Chapter 190 – Confusion

AYLETH

“What are you sorry for?” Ayleth asked Etan, her tone making it clear the question was a challenge.

Etan swallowed. “For not telling you what was happening with your mother. For making the decision without asking you. I know it was poorly done. But it truly was because I feared for your life. I vowed to keep you safe, and I will.”

She nodded. She didn’t think he was lying. 

It also didn’t stop her being madder than a hornet stuck in a jar. 

And afraid, she realized. Perhaps more afraid than angry. If he would leave like that… if he believed it had been the right thing to do… what would it take to make him do it again? Did she need to sleep with one eye open for the rest of her life, in fear of his disappearing like a breath of wind in the night? 

“Ayleth, please tell me you believe me.”

She nodded again, but looked down, away from his handsome face, and the intensity of his eyes, fixed on her and pleading. 

It wasn’t fair. 

He hadn’t been fair.

He wasn’t being fair.

Ayleth swallowed hard. “I believe you,” she said quietly. “But I am… still uncertain.”

“Of what? Of me?!” Etan asked, reaching for her hand—full of reins—and leaning towards her, his eyes wide. “Ayleth, love, you have no need—” 

“Not of your love, Etan. I am not uncertain of that.”

He took a breath and his shoulders dropped a hair. But he didn’t stop staring. “Then what is it?”

She wasn’t entirely certain. And that was the problem. But before she could say that, Falek came trotting out of the barn. 

“It’s safe,” he said, his voice low. “Bring your things. I’ll take the horses.”

And then she had reason to focus on other things for a time. So she was saved from giving Etan an answer. 

But not from the searing path of his gaze that followed her every move as she finally got that ridiculous tie unknotted and dismounted to walk inside. The hair on the back of her neck rose as they walked into the shadows of the old barn—there were boards missing from its sides that allowed moonlight to cast lines on the dirt floor. And the squeak and rustle of wildlife that made its home here. 

Ayleth would not shudder. And she would not weep. 

She was there. With Etan. And they would never be separated again. Not if she had her way. 

But could she say the same for him?

It was agreed that they wouldn’t risk a fire in the dark, so once they had the horses unsaddled and watered, secured in a long pen that still had its gate, they all squatted in the dirt and ate oatcakes and water from the waterskins before Etan and Ayleth were shown to the rickety ladder up into the loft where a cloak or two thrown over the slightly damp piles of straw would make for decent bedding. 

They were warned to stay quiet, that Borsche and Falek would take turns guarding through the daylight hours. 

Etan’s eyes hadn’t left Ayleth since they’d entered the barn, and now the light was bright enough outside that she could make out the lines in his forehead as he stood at the base of the ladder, waiting to follow her up. 

He offered her a hand as she approached, and she took it, though she didn’t need it. Then she climbed the ladder, hyper-aware of his eyes on her backside as they climbed. 

As Borsche stalked outside to take first watch, and Falek followed him, apparently intending to nap in the shadow of the other side of the barn until his turn, Ayleth made it to the top of the ladder and carefully across the loft floor to the mounds of hay at the back, up under the eaves of the roof. 

Her bag had been laid there carefully by Falek, while Etan’s cloak was spread out over the hay, and hers over his for us as a blanket. 

Her stomach clenched as she had a sudden vision of being naked and twisted up with Etan under that cloak.

Ayleth blinked and froze just a few feet away. 

Etan, who’d been at her side, took one more step, then stopped, turning. “What is it?”

She looked up at him. He was already unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt. Soon he would start on the buttons on his stomach and chest, and he’d take the shirt off and—gah!

Ayleth had to turn her head away, to stop seeing his beautiful body in her mind. “I find I am… nervous,” she said breathlessly.

“About… me?” Etan said, and his voice rose so quickly on the last word, it cracked. 

Ayleth nodded. “I… I’m struggling to trust you.”

Etan’s mouth dropped open, and to her great relief his hands stopped moving on the buttons at his neck. But then he stepped up to her taking her arms in his thick, strong hands and staring down at her—not angry, as she’d imagined when he moved so quickly—but desperate. Pleading.

Afraid.

“Ayleth, please. Forgive me. I know I frightened you. I know it was hard—I cannot tell you how it tore me apart to leave you. But… it was for your safety. I had to make a choice! It was keep you safe and return for you, or take you and have you killed. There was… there was no choice for me.”

One of his hands came up to brush aside strands of hair that had fallen from her braid while they were riding and she almost leaned into his palm like a kitten. But she held herself still.

“And yet, here I am,” she said softly, begging him to have an answer she could accept and embrace, so she could touch him without fear. “Unhurt. Still alive. Clearly there was a third option.”

“But I didn’t know that! I couldn’t risk it!”

“Yet, you could risk my parents annulling our union and marrying me off to another man?”

Etan snarled, gripping her arms, but he caught himself and swallowed hard, shaking his head. “No. I was never going to accept that—” 

“What choice would you have had? You weren’t here!”

“I was coming back, Ayleth! I was only leaving long enough to find Quwan and free you from the spell. It was never—”

“With another woman!” she hissed, tears pricking her eyes, blurring her vision. “You left in the arms of another woman!”

“No.” Etan shook his head emphatically. “I never did. She was with me, but I was never… I was never in her arms.”

“Etan, I found you two—”

“You found me taken by surprise as she’d come after me when I’d left to get away from her,” he growled. “You found me grieving you and stunned that she could see that and would still… approach. You found me in turmoil, Ayleth!”

She blinked at the harshness in his tone, the light in his eyes. But then his face crumpled and he moved, pulling her into his chest, resting his forehead on hers, and his words were whispered pleas.

“Please, Ayleth. You know me. You know my love for you. You know I could never touch another. Please, forgive me. Please. I beg you.”

He had both hands cupping her face, his lips brushing hers as he spoke, and his eyes closed, forehead wrinkled in pain. 

“I beg you, Ayleth. Please.” His entire body trembled, and his voice cracked again.

Ayleth shuddered and reached up to his chest. To grip him closer, or push him away? 

She wasn’t sure.