Free Crag by Kate Hill

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” The idea that someone had discovered her and Crag’s secret both startled and relieved her.
    Blaze offered a gentle smile, but said no more.
    Lily discarded the bowl and sat for a time, watching Gem’s baby sleep as she’d often watched Vina .
    For some reason, she was unable to sleep herself. She approached the hearth and saw Blaze curled by the fire, his eyes closed. She glanced at Crag. He’d fallen asleep with his hands still in the water.
    Shaking her head, Lily took a towel and knelt beside him, slipping the bowl from his lap. The water had already started to cool, and in a few moments would have defeated its earlier purpose. As she dried his hands with the towel, he jerked awake.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “You fell asleep with your hands in the water. You’ll get cold again.”
    He bent and straightened his fingers almost painfully. “At least I can move them now.”
    “Here.” She took one of his hands in hers, using her thumbs to massage his palms. She rubbed his fingers and gently turned his wrists. “How does that feel?”
    “Good.” He sighed. “Very good.”
    “My husband’s hands used to hurt. He said this helped.” She stared down at the hand she massaged. Her husband’s hands hadn’t been as large as Crag’s, yet in some ways, they were similar. Both had strong, graceful fingers. It disturbed her that simply touching Crag or looking at him made her entire body tingle and her belly tighten. Her husband had never evoked such feelings. He’d been a good man. She’d cared for him and mourned his death, but something about Crag made her ache with desire. Lily cleared her throat as she continued, “My husband was a stone carver.”
    “An artist?”
    She nodded. “His statues were all over our village. They were destroyed during the attack.”
    “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
    “I’m learning to move on.”
    “Are you? That’s good. I wish I could.”
    “Blaze said you’re a very good healer.”
    “He said that?”
    “Yes.”
    Crag leaned his head back and closed his eyes as Lily picked up his other hand and repeated her ministrations. She massaged his fingers until she was certain he slept, then covered him with another blanket. Instead of moving back to her own space, she sat beside him and drifted to sleep.
    What seemed like moments later, she jumped awake when someone called for a healer.
    Crag had thrown off his blankets and, out of habit, stumbled to his feet. Lily grasped his arm. “Sir Wood’s going to them.”
    He squinted in the dimness and saw that she was right.
    “You have until tomorrow to rest, remember?”
    He settled back beside her. “I had the worst dream.”
    “What about?” Lily studied his profile, the flutter of his lashes against his cheeks and the straightness of his nose.
    “The entire world was black and red,” he murmured, his voice sleepy, though he reached for her hand and clung to it. “A herd of beasts, tall as houses with big, gray tusks chased me. Monkeys, demons, and birds of prey swooped from trees stripped of leaves. The trunks were all black. There was blood on my hands.”
    “It was just a dream.” She touched his shoulder with her free hand, her fingers gently gripping.
    He sighed and sat up, walking to a basin of water and splashing some on his face. Shrugging on his cloak, he glanced at her, “I need some air.”
    She stood, reaching for her own cloak. “I would have thought you’d had enough of the cold over the past few days.”
    Without a word, he headed for the door, slowing so Lily could fall into step beside him. They paused in the doorway, and he held her eyes. “I missed you, Lily.”
    “You did?”
    He nodded.
    Why did his words make her feel so warm? He stared at her, as if waiting for a response. Did he want her to say she missed him as well? She had. Quite desperately at times, but some part of her, a part that still hated Zaltanians , refused to let her tell