Willing Sacrifice (8 page)

T
orr went completely numb. He couldn’t believe what Grace had just done. She’d leapt from the cliff. Killed herself to take out one of the creatures. Killed herself to save him.

She was so insanely selfless, throwing her life away as if it meant nothing. How could he have let her do that? How could he not have seen this coming? How could he not have known she would gladly trade her life for his? Again.

He should never have let her come out here with him. Fuck what Brenya had said about gaining her trust. He should have locked Grace inside one of those huts, wrapped up in a soft cocoon of blankets so she couldn’t get so much as a paper cut.

He stumbled to the edge, praying that the drop wasn’t as steep as it seemed, or that there was water beneath to cushion her fall.

She couldn’t be gone yet—not when he’d just gotten her back.

He braced himself for what he might see and peered over the edge. The shattered remains of the Hunter lay strewn on the far bank of a narrow river. Jagged scrape marks and chunks of black glass were embedded in the opposite cliff, where it had hit as it fell to its death. Below, the edge of the river had begun to freeze.

There was no sign of Grace on the banks below, no sign of her bobbing in the churning water.

“I’m here.” Her voice came from his left, strained and weak.

Torr held his breath, afraid he’d imagined the sound.

“Over here.”

This time he was sure he hadn’t imagined it.

She sat on a narrow ledge of rock about eight feet below the edge. There was blood on her bare legs and more running down her cheek. Dirt covered her skin, along with several cuts and scratches. Leaves clung to her hair, which was a wild, tangled mess. Even so, she was the single most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

She was alive. The sheer power of his relief knocked him on his ass. He sat there, weak and shaking as a tidal wave of gratitude flowed through him.

Grace was alive. Nothing else mattered except his burning need to keep her that way.

“How badly are you hurt?” he asked, his voice shaking with emotion he couldn’t control.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad. Just give me a minute and I’ll try to get up.”

Climb up and risk falling again? Fuck that. “No. Stay there. I’ll come get you.” As soon as he stopped shaking so hard. If he tried it right now, he was going to get both of them killed. He needed a minute to collect his wits and regain the strength in his limbs. The thought that he’d lost her had been enough to render even a strong man like him weak.

From the breathless quality of her voice, he could tell he wasn’t the only one scared shitless by her stunt. “There’s another way down here other than the one I took. Just follow the edge for a few more yards around the curve and you’ll see a natural ramp in the stone.”

“Okay. Just stay still and I’ll be down as soon as I can. I need to take care of unfinished business.”

She nodded, her body already slumping with fatigue as the effects of the adrenaline wore off. If she was more seriously injured than she looked, shock wasn’t going to be far behind.

Torr pulled himself together, pushed away from the ledge and went back to where the Hunter was trapped in the tree trunk. He cut himself a long section of branch about the length of his arm and skinned the smaller twigs away, leaving him a nice thick club.

With a firm two-handed grip, he got as close to the thrashing creature as he dared and swung right for its head.

The beast shattered, its grating scream dying with it. Bits of glassy black chips showered over him. A few left shallow slices along his exposed skin, but the sting barely registered. All that mattered now was Grace.

•   •   •

Grace tried to still the trembling in her limbs. She wasn’t cold anymore, but she couldn’t seem to keep from shaking.

Nervous energy tumbled out of her core with nowhere to go. She couldn’t even stand and walk it off—not with what was probably a sprained ankle.

The fall she’d taken hadn’t been very far down, but in that moment her life flashed before her eyes.

With only four years of memory, it was a sad, lonely thing to witness.

There was more to life than what Brenya allowed her, and from this moment on, Grace wasn’t going to let anyone stand in the way of her experiencing it. Weak or not, human or not, she was going to find her place in the world and milk every drop of happiness she could from life. No one was going to stop her.

Torr’s steps sounded from behind her, much too fast for the narrow ledge he traveled. Before she could even scoot around enough to tell him to slow down, he was at her side, his big hot hands gliding over her.

“Where are you hurt?” he asked.

Grace was struck again by how beautiful he was. Lean animal strength poured from him, making her wish she could soak it in. Even in his concern he was stunning. His worry seemed to brighten his amber eyes and gave him the feral look of a male predator.

She shivered again, and this time it was due more to some innate feminine response to his nearness than to her ordeal.

“My ankle is the worst. The rest are just minor scratches and bruises.”

His hands moved along her leg, gently unlacing the leather straps covering her calves. Once her leg was bare, his fingers stroked her skin, carefully probing as he inched down to her foot. She closed her eyes and reveled in how good his touch felt.

Right up to the point where he prodded a tender spot.

She sucked in a hissing breath. “There. I think it’s sprained.”

“Okay. Let’s just sit here for a minute and see if the pain eases.” He sat behind her, positioning himself so that his long legs spread out beside hers. He wrapped his arms around her, urging her to lean back against him and tuck her head under his chin.

Grace didn’t resist. She was still so shaken and terrified that the idea of wrapping herself in his strength seemed like the best idea in the world.

Every breath she took was filled with his scent. The solid bulk of his body behind her put off waves of heat that made coiled muscles unclench. As the seconds flowed by, she began to relax. With each shuddering series of tremors, he stroked her arms and helped ease her through it. Finally, after what was an embarrassingly long time, she got control of herself enough to stop shaking.

“Please tell me you knew this ledge was here when you jumped,” he said. His tone was gentle, but there was a tension in his body that told her to tread carefully with her answer.

“I didn’t jump. I just stepped down.” A long way down, but that wasn’t something she thought she needed to remind him of.

“And you knew the ledge was here?”

Her need for honesty and her desire not to upset him started a brief war in her gut. She settled for “I was pretty sure.”

He let out a short strangled sound, then cleared his throat. When he spoke, it was with exaggerated calmness. “How sure is
pretty
sure?”

“I’d been here several times. There’s a cave a little farther down the ledge where some mushrooms that Brenya likes grow.”

Some of his calmness faded. “That’s not an answer.”

“I knew the ledge was long. I thought I was in the right spot.”

“But you didn’t look first, did you?”

“And take my eyes off that thing?”

His arms tightened around her for a second before releasing the pressure. “Promise me you’ll never do anything like that again.”

Grace knew the power of a promise, the innate magic it held. That was one of the first things Brenya had taught her: never make a promise she wasn’t certain she could keep. Doing so was a form of slavery she would never escape.

“I don’t know you well enough to promise you anything,” she said. “But I have no intention of going cliff-diving again anytime soon. It scared me to death.”

“You shouldn’t risk your life like that. You have no idea how valuable you are, how much pain your absence would cause.”

“I’m no more valuable than anyone else, including you.”

“That’s why you jumped. To save me.”

“I wasn’t smart enough or fast enough to think of a better plan. I’m just glad it worked out.”

“You’re injured. That’s hardly what I would call working out.”

“My ankle is already feeling better.”

“It doesn’t look better. It looks broken.”

She glanced down and saw the obvious swelling. “It’s not broken. It looks worse than it is. Once I’m on my feet, I’ll just walk it off.”

His thighs tightened against her hips. “You can’t walk off a broken bone, no matter how advanced your skills at denial are.”

“I’m not an idiot. I know my own limits.”

“Apparently not, seeing as how you thought you might be able to fly.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I knew I couldn’t fly.” As soon as she said the words and felt his body tense against hers, she knew it was the wrong thing to say.

She turned her torso enough that she could look up at him. “Can we please just let it go? I did what I thought was right.”

He looked down at her, which put his mouth only inches from hers. It was the perfect angle for a kiss—at least she thought so. She couldn’t remember ever having been kissed, but her lips still tingled in eagerness, as if they knew exactly what to do.

Torr cupped her cheek. His hand was so big it nearly covered the side of her face. His thumb stroked along her cheekbone, awakening some deep awareness she’d never felt before.

Once again, that odd sense of familiarity assaulted her, shoving out all other thought.

“You touch me like you’ve done so all your life,” she told him.

His eyes darkened. He licked his lips, and her gaze was drawn to the curved indentation above his top lip. The urge to dip the tip of her tongue in the groove was almost more than she could resist. She had the strangest sense that if she did so, he would taste sweet and forbidden, like hidden memories.

Beard stubble shadowed his jaw, lending him a harsher edge. Curiosity lifted her hand until she was touching the roughness riding his skin. A strange shock of excitement rocketed along her spine until her pain was a distant, meaningless thing.

His hand slid to encircle her throat in a touch so gentle she had to concentrate to feel more than a tingling heat. His forearm settled between her breasts, and she was sure her heart sped up to match his pulse.

“You would have looked so pretty wearing my luceria,” he said.

She didn’t know what that was, but the way he said it, it hardly mattered. “If you want me to, I will.”

A sad smile curved his mouth. “I want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted, but it’s impossible. Like so many things.”

Before her head cleared enough for her to ask him what that meant, he helped her sit up and he stood, all in one fluid movement.

With his strength and heat out of reach, the horrible cold of her shock and fear began seeping back in. She suppressed a shiver until his back was turned before she gave in to it.

He surveyed the area. “When you’re ready, we’ll see if you can stand, or if you’re more damaged than you think. If you can walk, we’ll head back to the village.”

“If I can’t walk, you should go back for help.”

He turned toward her then, his gaze intense against the backdrop of the orange sky. “I know you hardly know me, but do you really think I’d leave you out here to fend for yourself, wounded and alone?”

“What other choice do you have? You have to be back before nightfall.”

“I can carry you.”

“It’s too far. I’ll be fine here. I’ll just hide in the cave over there until you can get back.”

He scrubbed his fingers through his hair in frustration and started pacing. Low, angry words spilled from his lips, too quiet for her to hear.

Seeing him mad made that old queasy fear lurking within her lurch to the surface. Instinct took over, and she curled herself into the smallest space possible.

The movement caused her ankle to shift, and pain shot up her leg, but she bit back the scream and remained silent.

He won’t find you if you’re quiet.

The words came to her in a sweet but terrified voice—one she recognized but couldn’t place. All she knew was that she trusted the voice absolutely and would do whatever it told her to.

“Grace? Are you okay?” Torr. That was him speaking to her, not some phantom memory she couldn’t grasp.

A hand landed lightly on her shoulder and she jerked away. Terror radiated out along her limbs, until she was quivering with the need to hide.

“Grace, honey, you’re okay now. You’re safe. Look at me.”

Until this moment, she hadn’t realized that she’d shut her eyes.

His hand stroked her face, the touch achingly gentle.

Grace pulled in a shuddering breath and forced herself to open her eyes. Torr was crouched beside her, touching her, but still keeping his distance, thanks to his long arms.

“There you are,” he said. “I thought I’d lost you for a minute.”

She swallowed hard to shove the fear down where it belonged, only to have it replaced by shame. Her cheeks burned, and she couldn’t stand to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you okay?”

She gave a shaky nod and took an equally shaky breath. “I’m a nutcase, but I’ll be fine.”

“You’re not a nutcase.”

She started to sit up, and Torr hurried to help ease her upright. “I don’t know what else you’d call it.”

“You’ve been through some terrible trauma.” He said it like he knew it was true, rather than as though he was guessing. “You’re allowed to be afraid sometimes, especially after jumping off a cliff to avoid being killed by ugly demon-cicles.”

The metallic taste of fear at the back of her throat began to fade. Each slow breath was a victory, strengthening her just in time to pull in the next. “It shouldn’t matter what I’ve been through. I don’t remember any of it, so it shouldn’t bother me.”

“But it does, and that’s okay.” He wiped away a tear, and until that second she hadn’t realized she’d let herself cry.

She wanted to stand up and slip away where she could pull herself together in private, but with her ankle throbbing, that wasn’t an option. “No, it’s not okay. I keep telling Brenya she should help me remember so I can face whatever makes me like this and move on.”