Baring the Thorn (The Mountain Tribe #3)

Chapter 22

Samara

I sleep longer than I have since the start of the journey, all through the night and well into the next day, and still feel as if it’s not enough.

Many times, I’m pulled to consciousness, needing to check on Thorn or care for him as I’ve been doing the last week, only to find him warm and whole beside me. His hand moves over me, brushing my hair and my arm, his legs tangled with mine under our pile of furs. His softly smiling lips murmur for me to rest more, and I do, tumbling back into darkness again.

It’s become second nature now, to wake and panic that I’ve missed some vital sign in his health, that he’s gotten worse or that the fever has raised, and each time I rouse it’s with a shock, but Thorn is always there.

Ever patient, and healthy again.

When I wake now, it’s late in the afternoon, even though the sun is hidden. A heavy layer of clouds threaten snow above us, and the breath puffs out from my mouth.

But it’s still warm beneath the furs, from the mixed heat of our bodies and the ever-present fire, and only the tip of my exposed ear is tingling from the cold.

I think that Thorn might have slept along with me through the night and the day, but he’s awake now, blinking down at me with eyes clear of fever and illness, no longer a sickly grey but now fresh green like the fir trees around us, and dark with emotion.

I lift my hand to brush along the line of his jaw, scruffy with week of beard growth.

It suits him, this messy, care-free look, the rugged facial hair and riot of ginger curls around the crown of his head.

Even after days of not bathing, of sickness, even the splatters of blood that cling to his dirty skin, he’s devastating. My heart tugs just at the sight of him, and I think that I might never get over the relief, the utter joy at seeing him alive. I think that it’ll take years before I forget the fear of almost losing him, if it ever truly leaves me, or if it will remain like a scar over my heart.

Beautiful, tortured man.

My man.

“How do you feel?” I ask, and the prickle of his facial hair sends a warm shiver down my spine. I long to know what it would feel like against my cheeks, to discover if it would heighten all other sensations.

Thorn’s good arm is tucked beneath me and wrapped around my waist, and his hand begins to brush swirling patterns on my lower back, calm and tingling and meaningless.

But I never thought I would feel it again, that I would enjoy the quiet pleasure of sleeping and waking together again, and I revel in the pure joy of his caresses.

“Lucky,” he murmurs, and I wonder if he’s saying it quietly so that Hawk might not hear.

I’m not sure where the other man is. I feel as though Thorn and I are in a little cocoon of relief together and nothing can distract me.

I smile. “I mean your injuries. How’s your arm?”

He shrugs against my collarbone. “It is sore, but only when I try to use it.”

“You will be able to use it again,” I tell him. “With lots of time to heal and practice moving it. But you’ll have pretty big scars…I’m sorry about that.”

The corner of Thorn’s lips quirk. “What do I care about scars? I’m lucky to have my life.”

“The aesthetic of it, I don’t know,” I give him a playful grin. “Aren’t you worried what women will think?”

“I care what one woman thinks. Will I be ugly to you, little healer, if I am scarred so deeply?” Thorn’s expression is utterly open, nothing closed off.

There is adoration, longing, and beneath it, a hint of insecurity. Does he really think I could be put off by the scars he gained defending my life? If anything, they serve as a reminder of the sacrifice he made for me.

His arm makes my chest tighten with sympathy, but the crisscrossing over his chest is even appealing to me. Like he’s some sexy battle-scarred warrior.

Everything about Thorn is appealing.

I shake my head. “Impossible. There was technology to remove scars completely in my time, but you took on a bear, I think you should get to show off your wounds.”

He makes a little huff of agreement, the breath moving the mess of curls around my head. We haven’t bathed in over a week, nor have I had the time to braid my hair out of my way, and I think it must be so tangled that I might have to cut it all off.

I find that I don’t really care either way, and I don’t think Thorn would either.

It feels as though we have seen almost all of each other, inside and out, like there is nothing that will shock either of us.

It’s with this thought in mind that I tell him, “I love your scars.” I press a hand over his chest, gentle, and feel the warmth of his skin through the wrappings. “Even the ones you hide from me.”

Thorn’s smile fades, and he glances over my head around the camp, checking for Hawk.

I toss a look over my shoulder, but we’re completely alone at the moment, and I doubt that we’ll be interrupted until the evening when Hawk usually returns with fresh meat.

I look back at Thorn, hating that my comment has wiped the carefree smile off his face and that he appears troubled now.

“I once thought that telling you the parts of myself that I am ashamed of is weakness,” he says. “That the role of a leader is to protect his people and his women, even if it means protecting them from the truth.”

When he falls silent, I ask, “And now?”

Thorn takes a slow breath. “And now I… know that you deserve to know me, as I truly am. I cannot decide for you if you will want me or not afterwards, but hiding is not protection, it is cowardice.” His words are harsh, and I want to express to him how difficult it is to share unpleasant truths, but I keep quiet, so I don’t ruin his train of thought. I want to know…I need to know the truth.

He begins, “Hawk’s tribe lives in the north, many, many days walk from where our tribe is. The land is harsh, and cold, and life is even harder there than it is in our camp. It is…where I was raised. My mother died before I can remember, falling to the same illness that stole many lives when I was young, and if I had any siblings, I do not remember them either. My earliest memories are of racing about our snowy camp, causing mischief with Hawk and the other children. My father was… a difficult man. He did not hesitate to raise his hand to me, and often, and we did not share many warm words with each other. There was a harsh winter, and our supplies were running low. Our hunting parties often returned with little meat or nothing at all, and the tribe was growing desperate. I was too young to understand but I remember listening to the adults arguing and shouting, and of sleeping with a sore, empty belly many nights.”

Thorn’s expression shutters, and I don’t think he realizes that against my hip, his hand starts to shake a little.

He swallows thickly before continuing, “There was screaming one night, in the tent beside ours, and when I got up to see, I found my father had killed a family. I saw…their bodies, two parents and their infant daughter, lying still. And my father, covered in their blood. I was a boy, too frightened to even move, and terrified that if I yelled, he might kill me next. I do not know if he was going to, because others came and found us. Hawk’s father was the tribe leader, and he demanded to know why my father had killed. My father said it was to…stretch out the rations, to kill off the weak and allow the strong to survive.”

My stomach rolls at Thorn’s words, and I put a hand over my mouth. “God…”

But Thorn looks possessed by the memory, as if he’s gripped with the past, and to release it he must finish, he must keep talking.

His eyes are wide as he continues, and the words flow as if from some deep spring within him, “The next day the leader decided that for his violence, my father would be killed. He said that… it must be both of us, that I could not be allowed to live on with my father’s blood in my veins and his ideas in my head. I knew that my father should be punished, but I did not understand why I had to be. I was the leader’s family. I was like a brother to Hawk. I cried and I begged them to let me live, to let me prove my worthiness. The leader cut down my father and buried the same knife in my stomach. They dragged us far from camp so that predators would not smell our blood, and they left us to die in the forest. My father’s body was cold by the time they left, but I held on. I dragged myself away. I do not know how I survived, if it was on purpose or if it was merely a mistake. I walked for many days once I was healed, and eventually I found River and then Falcon.”

“That’s horrible,” I breathe, and there are tears in my eyes.

Such cruelty… and to someone so young. I understand now why he thinks that the northern tribe is dangerous, why he didn’t want me seeking them out unprotected. It’s hard to imagine this is the same tribe that silent, peaceful Hawk comes, that he’s related to someone who would kill a child.

I feel sick imagining such a young mind having to endure it, and tell him, “I’m sorry.”

Thorn’s free of the past, it seems, when he seems to blink back to the present and looks down at me. “I vowed that I would lead the boys I found in a different way than my camp had been led. That we would not harm or punish each other. I wanted to be different. I was older than the rest of them, and I wanted to raise them better than I had been raised. I wanted to… protect them.”

“I know,” I say, blinking back tears. “But Thorn…lying about the other tribe put them at risk. It put all of us at risk. If we know what’s out there, we can prepare ourselves.”

“You are right,” he nods. His eyes burn with intensity into mine, with resolve and with regret. “And I was wrong. It was a decision borne from weakness. I have…never felt fear like I did as a boy, fearful they would find out I lived, fearful they would come after us, fearful my brothers would seek them out and get hurt like I did. I did not feel that kind of fear again until I saw that bear raging towards you.”

“Fear is a part of life,” I cup his cheek in my hand, the bristles of his face greeting my palm. “It doesn’t make you weak. You shouldn’t have to hide it from everyone.”

“Samara…” Thorn leans into my palm, and his bronze eyelashes flutter closed, long and soft over his cheekbones. “It grips me, even now. I cared deeply for my tribe, for my people. But now I have something that I cannot… that I would not survive losing.”

I feel the same way.

It took him almost dying to prove to me the depth of my feelings, of my inability to manage this future without him.

Thorn and I could survive on our own, before, and after each other. But it would be just that - surviving. It would be devoid of feeling, of meaning.

I don’t think I could survive losing him now either, not when I’ve already come so close, not when I know what it means to need him with such intensity that it steals the air from my lungs.

How can we manage it? How can we survive these feelings of love and fear, this tangled, dizzying mixture of desire and panic?

“I think we enjoy what we can,” I tell him, answering the unspoken question between us. Thorn opens his eyes and meets my watery gaze. “Just like you said. If it’s one day or if it’s thirty years. You and I are used to having so much control, Thorn. But being with another person isn’t just owning them or having them nearby, it means letting go of control.”

He smirks. “You will have a very difficult time with that.”

A laugh bursts out of me, and I give him a playful shove in the good shoulder. “Ass. You’ll have a difficult time not being so damn bossy.”

“Why can I not be bossy and also care for you?” Thorn raises a brow, and gives me a dazzling, wolfish grin. In this moment, he appears younger than thirty-four, like a young man playfully teasing a girl, and his easy smile pulls a matching one from me. “I will be bossy when I tell you to eat more, or sleep in until the sun is in the middle of the sky. I will be bossy when I give pleasure to your hot, little cunt. I will be bossy when I demand your release.”

Heat floods my veins, and I quickly forget all about our playful argument.

Maybe that’s the point, and maybe Thorn wants to forget about all the dark, difficult things he just revealed from his past.

It takes me a moment to shove aside my imaginings of the picture he’s painted, and to breathlessly say, “There will be time for that when you’re better.”

“What happened to enjoying each day?” Thorn asks, and he lifts me slightly so that I’m lying on top of him instead of against his side, so that I can feel the hard, long line of his erection through our leathers and know how much he wants me.

I feel myself getting wet in response to that impossible heat, that length, urgently pressing against my belly.

It’s been a very long time since we’ve touched each other, with the lie and with him getting hurt, and my body reminds me just how badly I was missing his during all that time.

He grinds against me, with a handsome, cocky expression, and I have to stifle a gasp.

“I want to enjoy this day, my Samara.”

As if I’ve planned this all ahead, he presses me closer, and my elbow bumps his bad arm, and even Thorn can’t stifle the wince of pain at that touch.

I pull back with finality. “Not yet. When you’re better. I’m ordering you as your nurse and as the tribe healer.”

Thorn releases a hard breath, and even with his eyes shuttered from the pain, his dick remains iron-hard between us, and there’s a deep flush in his freckled cheeks.

But even he knows better than to challenge the healer, and he releases me with a starved growl that I feel deep between my legs.

“Very well, little healer,” he says. “I have wanted you since the moment I set eyes on you nearly two months ago, I can wait another few days to have you.”

I gaze down at him, feeling the hard muscle beneath my hands, grounded by the huge palm over my ass, and just hope that I can wait that long too.