Page 85 of Winds of Ruin
Chapter 36
Elsedora
Emmerick had left hours ago to bring the soup to Angeline. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wanted to go with him, but he deserved the privacy to work through his emotions.
Yet another pitiful excuse to avoid seeing my bedridden friend.
Em insisted the sofa in the parlor would be fine to sleep on—that he couldn’t stand to see another bed for a long while.
I wouldn’t want anything to do with a bed again either, had I spent the last twenty years in one. I left the fire roaring and set out thick wool blankets and an abundance of pillows.
Stepping out of a hot bath, I dried myself and slipped into a silk robe. My hair had grown quite long, and I contemplated chopping it to my shoulders again for convenience, but a more vain and reckless part of me wondered what the King’s hand would feel like if he wrapped my strands around his fist. As I combed it, I let my imagination wander further, and my core clenched.
It seemed my dry spell of wanting no one had ended. Though, this line of thought grew inconvenient since I knew that he’d expect more of me than I’d be able to give.
Letting out an exasperated sigh, I left the comb on my vanity and began turning down the cold linen sheets. In the kitchen earlier that day, I’d thought he was going to do what any other man would have—step between my legs and kiss me. Instead, he’d pulled away and kept cooking.
I’d fixated on him masterfully chopping roots, with heated cheeks and a growing girlish crush on my dearest friend. The way his fingers had dug into my hips to set me on the butcher block left me flustered.
Overly beating my pillows, I cursed my inability to remove the moment from my mind. I squeezed my thighs together; my hand would quell this ache tonight.
Movement caught my eye. On the wall above my headboard, there was the largest spider I’d ever seen. Or ever seeninmy home—magical tombs aside.
It was the size of a bird. A furry bird.
I screeched and launched myself across the room. The distance that the down mattress put between me and thatbeastlyarachnid was not enough, and I searched for something to throw.
Before I could find a shoe, my door sprang open. Emmerick burst through. He wore only unbuttoned breeches; the muscles of his shoulders were taut as he gripped the hilt of a dagger and raised it toward my foe. His brow furrowed in confusion.
“What’s wrong?” He shot out the question with such authority and violent intent to defend me. I almost forgot about the spider while watching him move—every edge chiseled, readied for battle. Delectable.
I hadn’t heard him come back through the Egress. “There’s a spider.” I pointed at the ghastly eight-legged monstrosity on the wall.
Emmerick’s shoulders relaxed, and his grip loosened on the dagger. “Else, are you serious?”
I nodded, fighting the warmth that spread across my cheeks.
He heaved out a relieved sigh and dropped the dagger at the foot of my bed. “Woman, you’re going to give me a heart attack screaming over a little snow spider. You’ve gone head-to-head withfarscarier things.” He turned toward my vanity, grabbing an empty chalice meant for water and a piece of blotting paper.
“It’s the size of a bird!”
“It’s the size of my thumb… at most,” he teased.
“Well, you have very large thumbs!”
He cracked a smirk. “Fine. I’ll get it, I’ll get it. Open the window.”
I watched the sculpted muscles of his back as he kneeled against my pillows to capture the vile thing in the cup.
My mouth went dry as icy-cold shock melted to something molten and wanting just from seeing him there, half dressed, kneeling on my bed.
He must have been preparing for sleep when he’d heard me, as his curls jutted out messily over his forehead, disheveled in a way that made me want to sink my fingers into them.
His shoulders quaked with silent laughter. I put my hands on my hips. “It isn’t funny,” I argued.
He crossed my room to the window, still chuckling. “It’s a tad funny,” he retorted.
“You won’t kill it?” I asked.
