Affinity

Chapter 11 - Aaralyn

Aaralyn frowned at herself and shook her head to clear her mind of all thoughts of Nathan as she let herself out of Nicholas's parlor and readied herself to lead the coven against the Atilla. She had barely made it through the meeting Nicholas had requested without falling apart. He had approved her plan for the ambush and let her go, but she was sure she had managed to further increase his suspicions of her.

She was distracted, and she could not afford to be. She was already running on too little sleep after spending much of the night convincing herself not to search the cave, waterfall, clearing, and all the woods in between for any sign of Nathan. Then she had spent much of the day thinking about him and remembering all the things she had done wrong by him that had surely contributed to him leaving.

One thing she was still sure she had not done wrong was making the decision to stay with the coven. Raj was right. Any hope she had of becoming someone with the position and power to promote peace and acceptance lay along the path set by Nicholas and the Celandine. In order to stay on that path, she had to do a job, and tonight of all nights she had to do that job flawlessly.

She knew Lexander was waiting for her to fail, and she could not keep letting Nicholas down without facing the consequences of his disappointment. Not to mention, the plan Nathan had proposed was actually impossible. The Celandine simply could not be outrun. And it was just as impossible for them to survive together if they stayed. She would not have been able to hide it from the coven if she had allowed her affection for Nathan to continue to develop. They would have been caught, and very likely they both would have ended up dead. It was best left forgotten.

And anything she might have done wrong—taking his friendship for granted, rejecting him without explaining herself fully, failing to tell him about the ambush, not being honest about Raj's place in her life—was certainly overshadowed by his petulant crassness. He had called her names. He had all of called her wanton. He deserved no apology, and while there were many things that she did regret, missing the opportunity to tell him she was sorry was not one of them.

Rather than clearing her mind of him, her memories of her fight with Nathan were now making her movements sharp, fast, and angry as she swept out of Nicholas's without bothering to let Pierre lead her out. She slammed the door shut behind her with too much force, making herself wince. To her further displeasure, she saw Lexander look up from across the yard and smirk in her direction from atop his horse before he headed off with a few other members of the raid party.

Like Nathan's waterfall haven, the nest was located just outside the boundary of Celandine-owned property—a few miles southeast of the coven home on the fringes of rural Paris—but it was well within Celandine territory and jurisdiction. Aaralyn had designated a meeting place on the coven property's southernmost boundary where the witches were to gather before abandoning the path to travel on foot through thick forest for the last mile or so to the nest home. Everyone else was likely already there and waiting, and Nicholas's meeting had left her bringing up the rear. Showing up late to lead wouldn't give her troops the most favorable impression of her, but it was truly not her fault this time. And if Lexander made a single offhand comment about it...

She bit back a scowl and a decidedly unladylike curse as she climbed up in the saddle and finally rode out. With the horse jostling her roughly in the fast pace she set and the cooling night air soothing her flushed skin, the ride proved to be what she needed to rein herself in and get her emotions back in check.

She let out a breath. She needed to be clear of mind and conscience. However, as she tried to relax herself, unbidden flashes of memory got in her way once more when she suddenly found herself remembering the sensation of hard muscle bunching and stretching against her side as Nathan's strong arms cradled her tightly and safely against him. The wind had blown her hair and the trees had blurred by then, too, but there had been no bone-jarring bounce. There had been little disturbance or discomfort at all except the disorientation of moving too fast. There had been no thundering of hooves or slap of brush, just the rustling of his feet in the grass and the roar of the wind and the sound of his breath near her ear.