Haleth turned to him, at first unbelieving. “What was that?”
Caranthir grimaced. “I said—help me.” With gritted teeth, he added, “Please.”
She surveyed him, half-caught in the berry bushes they’d been harvesting. He stood out like a black eye among her people, far too tall, far too lean. He’d come alone, asking to speak with her leader to leader, but she would not stop the work of her people. She would not have the Haladin do anything she would not, and she would not take a break in the middle of the harvest.
(She also liked to see his face darken with frustration, his cheeks turning cherry red. She thought of him more often than she should, like that; she wanted to see him blush from more than just anger.)
“Very well then,” he had said, grim as if she had pronounced his doom. “I will wait.”
“Or you could help, and speak to me as we work,” she challenged.
She had not expected him to take her up on her offer—but here he was, sweating with the rest of them (and he did sweat, she found with no small amount of fascination), pricking his fingers on the thorns and staining his palms black and red.
It was an attractive look, made more attractive by his plea for aid. Two hours he had worked alongside her, and spoken not a word, despite his request to treat with her—and now, he broke his silence. Asking for help.
“And what shall the price of my aid be?” Haleth wondered. He was well and truly tangled in the brambles, she noticed. It was as if they wound around his legs with intent to snag him, as if they wanted to pull him into their depths.
Haleth felt the hair on her arms stand on end, despite the warmth of the Sun above them. “It is not a wise lord who allows his rival to trap him in such a deal.”
“As you can see...I am stuck.” Was it her imagination, or was he leaning toward her, as much as the bushes would allow? “I have little in the way of...leverage.”
Haleth picked her way closer. She could smell him, elf-sweat tinged with berry juice, hair oil with...fear?
He liked being trapped, she realized. He liked being...at her mercy.
She smiled, slow and predatory. “Come to my home at sunfall,” she murmured, gently prying the brambles from his long, limber legs. “I will name my price then.”
He shivered. The vines parted easily, and he worked himself free alongside her. It was as if the bushes bent to his will. This had been no true trap.
Haleth hissed. She’d pricked her thumb on a thorn. Fast as lightning, Caranthir grasped her wrist, his grip firm but tender.
“Let me,” he murmured, and kissed the drop of blood from her skin.
Now it was Haleth who shivered. Sunfall couldn’t come soon enough.
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