The North Star | COMPLETED ✔️

Chapter 47~ Fall

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Chapter 47

Drake tried to come.

The moment I lost the battle to stay awake, he slithered into my mind as if the door had been left wide open.

But this time was different. This time, I wasn't alone.

"There you are." His voice echoed out. A cloud of smoke and thick, heady cologne. The familiar heat of a cherry just before it hit the skin. A cracking whip.

An arm around me. A murmured word. A soft caress across my hair.

Drake faded away, and each time he tried to come back ended the same. He couldn't get me, not when the warmth was there. It acted like a barrier, cocooned me in safety, and I embraced what it offered.

When morning light turned my eyelids red, I opened them to the sight of that warmth.

Bard sat beside me, a pan on the fire, and my stomach rumbled at the smell of pancakes.

He cut his eyes over and smiled softly. "Good morning, Tequila."

I pulled myself up and took in the sleeping bag I never remembered climbing into. "I fell asleep." I rubbed my eyes and yawned. "How'd you get me into this thing without waking me up?"

He snorted. "You were exhausted." He slid a pancake onto a plate and held it out to me. "Here."

I took it, mouth watering. "Where'd you get the stuff to make pancakes? You catch those in the river, too?"

He poured more batter from a tumbler cup into the pan and rumbled a laugh. "It's instant. All you need to add is water." It sizzled and smoked, so he lifted it up and shook it rapidly, then flipped it again as if he'd been training for Iron Chef- Camping Edition his whole life.

I took a bite and chewed slowly while I watched him cook. A shadow of my dreams played across my mind. I hadn't drank the night before, and that should have been enough to let him in. But despite the fact, Drake hadn't found me. The warmth I'd woken with the day before had.

I stared at his profile. "Did you sleep beside me?"

Bard slid his food onto a different plate, and grabbed a fork from beside him. "I didn't sleep." He didn't look over, just focused on cutting off a bite and shoveling it into his mouth. Then another, and again, as if he hadn't eaten in a year.

"Aren't you exhausted? We hiked all day almost, and we were..." I let the sentence hang. No need in bringing up how little sleep we'd gotten the night before. Not with the reason behind it. My skin prickled with awareness.

Bard finished off his food and sat the plate to the side. "You seemed to be having some trouble sleeping so I stayed up to watch over you."

The warmth. I stared down at my plate. It was him. He was the reason...

"Do you always have nightmares?"

I looked up at him, and his eyes dug into me once again. His face remained calm, but I watched his Adam's apple bob, saw the way his fingers curled against his knee.

"Not always." Just when I'm sober.

He was quiet a long moment before he nodded once towards my plate. "Eat up. I want to show you something."

I looked back down to the pancake, took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. Feelings brewed within my stomach and bubbled up into my chest. He'd stayed up all night so that I could sleep...