Thorne (Random Romance) (17 page)

I sank back on my haunches, staring at him. My heart was struggling to slow; I’d truly thought something terrible had happened to him for a moment there.

‘Poor Thorne,’ Finn sighed. I looked up to see that the twins both appeared amused, and I felt like shouting at them. ‘You frightened him, Penn.’

Penn whooped with delight, then ran ahead. Finn dashed after him, keeping pace. Jonah fell into step beside Isadora, so I hung back on my own this time, watching them all. I worried about what would become of us when
they no longer had the strength to laugh at the darkness.

Mount Barraka loomed, casting shadows and releasing plumes of smoke. The volcano had not erupted in decades, and even then it had only been small. She looked ready to blow. As we approached, the rocks grew darker, the air warmer, smokier. We skirted around the base, staying close to the sea as the wind was blowing inland. A few hours later we made it to the other side and found what Jonah explained was the Bath House, a famous spot that people from all over Kaya travelled to enjoy. It was essentially a walled sandstone inn, large enough to house several hundred people at a time, and it was full of dozens of different sized baths cut into the rock and heated by the lava beneath the earth.

‘We don’t have time for bathing,’ Isadora pointed out.

‘I’ve wanted to come here my whole life,’ Finn exclaimed. ‘I don’t care how uptight the lady is, nor how poorly she wishes to smell – I’m having a bath and anyone who tries to stop me will get a knife in the eye. Understood?’

I hid a smile as we gave a mumbled ‘understood’.

‘We need more food supplies anyway,’ Jonah agreed, ‘since the giant eats four times as much as any normal person.’

Blushing, I led the way into the House, paying coin from our royal expense purse and renting two rooms, one for Isadora and Finn and the second for the males. I wondered if the girls would end up murdering each other during the night, but frankly would rather endure torture than try to intervene.

The others headed straight for the baths, but I hung back, checking the rooms – their entrances and windows, the locks and security. Hesitantly I made my way through the halls, passing people who stared at me in fear. At the first baths I could see Finn and Jonah languishing in the warm water, laughing as Penn did bomb dives into the pool and annoyed all the other patrons.

I couldn’t spot Isadora – she seemed driven by the need to be perpetually alone. I knew immediately that I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s fun, so I bypassed the pool and went strolling through the rock gardens. I kept to the empty pathways, scenting people and avoiding them.

As I was about to turn back I caught sight of a figure through the branches of an olive tree. It was a woman, and she was so pretty that I couldn’t help but sneak a proper look at her. She was on her knees before a pool, reaching in with a long tree branch to fish something out. A few soft curses left her mouth, and I could smell real worry on her skin.

I walked to her side to see that there was a gold bracelet sitting at the bottom of the pool. She would be able to reach it if she put her arm in the water, but for some reason she must have not wanted to get wet.

‘Let me help you,’ I offered, sinking to my knees to reach in and pluck the bracelet free. Her scent hit me full force, and I swung around to see that the woman was trembling with fear. She backed away from me, eyes white and emerald, white and emerald.

‘It’s all right,’ I tried quickly. ‘I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

She shook her head, stumbling over a loose rock.

‘Please, I would never hurt you –’

But she was already dashing away.

A sick kind of guilt filled me. I didn’t belong here. The gold bracelet in my hand was cool and smooth. It was precious to the woman. But she hadn’t given it a single thought since the moment I stepped too close and she was faced not with her treasure but with a creature from her nightmares.

I placed the bracelet on a stone bench where she would be able to find it and then I quickly walked back towards the room, praying to the sword that I wouldn’t meet anyone else along the way.

No such luck. There were people blocking the path before me, and I
saw quickly that one of them was Isadora, her hair and skin unmistakable in the afternoon sun. Around her were five children and they were poking her with
sticks
. I was so dumbfounded that my feet fell still and I forgot to do anything but stare.

Isadora tried to move through them but they blocked her way and jabbed her from all sides, calling her words like ‘demon’ and ‘monster’ and ‘hideous’.

I came to my senses and hurried towards them, but I was beaten to it. Finn had appeared from the other end of the path and in her face was a look of such fury I thought it a miracle the earth didn’t incinerate beneath her feet. She grabbed the closest boy by the back of the neck and kicked him so hard in the backside that he yelped and sprinted away.

‘Get out of here, you snot-nosed little brats, or the demon and I will come to your rooms tonight and eat your souls out.’

They ran, squealing with shared excitement.

Isadora was expressionless as Finn and I converged on her.

‘What a bunch of shits,’ Finn commented. ‘Why didn’t you beat some sense into them?’

‘They’re
children
,’ Isadora pointed out.

‘And?’

‘Are you all right?’ I asked her. Isadora merely nodded and went inside.

Finn and I looked at each other.

‘I thought you didn’t want to fight, huh?’

‘Oh no, you misunderstood – I’m more than happy to fight those smaller and weaker than me,’ she replied, deadpan.

I started laughing, and a slow smile found her lips. Her eyes turned violet. And then sank to a deep, dark purple, so dark it was almost black. It caught me, the scent of this shift. Trapped me in a different kind of cage, one
with bars that felt at once completely new and also like they’d been waiting for me all along. She was dripping wet from the pool and I was abruptly aware of how her shift clung to her body.

Without a word, she turned and walked along the path, descending a set of steps I hadn’t explored. And without a word, I followed her. At the bottom of the steps was a lemon tree, its scent heady and delicious. It was not as heady and delicious, however, as the scent of Finn, and this was why my beast made me follow.

Beyond the tree was a small bath that overlooked the sea, and it was completely empty. Finn climbed into the water and gave a long sigh of pleasure. ‘Don’t make me force you,’ she warned without opening her eyes.

I glanced around to make sure we were alone before removing my shirt and breeches, leaving my undershorts. Stepping into the bath, I sank to my chin and felt warmth spread my muscles with a kind of agonised bliss.

‘My parents met at these baths,’ Finn said with a smile.

I watched her face, the lines of it, the shape of her mouth, the dark lashes resting against her freckled cheekbones.

‘Do you want to hear the story?’

I nodded, forgetting she couldn’t see me. It didn’t matter – I didn’t think she cared if I wanted to or not.

‘Da was here to sell his catch to the kitchens, and he was carrying two huge nets of carp over his shoulders as he wound his way through a thousand screaming children in the halls. He was young then, brash and confident with what he called “the entitlement of youth”. He was handsome too, as Ma told it. Sun-drenched cheeks, muscles made for trawling fishing nets. Quick to laugh.’

I could see Finn in the description, and understood where she’d come from. This Alexi was a far cry from the man I had met in her house last week though, the one crippled and shrunken by loss.

‘As he drew nearer to the kitchens, he grew more and more frustrated by the chaos, and started snapping at the kids to
move out of his damned way
!’ Finn grinned as she spoke, obviously remembering the way her ma used to tell the story. I felt right there with Alexi, surprised yet again by how she conjured such images with her words.

‘And then Da stumbled, careening into something, and both the nets of fish unravelled from his clutches to spew all over the poor creature who’d been unfortunate enough to collide with the fishmonger. Da looked down, about to erupt into a burst of frustrated curses, when instead he stood speechless. For it was a girl. Small and plain, less good-looking by far than he, and covered head-to-toe in stinking raw seafood. But she was laughing. As Da stuttered a mortified apology, she simply said it was a lucky setting for it and that she would forgive him if he took the bath
with
her. And they bonded, just like that.’

I smiled as she finished and looked at me. ‘It’s a good story.’

‘It’s an excellent story.’

‘You tell it well. You tell all stories well.’

‘The secret is in the embellishments,’ she revealed.

‘So which bits were actually true?’

‘If I told you that, it would spoil all the fun.’ She laughed at my expression. ‘How did your parents meet?’

I shrugged. ‘She was sold to him for marriage.’

‘Oh. Lovely.’

Finn swam a little closer. Her cheeks were flushed from the warm water, and her eyes were pale, pale yellow, like a field of wheat or a distant sun. ‘What is it about you?’ she murmured to herself.

I held her eyes. Held them and held them.

Then I noticed that one of her hands was resting over the surface of the water and beneath it the liquid was inexplicably forming tiny orbs that
floated up into the air.

My eyes widened and she followed my gaze, closing her hand with a snap. The water abruptly returned to normal.

Something in her breathing hitched and she stood up. ‘I want salt.’ Then she waded to the side of the bath, climbed over the stone wall, and started picking her way down the rocks to the seashore. Apparently we weren’t going to talk about whatever that was.

I followed. Felt as though I had no choice in the matter anymore: where she went, I went. What I didn’t understand was why.

The ocean was shockingly cold when it crashed into me. Finn was ahead, diving under already, looking like a fish. I pushed my way out and ducked under; it was like coming alive, like my body finally knew how to work, to breathe, to be here, be present. It felt so damn good I laughed. I wanted and needed and I was tired of denying that. So maybe I could just let myself have this, for a little while. Sun and sea and Finn’s laughter.

Finn

After our swim we sat on the warm sand, letting the sun dry our skin. There was a strange, almost unbearable restlessness thrumming beneath my surface.

‘I want to try something,’ I blurted, knowing it was a bad idea but unable to help myself. Wasn’t that always the way of things? My foolish heart running towards cliffs and leaping over their edges without care for the consequence. It was easy to blame this part of me on Sam and on Ma, but I knew that in truth I had been like this since the moment I was born, and nothing would ever change it.

Thorne and I were both resting our arms on our raised knees, and he glanced over his shoulder at me.

‘Touch me. Skin on skin. Just a little.’

‘Really?’

‘I just want to try it.’ I was nervous, actually. Which was unusual.

Thorne pressed the tip of his index finger against the skin of my ankle. And there he was, all of him. The
beat, beat
of his blood through his veins. The
thump, thump
at the very centre of him. And the suffocating roof of the world crashing down atop him, bowing his strong shoulders until they were weak, shrinking him into small small
small
–

‘Stop, stop,’ I panted. He snatched his finger away and the feeling receded immediately, gone as if it had never been there.

He searched my face closely, but he didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell him.

Swallowing, I bid him, ‘Try again.’

Thorne hesitated, probably not exactly liking the idea of what I was experiencing of him, but then he reached the back of his hand out and brushed his fingers over my wet foot, gliding them up over my ankle and around the underside of my calf.

This time I got crushing weight. But I also got a sudden rush of cold so intense it felt as if I’d been frozen from the inside. My eyes flew open and met his, but whatever he saw in my face did not make him remove his touch. He circled his fingers around my ankle and clasped it in his big hand, touching me more firmly.

The ice slipped away, as if thawed, and I got earth and sea and sharp glittering edges and, and something –
what was that
?

‘More,’ I murmured, distracted.

And that was when Thorne bent his head to press his lips to the inside of my ankle, and I actually –
embarrassingly
– gasped. Because the thing I couldn’t grasp became an overwhelmingly sweet
lightness
. It tasted of cherries and felt like whispers against my skin, and it was fast like fluid animal strength melting through trees and surrounded by pine and roughage and warm warm warm.

The air left me in a great big rush and I needed more. I needed more
and more and more for infinity. He knew; he could smell it on me, and I in turn knew this because I was allowing myself to stay with his touch, to really feel it, to feel beyond the first layers of it. It occurred to me that I did not touch anyone enough to feel beyond the initial sensation to the complexities of what really lay in their hearts, and this, for the first time, was a revelation. Of Thorne, and of me.

Thorne moved his mouth up the inside of my leg, tickling the underside of my knee and then sliding around to the soft length of my thigh.

I reached to press my hands against his shoulders and back, wanting more touch, as much as I could have. I could feel his heart beating in time with mine and I started to confuse all the pieces of him with all the pieces of me, my mind scattering more with each kiss. His hunger was draping my skin like a veil; I could
taste
it in my mouth. He could taste salt, and he said it; he called me ‘Salt Girl’, with eyes that darted up to rest on mine, eyes I could see berserker and boy and man and beast within.