Into the Inferno

6 - The Narrow Escape

Both of them stood frozen and stared.

The room they were staying in only had one bed.

The inn was completely full, and they were lucky to get a room, but it was highly inappropriate for two unmarried members of the opposite sex to be sharing a room.

"You take the bed."

Immediately, Lilja shook her head, "No, Thane. You're bigger than I am, and you just spent hours flying. You must be exhausted-you take the bed."

"I'm fine on the floor."

"No, Thane! You're not. You're royalty, and I'm practically nothing. I don't need as much comfort as you do."

His eyes flashed at her words, "I have slept the last nine years on a dirty cellar floor, filled with rats, blood and other horrifying elements. Compared to that, the clean floor of this room is Heaven without the rats biting at my feet."

He then turned to Lilja and lightly took hold of her cool hands, and enormous amount of fiery tingles shooting up and down their arms with the minimal contact, "you take the bed. You're more important than you know. You're more than nothing. You're everything."

"But-" she tried to interject, stopping when he lightly squeezed her hands which were still cocooned in his.

"That's an order, min lofre. Sleep in the bed."

She reluctantly obeyed. She washed her hands and face, and while Thane went down to get some extra blankets, changed into her nightgown. She hopped into the bed right as Thane walked back inside their room with the extra blankets.

As Lilja quietly watched him, he fashioned the blankets into a palate on the floor in front of the door, almost like he was protecting them. Without warning, he stripped down, the smirk on his face was enough to know that he knew she was watching him. Lilja turned her back to him out of embarrassment.

Blowing out their single candle, he lay down on the ground, the sigh of content bringing a tremor to Lilja's heart, and stealing the breath from her lungs. She hadn't heard him make that sound, and she didn't know why is pleased her so much to hear it.

To break the tense silence, Lilja lifted her head and asked him a question that had been plaguing her, "Thane, what does min lofre mean?"

For a while he didn't answer and Lilja though he wasn't going to. When she was finally on the edge of sleep, he broke the silence, bringing her fully awake again.

"You'll know soon."

"But, why can't I know now?"

"Because you aren't ready to hear it."

Lilja's head dropped back to the bed in frustration, a soft groan leaving her lips, "why do you always have to be so....blunt? And unhelpful? And moody?"

A slight chuckle sounded in the dark room, "because that's the way I am."

"Well, it's irritating," he chuckled again, and Lilja answered with a huff.

"You just like annoying me."

"Indefinitely."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Lilja asked tiredly, her eyes starting to shut.

"You'll know soon, min lofre."

To Lilja, she summed up the words that she heard next as her sleepy imagination, that Elthorane uttered the words, I love you, because it would have only been possible in the wildest and sweetest of dreams.