Chapter Seventeen

Yasmin landed hard, her gaze locked on Ravi as the rushing water swallowed him. She scrambled to the edge in time to see him pop to the surface, gasping for air. He attempted to pull himself out, but the quick-moving river was too much for his shivering body.

“Ravi!” she hollered, shock thrumming through her.

Yasmin jumped to her feet and ran down the side of the river, looking for a place to grab him. She rushed ahead, dropped flat onto her stomach, and extended her arm.

“Ravi! Grab my hand!”

His head bobbed beneath the surface, but he still managed to reach out. She strained her arm toward him, dread curdling her stomach. Her focus was on his hand, still lifted above the water even as he was dragged under again and again. She swallowed, her heart in her throat. She couldn’t miss him. If she did… She couldn’t finish the thought.

He was getting closer. The water roared in her ears, or maybe it was her blood. She scooted out as far as she dared, her other hand tightly gripping the bank. Ravi’s head broke the surface, and their eyes locked.

“Come on,” she whispered.

Then he was there. Their fingers brushed, and she cried out when she thought she had lost him, but then he reached for her again. She latched onto his hand with everything she had. But even that proved difficult. The current refused to let him go. But she wouldn’t allow him to be taken.

Yasmin dug her toes into the snow and clutched Ravi’s arm with both hands. She got his head above water, but his eyes were closed. Worse, his fingers barely gripped her. She pulled him close until, finally, he was at the riverbank. His teeth chattered loudly, and his lips had a blue tinge.

“Ravi? Can you hear me? You’re almost out, but I need your help, okay? I can’t do this alone,” she pleaded. “Ravi?”

There was no answer. Her fear grew, consuming her until it was all she could think or feel. Yasmin squeezed her eyes closed and shut out the inner voice telling her she would fail. She didn’t have time for that. She had to get Ravi out of the water and dry.

She glanced around, looking for something to help her, but she was utterly alone and saw nothing. The current tried to take Ravi, and her with him. Yasmin used one of her hands to steady herself. It went through the snow and landed on something solid. She heard the singing then. Every stone around her joined in on the song, the sound deafening. But it did the trick to calm her.

Without releasing Ravi, she shifted into a sitting position so she could wrap her arms around his chest and dig her heels into the ground for leverage, all the while praying they didn’t fall into the river. She gritted her teeth, stretched out her legs, and pulled.

At first, no amount of effort seemed to move him. He shook so violently she could barely keep hold of him. Yasmin tried again, only getting him an inch or so free of the river.

“Come on!” she bellowed to the gods.

The rocks sang louder. She loved having a connection to them, but right then, she wished she had another kind of magic that could help. Instead, she wiggled backward and tugged Ravi again. Her leg muscles strained to the point where they shook from the effort. Again and again, she repeated the movement until she freed him from the water.

“Shite. Shiteshiteshiteshiteshite,” she muttered as she carefully laid him down and jumped to her feet.

Ravi curled in on himself, instinctively seeking warmth. She didn’t know if he was conscious or not.

“Hang on. I’ll be right back,” she told him.

She ran to get their packs and then raced back to him. No matter how hard she tried to pump her legs, they wouldn’t go any faster. Yasmin got her foot tangled in her pack strap as she tried to toss it aside. She landed hard on her knee but didn’t feel anything. Her fingers were stiff with cold and wouldn’t move as they should. She got her foot free and yanked off her jacket to drape it over Ravi before shifting her attention to his bag.

Yasmin yanked it open. She was in such a hurry that she dropped it twice while trying to get the tent out. She had only helped once with it, but it had proven easy to set up. Thankfully.

She kneeled beside him. “Ravi? I have the tent up, but I can’t lift you. Help me get you inside so you can warm up.”

There was no response.

Panic seized her. “Ravi? Ravi!”

His eyes fluttered open.

The surge of relief she felt made her head swim. “I need to get you inside the tent. Do you understand?”

She thought he nodded as she removed her coat that lay over him. When she put her arm under him, he tried to sit up. Getting him to his feet took twice as long as putting the tent together. For every moment he stayed in his wet clothing, the more time it would take for him to warm up.

Yasmin had his arm around her shoulders and hers at his back. He leaned heavily on her, and it was all she could do to remain standing while supporting his weight. The tent was only a few steps away, but it felt like a hundred miles.

Then she felt him start to lean forward and attempted to steady him. “Ravi.”

He made a sound. She thought it might have been a word, but she couldn’t make it out with the way his teeth chattered.

“Just a few steps. Come on. We can do this,” she coaxed. “Shuffle your foot forward. I’ll do the rest. That’s it,” she said with a smile when he did as she’d requested. “I got you. Now, the other one. Good. Good. You’re doing good. Do that for me again.”

They just might make it. Yasmin glanced at the tent. Why hadn’t she pulled it closer to him? She hadn’t been thinking of that. She’d been too worried about not getting it up to think about the placement once it was. If the situations were reversed, he would have considered that. He would’ve known exactly what to do. She knew nothing. If he died, it would be her fault.

Suddenly, she was face-first in the snow. Yasmin pulled her arms from Ravi as he mumbled something. She tucked his arm against him and rolled him onto his back. Then she wiped the snow from his face to make sure he was unhurt. There was no way she could get him on his feet again. She would have to drag him inside.

“It’s all right,” she said, the words for both of them. “I’ve got you.”

Yasmin got to her feet again. She got the blankets from her pack and his, spread one on the bottom of the tent, and set the other nearby. Then she grabbed his jacket in her stiff fingers and pulled. Just like when she got him out of the river, she heaved him inch by inch. She was breathing hard and covered in sweat, her stomach knotted with dread and worry.

Finally, she had most of Ravi inside the tent. There was no time to rest, though. She got their packs and her jacket and brought it inside before her attention returned to Ravi. His body still shook, but he was unconscious now. Yasmin moved as quickly as she could to unfasten his coat. Then she struggled to get him into a sitting position. Keeping him there proved difficult as he kept falling backward. She had to prop a knee up at his back to keep him sitting while having both of her arms free to wrestle with his soaked clothing.

The scarf and cap came away easily. It took more effort to free his arms from the coat. But even that was easier than his shirt and undershirt clinging to him, making a sucking noise as she pulled them from his body. They joined the rest of his clothing near the opening.

Yasmin carefully laid him down and set about maneuvering him deeper into the tent. Sweat trickled down her face as she struggled to get all of him inside. She had to turn him onto his side and bend his legs to do it. Her knee gave out just as she tugged one final time. She pushed aside the need to rest and crawled around him to close the tent flaps. Next, she hastily removed his boots and socks. Then his pants. She was efficient and quick in stripping him, not allowing herself time to look at his body. Once he was free of the clothes, she covered him with the other blanket.

Getting out of her clothes was much easier. She shivered at the cool air against her bare skin before sliding between the blankets and scooting her body against Ravi’s. It would be better if they had another blanket. And a fire. But all they had was each other. He felt like a block of ice. Regardless, she pressed herself against his front, her arm reaching around him to hold him against her, willing her body heat to extend to him.

She closed her eyes and felt her heart rate begin to slow, as did her breathing. Adrenaline had kept her going, but she was rapidly succumbing to exhaustion now. As she lay there, she began to think of what she should do next. He had the magical herbs, but she didn’t know how much to give him or even how to get it down his throat if he wasn’t conscious. Would they even work to warm him since it wasn’t technically healing? She needed to dry his clothes, but that would require a fire they didn’t have. Yasmin tucked the blanket tighter around them.

She should’ve paid closer attention to the ice at the riverbank. It was the first thing she should’ve done. Instead, her thoughts had been on Shaldorn. Ravi had used his magic to save her, and in return, was now suffering the consequences of her carelessness.

Ravi brushed his cheek against her hair. She held him tighter and squeezed her eyes closed when they burned with unshed tears. A moment later, his arm went around her. She rubbed her hands up and down his back as he continued to shiver. She tried not to notice the hard lines of his body, the firm muscle everywhere they touched.

There had been moments after she fled Shaldorn when she had been just as cold. A few times, she thought she might die. Yet the gods had thought differently. She wondered who Ravi would’ve brought with him if she ~had~ died all those years ago. Would he have attempted to get inside Shaldorn on his own? He seemed the type who would try. Was that because he enjoyed being the hero? Or did he do it because he loved the profession? Maybe it was a little of both.

Yasmin inwardly snorted. Since when did her thoughts turn to such contemplations about an elf? Ravi wasn’t her friend. But what did you call someone who had saved your life—twice? The only reason he had was because he needed her. But would it be so bad to have an elf for a friend?

She pushed such thoughts aside. They were musings brought on by trepidation and nothing more. Each time the gods had tried to crush her, she found a way through. These…thoughts about Ravi were there because she had been thoughtless and put him in this situation. She was nothing more than a means to an end for him, and she would do well not to forget that. He was an elf. She was human. And much more than her lack of pointed ears and magic separated them.

Slowly, her body began to relax. Sleep crept over her, and she gave in to it. She tumbled into dreams where she was the one who fell into the river, and Ravi laughed as she begged him to help her. Then she was in Rannora, clinging to all six children as Ravi led an army of armed elves into their home to return the kids to their families. No matter how hard she tried to hold on to them, they slipped from her grasp. The next thing she knew, she stood in the middle of a kitchen with bright yellow cupboards she knew well. She heard voices and turned to find Ravi standing next to Laboni, both of them pointing and laughing at her.

~“You’re back where you belong.”~

Yasmin came awake with a start in the semi-darkness. She lay still as her heart thudded in her chest. She heard a heartbeat in her ear and realized it was someone else’s. She lay sprawled across Ravi’s chest, her leg thrown over his. He had one of his arms wrapped around her while the other lay over her arm draped across his stomach.

By the steady beat of his heart and his even breathing, he was on the mend. She extracted herself from him and covered him with the blanket. She dressed quickly, shivering as the now-cold material settled against her skin. She opened the tent flap and stepped out into the twilight with his wet clothes, shutting the entrance behind her to keep the warmth inside.

Yasmin wrung out his clothes before looking for a place to put them. She had no choice but to spread them across some low-lying branches. She was shivering by the time she returned to Ravi, eager to climb beneath the cover and find warmth again.

When she removed her clothes again, she put them under the blanket to keep them warm, then slipped between the blankets and sidled up next to Ravi until their shoulders and legs touched. She closed her eyes and tried not to recall the hard ridges and firm muscle of his body. His heat enveloped her, and she briefly wondered if she should wake him. She decided to let him rest.

~ ~ ~

Yasmin woke on her side with Ravi curled around her back. She used his arm as a pillow, while his other hand lay possessively on her hip. It was like being cocooned in warmth and safety, and oddly, she enjoyed it. Soon, she was drifting back into slumber while contemplating her enjoyment of his touch.

Heat pulled her from sleep. She pulled her arms from beneath the blanket and opened her eyes to find herself on Ravi’s chest again. He made a very comfortable pillow. She didn’t even mind that he held her securely against him. There was something comforting—reassuring, even—about listening to his heartbeat.

But it was the feel of his cock growing thicker against her thigh that made her stomach flutter. Her traitorous body instinctively wanted to rock against his. She forced herself to remain still even as her sex throbbed with a deep, carnal hunger. The reaction was shocking…and thrilling. Desire pooled low in her belly as she felt herself grow damp.

Her hips undulated, the contact with him sending pleasure shooting through her. She stilled, horrified at what she had just done. Yasmin squeezed her eyes shut and begged for sleep while attempting to ignore her body’s cravings.

She tried to roll away from him to keep her dignity and cool off, but his arms tightened, refusing to let her go. Of all the people she could have responded to, why did it have to be him?