression was natural. It just happened. When her cool hands slid up his back, slipping his shirt up over his head, that seemed natural too. It wasn’t until all their clothing was off that he realized what was happening. He pulled away from her lips, though he couldn’t bring himself to let her go. “Ams…”
“Shh,” she admonished with a smile. “This is about you and me. The boy and the girl on our hill. You understand?”
Kaie hesitated. He did understand. But it wasn’t right. He needed to say so. Before the words made it past his lips, almost before he realized it was happening, Amorette shifted and he was inside her. Everything else stopped existing.
Twenty-Seven
When he woke the next morning, he stared down at the girl in his arms with a numb disgust. He was supposed to say no. It wasn’t his Amorette he held. Not his girl on the hill. She was never his, was never supposed to be.
He wasn’t a good man. Kaie got that now. He wasn’t, even before he got Keegan killed. Ever since he let Sojun put that collar on for him. And now he slept with her, knowing that she would always belong to his heart’s brother, and that a child fathered on her would be stolen away. She deserved a husband who would give her beautiful things and beautiful babies. He could give them to her. He wanted to try. But it would all turn to ash, just the same as their life before. And he knew it. But he wasn’t going to tell her, because he wanted her to sleep with him again. That wasn’t how a good man would behave.
And he didn’t care. That scared him a little. But not enough. That scared him, too.
Kaie slipped his arm out from beneath her head. He considered the stream and the icy water there. But it was a long walk and for nothing. He was never going to feel clean again. So he wiped off the stink of sex with the tepid water they kept in the bucket and dressed in his spare set of clothing.
Not that there was much need. No work meant nothing to do; lockdown meant no visitors. He could spend the day nude if he wanted. Fucking Amorette until neither of them could walk, maybe. But he did it anyway, even going so far as to pull back the hide door and look at the world outside.
It was snowing.
Just a light dusting now, but the thick clouds overhead promised something more ominous for the day. Kaie watched it for a while, ignoring the cold leeching into his fingers and toes until the sound of Ren and Silvy starting a fire drew him back inside.
Amorette was awake. Their eyes met for a moment. Kaie waited for love, for desire, for something. She scowled and turned her back to him as she tugged her clothing on. She was back to punishing him. He tried to be surprised. He thought about saying something, trying to recapture the feeling of the night before. But he saw the lie of it now and it just felt like too much effort.
He settled down in front of the fireplace. Behind him she made noises intended to get his attention. Kaie wasn’t ready for her. He wasn’t even ready for him. It was easier dealing with arranging wood and kindling and coaxing a fire to life.
The knock on the wall brought him back to the world in a start.
Vaughan stood in the doorway, flakes of snow clinging to the boy’s long eyelashes, looking every bit as miserable as he was.
“What are you doing here?” Kaie asked. “I thought East Field was on lockdown?”
The boy flashed the uncomfortable smile Kaie saw often. “It was. I mean, it is. I’m supposed to make sure your head is okay. Because it got hit?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, knowing there was more to the visit than that. If anyone was really concerned about the state of his much-abused head the healer would be sent the same day. And Vaughan came to visit almost every week on rest days, but the boy would never be mistaken for a resident of the East Field. It was bound to get attention of his neighbors. Unless Kaie completely misunderstood Josephine’s warning that was the last thing he was supposed to be doing. So something else was going on. “I think I’m okay, though.”
“Have to be careful,” Vaughan admonished, leaning in to examine the cut above his eye. “Head injuries can be tricky. You should quit getting them. Obviously. I mean…” The boy shook his own head, visibly casting off some of the nervousness. “I saw Peren, before coming here.”
Kaie couldn’t help but smile. He didn’t want her to know about what happened with Amorette, but she probably figured it out all on her own. She likely even figured out a way to tease him through her brother with some words that cut right through him and made him laugh all at once. “Did she call me a fairy again?”
Vaughan’s smile took on a bit more truth. “She did. Right after she told me I’m allowed to say her name.” The boy leaned in close, making it obvious that his next words weren’t meant for Amorette. “She wanted me to make sure you remember what she said yesterday.”
He sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck, resisting the urge to scratch at his head. “Yeah. Tell her I remember. Tell her I haven’t stopped thinking about it. That should make her feel better.”
Despite their hushed tones, Amorette clearly heard the exchange. She made an exasperated noise in the back of her throat, and then stormed out of the shack. Kaie considered going after her. She wasn’t supposed to leave the shack. They were on lockdown. He was even a little concerned her light clothing would result in her getting sick. It didn’t really seem worth it, though. It would only mean facing her, probably fighting her, and he just didn’t care that much. So, after a minute he turned b
ack to Vaughan.
Who was staring at him.
“What?”
“Is she going to be okay out there?”
“It doesn’t really matter what I think,” he answered honestly.
“You don’t even seem to care.”
He shrugged. “Today I don’t.”
Vaughan stared for a little while longer, clearly wrestling with some comment or observation. The boy seemed to think better of sharing it. “Alright…well…Peren says that she is taking your avoidance as a yes and that if you don’t like that you have to tell her so yourself.”
Kaie laughed real laughter, the kind that yanked him out of the numbness and made him a person again. The girl was damn odd and it never stopped being entertaining.
When he caught his breath, he actually felt kind of good. “So are you going to tell me what you’re really doing here?”
“Spying,” Vaughan answered lowly. “I’m the only one who can come and go, and who’s got a valid excuse to be here. If anyone shows up in your house, I’m to run and get Boss Josephine. You’re terribly hurt, by the way. I’m going to need to see to your care for at least a week.”
“Oh.” Well that made sense. And it meant at least a week of being cooped up in the shack. If he was supposed to be that injured, he wouldn’t be allowed to go to the stables or to have lunch with Peren. “I guess this means plenty of time for our lessons on the Empire.”
Vaughan nodded.