“I hope so.” He bent lower, drawn helplessly down to her pale mouth. Still, she didn’t move away.
Her fingertips traced a path across his face from cheekbone to cheekbone and over the tip of his nose. He closed his eyes when she repeated the action, this time going the opposite direction to journey across his eyelids before settling at the sensitive pulse point near his temple. When Azarion opened his eyes once more, he found her watching him intently, her eyes fathomless. They were so close now, he could feel the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.
“I once thought I would always hate you, gladiator. That isn’t true now.” Her words set his heart to soaring, only to plummet it back to earth with those that followed. “I no longer hate you, and I will still never forget you.”
He almost kissed her then, tethered to her by both desire and regret. Her eyes closed, black lashes soft on her cheeks, the fragile skin of her eyelids even paler than her mouth.
A chorus of whistles froze him in place. Gilene’s eyes snapped open, and in a flash, she’d rolled out from under him and clambered to her feet. Azarion rose more slowly and joined her in her search for the source of the sound. A group of riders galloped toward them from the south, and Azarion recognized Tamura’s smoke-gray mare in the lead.
Gilene reached for the satchel by her feet. “We’ve been gone a long time. They probably think we’ve come to a bad end.”
He clasped her arm. “Gilene.”
She turned to him then, her features once more set in the pinched visage she’d worn during their flight from the Empire. “Don’t. Please. After all we’ve been through so far, together and separate, don’t you think we both deserve some measure of peace?”
She twisted free and strode to her horse, leaving him to gather up the blankets. They saddled their mounts in silence and soon joined Tamura and her party in a leisurely ride back to camp.
Gilene was withdrawn the remainder of the evening, claiming the effects of too much sun when Saruke questioned why she seemed so listless. Once their household had eaten and settled down for the night, Azarion gathered up a blanket and saddle pad to take outside.
“Where are you going?”
Gilene stood behind him, wearing a thin shift, her slender feet bare.
“I thought you might wish to have the bed to yourself for tonight.”
She hugged herself as if cold, though the qara still held plenty of heat created by the now cooling braziers. “I don’t.” She said nothing else, only dove under the covers of their shared pallet and pulled them up to her chin.
Azarion watched her for a moment before setting down his gear and undressing. He slid under the covers and lay on his back, counting the number of support poles in the qara’s roof. He and Gilene were more awkward now with each other than they had ever been, but he couldn’t find it in himself to regret the day and his time with her. Given the chance, he’d do it again, only this time, he would ignore any visitors and kiss the fire witch’s soft mouth.
He had started his third counting of the support poles, and was drifting off, when a pair of slender arms settled around his shoulders and tugged, coaxing him to roll to his side and into Gilene’s embrace. She lay farther up on the pallet than he did so that his cheek rested against her breast and her chin grazed the top of his head. Her fingers combed gently through his hair.
It would be effortless to roll her to her back, push up her shift, and spread her thighs. He wanted her so badly, the desire made him dizzy. Instead, he concentrated on his breathing, on the feel of her hands in his hair instead of her warm body pressed to his.
She would accept his touch, his taking of her. He knew it by the languid sprawl of her limbs on his, the shallow rise and fall of her breast under his cheek, the changing scent of her skin. But he didn’t want acceptance. He wanted enthusiasm, a passion for him that matched his for her. This embrace, as seductive as it was, came not from a place of lust but from one of solace.
So he settled harder against her and nuzzled the curve of her breast, content for now to listen to her heartbeat, rejoice in the knowledge she no longer hated him, and lament that such a change of heart wouldn’t keep her in the Sky Below.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Summer had finally settled hard on the steppes, chasing away the rains that had lingered for weeks and turned the land into a vast quagmire. The relentless wet had left everyone and everything a soggy, miserable pile of foul-smelling wool. The people, the sheep, the qaras. They all reeked and were in desperate need of drying out. Only the horse herds and the wandering chickens escaped the stench. Today was the first dry day, and the wind galloping across the plains was finally dry instead of damp.
The new encampment the clan had set up lay a few hours’ ride behind Gilene, and still she caught its stink on the wind. The green scent of sweet vernal was a welcome change.
A group of women and children, accompanied by a handful of archers, had left at dawn for a part of the steppe where one of the scouts had located a wide patch of wild strawberries not yet trampled or eaten by the horse herds. Gilene accompanied them, riding next to Saruke, who explained they’d cook for everyone while the women and children picked and gathered the berries.
They traveled for several miles, stopping when the scout who rode ahead whistled and waved to indicate the place where the strawberries grew. Tamura, lightly armored in a leather breastplate, vambraces, and greaves, rode up next to her mother. Even though Gilene had resided with their family for two months, Azarion’s sister remained guarded around Gilene, the suspicious light in her eyes undimmed.
“The six of us”—Tamura indicated the other five archers with a broad sweep of her hand—“will ride in the four directions to make sure we don’t have thieves from Clan Saiga lurking in the grasses.” She rode off, long braids bouncing against her back as the horse galloped toward the waiting archers.
When the foraging group reached their destination, they dismounted and fanned out, satchels draped across their shoulders, and bent to harvest the steppe’s bounty. Gilene stayed behind to help Saruke set up a makeshift kitchen on the open plain. Soon flames coaxed out by fatwood and flint danced merrily under a large kettle filled with mutton fat.
She and Saruke sat side by side on a square of horsehide to keep their backsides dry and took turns placing flat rounds of barley cakes into the sizzling fat to fry. A bowl of butter sat nearby, alongside larger bowls of curds and hot, salty milk tea thickened with crushed barley.
Gilene handed one of the cooled cakes to Saruke. “Do you want to make more, or will these be enough?” Stacks of the cakes were piled up on a sheet of tin between them, glistening with fat and dripping with the butter spread on them. A few of the children lurked nearby, willing to brave Saruke and her long, accurate reach with a stick for the chance at snatching one of the treats.