can work with it?”
He shook his head. “It works well enough for what they want. No matter how well Nic strategizes or how much information Jormoi discovers or Kennet analyzes, it always comes down to battle. And when the fire takes me, there’s nothing left.”
“Does it always take you like this?” she asked. “Where you can’t find your way back, even when the battle is done?”
“No,” he admitted, tilting his head just a bit so that he could take another long breath of her scent. “This is something new.”
“Then we need to figure out how to get you back in control,” she suggested.
Sure.
He’d snap his fingers, and somehow be different than what he was.
What they’d made him to be.
After a long pause, Esme scooted around to face him. “Let’s try some breathing exercises,” she said.
“Breathing? I know how to breathe just fine, thanks.”
“Hush,” Esme said and reached for his hands. “You wouldn’t think twice about learning a new fighting skill. This is the same.”
Not exactly.
Not at all.
When he was fighting, he didn’t have to wonder about the electric touch of her skin against his, the richness of her hair that he wanted to run his fingers through.
“Breathe in,” she stared into his eyes and he found himself unable, unwilling to argue. “Breathe out slowly. Breathe in... right now there’s not a threat is there? Breathe out.”
“I guess not,” he admitted.
The woods were quiet around them, the soft rustling of the wind in the trees and far away birdsong a pleasant reminder that this night at least everything was right in the forest.
He knew better.
In a moment everything could change.
But right now, right here, he had to admit. Everything was fine.
“Breathe in.”
He felt the soft skin of her tiny hands, resting so easily in his.
Maybe more than fine.
“Breathe out.”
As long moments stretched out, the rise and fall of their breaths slowly matching, everything faded away into darkness except her.
Slowly, so slowly that he almost couldn’t tell if she was actually moving, she leaned in towards him.
“Breathe in,” she whispered.
Just as slowly he leaned in towards her, until nothing more than another breath separated their lips.
And then not even that.
As their lips met, the electricity sparked through Gavin, washing away the last tainted corners of the rage, filing him with her sweetness.
With the last shred of willpower at his command he kept his hands still, resisting the urge to hold her, to free her silken hair from its braid.
Instead he focused on the feather light touch of her lips, the taste of her skin on his tongue...
Until she was gone.
“I’m so sorry!” Esme said eyes wide, scrambling back, all thoughts of easy breathing having left them both.
“What? No no,” Gavin rubbed his neck. “My fault. I shouldn’t have, that wasn’t what we were doing. I don’t know what I was doing, Void take it.”
“No,” she said bleakly.
He looked up, surprised.
“It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I lost track of my own emotions for a change.”
“Look, you don’t have to make me feel better,”
She laughed. “Making you feel better isn’t exactly what I’m trying to do here.” Esme flung herself on her back in the grass staring up through the leaves into the moonlight.
Gavin stayed where he was. He shouldn’t get too close to her.
He wasn’t safe.
“If all of this hadn’t happened,” she said. “If my clan had just wandered through town, and I had seen you somewhere, in the market maybe, it would be different.”
“I don’t really go to the market much,” he responded, confusion swirling in his gut.
“I guess not,” she said. “Maybe we wouldn’t have met. But for a moment, just pretend with me, all right?”
Anything she wanted.
“Sure.” Slightly leery after the breathing experiment, he nodded again, “I can pretend.”
Probably.
“So, pretend we just met. That you and your brothers aren’t here for some battle that may or may not happen. That you hadn’t found me, found my clan dead.” She raised her arms up above her, as if reaching for the sky. “That we were just people.” She let her arms fall back down to the ground. “Maybe there was something heavy I was trying to carry and you helped me, and we got to talking. Like people do every day.
“You’re not really great about asking for help, you know that?” Gavin said. “But yeah, that does sound nice.”
Esme rolled over onto her belly, propping herself up on her elbows to look at him. “If that was what had happened, things would be different.” Her face colored and she looked