Heart of Fire (6 page)

“That will do nicely.” He swung his
legs around and the instant his bare feet hit the floor, he
realized he had been undressed and stripped of both sword and
Feyre. Someone had disrobed him down to his trousers. He inhaled,
then lifted his hands to his face and sniffed. The scent of a woman
lingered on his skin, his hair.

Wanting more information, he stood
near the door and listened. Only soft muffled sounds reached his
ears. He imagined a plump cook bustling about. Plump cooks always
made the best food.

He tried to sense more, sending
tendrils of magic into his surroundings, but a wall of mist drifted
around him. He blamed his overindulgence, although he still
couldn’t recall the tavern responsible.

The door opened without a sound. Two
chairs sat in front of a fireplace, a basket of knitting next to
one. A braided scrap rug covered a stone floor. The room was simple
and tidy. This was not a tavern. Where was he?

Wonderful smells wafted through a
doorway on the far wall. A woman hummed an unfamiliar tune. He
followed his nose into the kitchen and there she stood. With her
back to him, she alternated between slicing seedberries and
flipping griddlecakes.

He inhaled, her scent filling his
nose. She was the one who’d undressed him. Pity he didn’t couldn’t
remember what else she’d done to him.

A sly smile lifted the corners of
his mouth, and he moved closer. He’d not had a woman in ages for
many reasons, but he complimented himself on the one he’d picked to
break his fast. From the back, she looked a fair prize. Tall for a
woman, but well shaped – even her loose tunic couldn’t hide a
slender waist and well-curved hips. If only he could remember last
night. Her scent caressed his senses with warm, feminine
sweetness.

He came a little closer. Her hair
was so uncommonly pale, it could have passed for elven. He tried to
get a glance at her ears to be sure she wasn’t. A seedberry rolled
off the counter. She bent to pick it up, placing her nicely rounded
backside inches from his groin. He could not recall a lovelier
sight.

His stomach growled
loudly.

She whirled around, dropping the
utensil in her hand, and inhaled sharply, almost colliding with his
naked chest.

“What are you...why are you...you
should be in bed!” she sputtered, her pale lavender eyes
wide.

A fair prize, indeed.

* * *

What nerve! The creature dared sneak
up on her in her own home, half naked, and that smirk – like a cat
full of milkbeetles. Jessalyne breathed deeply to calm down. She
willed herself to stop staring into his silver-edged onyx
eyes.

“Why are you out of bed?” She asked
again, bending to pick up the dropped utensil. Her scullery felt
too small and very warm at the moment.

“Good morning to you as well.” He
backed away and sat at the table.

She ignored his jab at her lack of
politeness, relieved by the distance he put between them. “You
shouldn’t be up.”

“Why, pray tell?” His devilish grin
widened. “Were you bringing me breakfast in bed? If that’s so, I’ll
gladly go back and wait for you there.”

Jessalyne felt blood surge to her
cheeks at his words. What was he implying? “If I had known you were
such a lout, I would have left you to the mercy of the
fever.”

At the word fever, his smile
dissolved.

“I saved your life. You should be
thankful,” she said.

He scowled. “You didn’t save my
life. Illness doesn’t affect me.”

Hah! It apparently affected his
brain. She snorted. “Then why were you boiling with fever? Why did
I bother poring over books and crushing herbs and straining
mixtures and making an elixir to heal you? An elixir that did
indeed cure you!”

“My body uses fever to burn illness
out of the human portion of my blood. I would have gotten better
with or without your elixir.”

She glared at him. “And now I
suppose you expect me to feed you.”

“That’s the best offer I’ve heard so
far.” He smiled wickedly. “Although the day is young.”

Ignorant lout. She turned her back
and begun heaping food onto a platter. She dropped a plate of trout
and griddlecakes in front of him and made to go. He planted his
foot on the chair across from him and shoved it out.

“Sit. I can’t eat all of this
alone.”

Undoubtedly a lie. Most men could
eat their share and then some without breathing hard. She
hesitated, unwilling to bend to the whims of this creature. But she
was hungry, and it would give her a chance to ask the questions
plaguing her. She took another plate from the cupboard. He watched
everything she did but said nothing.

The silence and the staring made her
uncomfortable. Not to mention sharing breakfast with a bare-chested
man. Elf. Whatever kind of beast he was. The sight of him shirtless
left her speechless. How did a man’s shoulders get so wide? He must
think her simple.

In the light of day, his skin shone
like raven’s feathers. She knew the softness of that
midnight-colored skin and longed to touch it again. Just once, to
be sure her memory was true. The thought flooded her face with
heat. She pushed a seedberry slice across her plate as she tried to
refocus and was just about to ask about Petal when he
spoke.

“I didn’t mean to startle
you.”

She looked up through her lashes. “I
wasn’t startled.”

“You were.” He paused, a griddlecake
halfway to his mouth.

“I am fine.”

He started as if to refute her again
but paused, the faintest twinkling in his eyes. “Do you have a
name, or shall I come up with one of my own?”

“I have a name.” She popped the
seedberry slice into her mouth to stall.

He waited for a moment, then leaned
closer. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

She swallowed. “You haven’t told me
yours.”

“Master elf will do.”

“I am not about to call you master,
and elf is not a name. It’s what you are.”

He shook his head slightly. Was that
a smile? “Ertemis.”

Satisfied, she leaned back. “I am
Lady Jessalyne.”

“Lady Jessalyne? You’re nobility?”
He peered out the window and laughed. ”Living out in the woods? I
doubt that.”

The urge to strike him was thick.
She pushed away from the table, grabbed her plate and headed out to
the slop sink. She needed to get away from him for a moment, to
breathe air untainted by all that maleness. And nakedness. His
laughter wafted out behind her as she pushed through the side
door.

Ertemis. His name rolled too easily
around on her tongue. She hadn’t expected him to recover so
quickly. At least now her conscience was clear. He would be on his
way, and that would be the end of it. But she still didn’t know
what he was doing with her father’s donkey.

She left the plate to soak and went
back inside, but he wasn’t in the kitchen. She peeked into the rest
of the house. The back bedroom door swung shut.

Good. She would speak to him when he
was dressed. She straightened her kitchen and had almost emptied
her head of the sight of his bare chest when he came back in. He
wore boots with his trousers this time, but still no
tunic.

She balled her hands to keep from
touching him. That would not do. “I imagine the sort of woman
you’re used to finds your lack of dress appealing. I do not.” In
truth, his bare chest was far more to her liking than she cared to
admit.

An irritating smile danced across
his lips. “I would be happy to put my tunic on, Lady Jessalyne.
Simply show me where you put it when you undressed me.”

He stressed the word in a way that
gave her wicked thoughts. She chastised herself for not remembering
she’d washed and hung the shirt to dry after giving him the elixir.
Brushing past him, she hurried out to the clothesline. She snatched
the garment off and stormed back into the house.

“There.” She threw the tunic at him.
“Now dress. Please.” Or not. No, he needed to dress.

He held it out in front of him.
“Laundered and mended. Do you treat all your guests this way or are
you hoping I’ll reward your kindness again?”

“Again?”

“Perhaps you’d like another taste of
last night?”

“A taste of you feverish and
sweating in my childhood bed? I don’t think you’re well after all.”
The man was unbearable.

“Did we not...” He raised his
brows.

“Whatever you’re implying, no, we
did not. Do most women fall at your feet so quickly?”

“Actually...,” he began with a
slight grin.

She cut him off with a glare, trying
to damp down the building heat of anger and unwarranted jealousy.
Let him rut like the beast he was. What did she care?

His expression softened, and
surprisingly, he held his tongue and yanked the tunic over his
head. Jessalyne looked away, unwilling to give her overactive
imagination further fuel. As soon as he was decent, she would ask
him about Petal. Then he could be on his way and out of her life.
Her front door creaked. She turned around. He was gone.

* * *

Ertemis found his way blocked by two
cervidae guards, hands on sword hilts. Why he hadn’t discerned them
earlier? Testing his senses again, he found the fog in his head was
gone and he could read the guards. They were wary of
him.

His hands came up in a show of
peace. “Just looking for my horse. As soon as he’s saddled, I’ll be
about my business.”

The guards relaxed their stance. The
tall one spoke. “Territt will take you to your mount. Fine beast, I
might add.”

“He is indeed, thank you.” Ertemis
knew enough to take peace when it was offered.

He followed the guard through the
woods on an overgrown path. Before long, they came upon Dragon and
Petal in a rundown willow pen attached to a small, three-sided
shed. From the shed’s state, it hadn’t housed animals in many
years.

Dragon whickered a greeting and
Petal, not to be left out, brayed softly. Dragon nudged Petal’s
neck with his nose.

Ertemis raised an eyebrow at
Dragon’s behavior, but he had other things to worry about. He
needed to get his bearings so he could start looking for Haemus’
daughter again. He nodded to the guard and promised to be on his
way.

His mind wandered to the lovely Lady
Jessalyne as he went through the mechanics of preparing Dragon’s
tack. She was a uniquely beautiful woman and oddly unafraid of
him.

He smiled at how flustered she’d
become in the kitchen, nose to chest with him. The sight of her
fair face flushed with indignation, her chest rising against the
thin fabric of her tunic with each deep breath, tightened his
insides like no other woman ever had. Maybe the fever had affected
him. And she had not denied she was the one who had undressed him.
The thought of her hands on his skin caused parts of him to
stiffen.

Perhaps after he delivered the key,
he would return and let her undress him again. He shook his head.
Fool. She only helped you because she thought you were dying. What
would she want with an ex-Legionnaire? She was a simple country
healer. Probably not frightened of him because she didn’t know
better. He couldn’t imagine she’d think him worthy of more time
than she’d already given him. In his scarred, battered heart, he
knew she would sooner dally with Saladan himself before she would
choose the company of a lowborn halfling.

He wanted to leave more than ever.
With renewed purpose, he finished saddling Dragon. Once done, he
turned to ask the guard for some bearings, and found himself alone
in the wood.

“Saladan’s hocks!” Ertemis kicked
the ground. He was so addlepated by the curve of Jessalyne’s hips
and the depth of her heather eyes that he had no weapons, no cloak,
and no idea where he was. He hadn’t even heard the guard
leave.

Temper simmering, he started back to
the cottage, berating himself for succumbing to a woman’s wiles.
What point is there in getting wrapped in the charms of some esya
who doesn’t want me anyway? I don’t need the misery.

He turned a section of path
half-circling a huge acacia thicket, and as he came round the blind
bend, Jessalyne crashed into him.

She fell flat on her backside,
glaring at him with fire-filled eyes. She looked mad as a faerie
with fleas. Ertemis stifled a chuckle.

“Oaf!” she snapped.

“Am I to blame because you didn’t
watch where you were going? Women!” He extended his hand to help
her, but she ignored it, and got up on her own.

Jessalyne shook bits of leaves and
dirt from her clothes. “I thought you left.” She brushed her hair
back.

He stared at the curve of her ear
and wondered what it might taste like. “Miss me
already?”

“No.” She shook her head for
emphasis.

“I started to leave, but your guards
–“

“They are not my guards.”