Saving the Immortal

Chapter Twelve: Caught Looking

Once his breathing had settled fully and the last of the dream's grip on him had loosened, Ruselon rose from the bed.

His hair remained loose, falling free past his shoulders in the manner it had taken since the previous evening, dark against the pale light beginning to creep through the terrace doors, and I found myself, quite without meaning to, watching the way it moved as he crossed the room.

He wore no shirt.

I had not, in the two nights I had shared his bed, properly noticed the shape of him — had been too occupied, on the first night, with my own fear, and too preoccupied, on this second, with the nightmare that had woken us both. But in the growing light of early morning, with his back turned toward the window and his form entirely unguarded, I found myself unable to look away in any manner I could reasonably call proper.

A remarkable specimen, I thought, quite without permission from any sensible part of my mind. Truly, an extraordinary work of nature.

He turned.

And laughed.

Not the quiet, restrained amusement I had grown accustomed to from him in our brief acquaintance, but something bright and unguarded, his shoulders shaking slightly with the force of it, dark hair catching the early light as his head tipped back.

I felt my face grow warm immediately.

"Why are you laughing," I demanded, drawing the blanket rather higher than the moment strictly required, though I could not have said precisely what I hoped to conceal by doing so.

"Thank you," he said, still smiling, "for admiring my appearance so thoroughly."

I stared at him.

Oh, no, I thought, with a horror that had nothing at all to do with propriety and everything to do with sudden, mortifying realization. He can hear my thoughts. I must stop thinking anything at all, immediately, this instant—

He laughed again, harder this time, clearly reading precisely the panic now unfolding across my expression.

"I cannot hear every thought," he said, taking evident mercy on me at last. "Only what you feel most strongly, and only when I am paying particular attention. You were, I confess, feeling rather a great deal a moment ago."

"That is hardly comforting," I said, my cheeks burning considerably hotter now.

"I did not say it to comfort you," he said, the corner of his mouth still curved with genuine amusement. "I said it because I found it rather flattering."

"You are insufferable," I said, though I found I could not entirely summon the indignation the word required, given the particular warmth still spreading through my chest.

"So I have been told," he said, "though rarely by someone looking at me quite the way you were a moment ago."

I opened my mouth to offer some retort, though I had, in truth, no idea what form it might take, and closed it again when nothing sufficiently clever presented itself.

He watched me struggle with it, clearly enjoying my discomfort a great deal more than propriety should have permitted him to.

"I believe," he said finally, mercy returning to his expression, "I shall take a bath before the household stirs properly. You are welcome to continue admiring whatever you please in my absence."

"I was not admiring anything," I said, with as much dignity as I could manage while still flushed considerably past any reasonable shade.

"Of course not," he said, entirely unconvinced, already moving toward the bathing chamber with a lightness to his step I had not yet witnessed from him. "My apologies for the misunderstanding."

He disappeared through the door, and I sat there a moment longer in the tangled sheets, my face still warm, my heart still racing in a manner that had, once again, nothing whatsoever to do with fear.

Foolish, I told myself, not for the first time since arriving at this palace.

Entirely, thoroughly foolish.

I did not, once again, feel remotely persuaded by my own counsel.