Dorian stood for a few seconds, scowling at the girl's trembling back, then picked up the blanket and stepped closer. After tucking it around her, he walked away toward the horses, Marcus following at his heels.
"My friend, I don't think that conversation went very well…" Marcus said, scratching the back of his head as he offered an apple to the silver-gray mare. "In our defense, talking is not usually what we do with women," he added with a grin. "But you could at least have told her that you didn't force yourself on her last night. Now she's going to spend the whole night terrified, waiting for us to crawl under her blankets."
"It doesn't matter. We don't need her to trust us," Dorian said with a shrug. "She couldn't escape in this condition anyway."
He stroked his stallion's muzzle. It was true—they did not need her trust. But did he truly not want it either? Leonie looked at him as though he were no better than the baron's vile henchmen, and he found the thought far from satisfying. Some instinct urged him to win the girl over, to calm her, to stop her bursting into tears every time he looked at her. But no. That was not why he was bringing her home.
So why was he doing all of this?
"Uh-huh. Sure…" Marcus sighed. He had not seen his friend this unsettled over a woman in three hundred years. Certainly he had never seen him risk this much for one. He decided not to rub that in just yet—for one thing, he had no desire to get punched at the moment, and for another, the right moment would be far more effective.
For a while the night passed quietly. Dorian lay awake until he caught the sound of a rhythmical knocking. He glanced Leonie's way and could almost see the way she was trembling under the blanket.
Damn it.
He stared at her for long seconds until Marcus finally pushed himself to his feet.
"What are you doing?" Dorian asked.
"I don't know about you, but I'd like to sleep at some point, so I'm going to warm her up," Marcus said.
He crossed the distance in two strides and was just about to settle on the ground beside her when he suddenly found himself airborne.
"No," Dorian said.
Marcus hit the earth with a thud. For all his size, Dorian had tossed him aside without effort.
"What the hell?" Marcus spluttered, sitting up. His friend had thrown him? If it had not been the middle of the night, he might well have tried to beat him senseless for that.
"You're overreacting a bit, don't you think?" Marcus grumbled. He might have had a point, but Dorian had acted purely on instinct and had not thought it through. Now he simply stood there, helplessly staring down at the shivering girl.
"You'll just frighten her," Dorian added. It made perfect sense that she would panic if yet another man tried to climb into bed with her. He was only trying to be considerate, nothing more. It had nothing to do with the idea of Marcus getting closer to Leonie. Pure logic.
Marcus snorted. "I doubt she'll have a heart attack over a man she already thinks tried to rape her," he muttered.
Choosing to ignore him, Marcus flopped back down beside the fire. With a long breath, Dorian stretched out at Leonie's side instead.
The girl, who had been lying there shivering with cold for half an hour, never heard him approach, so she was wholly unprepared for the moment when Dorian's strong arms slipped around her. Her pulse spiked at once—not from excitement, but from sheer terror.
Oh no. So it was going to happen after all.
A strange, squeaky sound escaped her throat as she tried to pull away from him, but Dorian allowed only enough space that their bodies no longer touched, his arm still encircling her beneath the blanket.
"Don't move," he whispered in her ear.
She froze, but her rapid, shallow breaths betrayed her fear. There was nothing she could do against his strength; his hold was like a vice. It was happening again, and this time she didn't even have a draught to blur the edges of it. But she would not just lie there and let it happen. Not again. She would fight with teeth and nails if she had to, even if it killed her.
Only nothing happened.
Dorian lay perfectly still beside her and… what in the world? Was he humming?
He began to hum a soft, old elven lullaby, the kind parents sang to their children at bedtime. In Leonie's mind, a different picture slowly unfolded—a winding river running at the bottom of a canyon. The crystal-clear water flowed quietly between the rocks, and as the sun dipped behind the ridge, the river began to glow blue. Or rather, fish-like creatures beneath the surface lit up and whirled together in a strange, shimmering dance.
Wrapped in that wondrous image, Leonie drifted off at last, as if the water itself washed the horrors out of her mind. And Dorian relaxed, withdrawing from the girl's thoughts, satisfied. At least she would be able to sleep now. At least this one night would be peaceful.