When I woke, I was nestled on top of Ren’s chest. His arms were wrapped around me, and my legs were entwined with his. I was surprised I could breathe all night since my nose was smashed against his muscular torso. It had gotten cold, but my quilt covered both of us and his body, which maintained a warmer-than-average temperature, had kept me toasty all night.
Ren was still asleep, so I took the rare opportunity to study him. His powerful frame was relaxed and his face was softened by sleep. His lips were full, smooth, and utterly kissable, and for the first time, I noticed how long his sooty lashes were. His glossy dark hair fell softly over his brow and was mussed in a way that made him look even more irresistable.
So this is the real Ren. He doesn’t seem real. He looked like an archangel who fell to the earth. I’d been with Ren night and day for the past four weeks, but the time he was a man was such a small fraction of each day that he seemed almost like a dream guy, a real life Prince Charming.
I traced a black eyebrow, following its arch with my finger, and lightly brushed the silky dark hair away from his face. Hop-ing not to disturb him, I sighed, shifted slowly, and tried to move away, but his arms tensed, restraining me.
He sleepily mumbled, ‘Don’t even think about moving’ and pulled me back to snuggle me close again. I rested my cheek against his chest, felt his heartbeat, and contented myself with listening to its rhythm.
After a few minutes, he stretched and rolled to his side, pulling me with him. He kissed my forehead, blinked open his eyes, and smiled at me. It was like watching the sun come up. The handsome, sleeping man was potent enough, but when he turned his dazzling white smile on me and blinked open his cobalt blue eyes, I was dumbstruck.
I bit my lip. Alarm bells started going off in my head.
Ren’s eyes fluttered open, and he tucked some loose hair behind my ear. ‘Good morning, rajkumari. Sleep well?’
I stammered, ‘I . . . you . . . I . . . slept just fine, thank you.’
I closed my eyes, rolled away from him, and stood up. I could deal with him a lot better if I didn’t think about him much, or look at him, or talk to him, or hear him.
He wrapped his arms around me from behind, and I felt his smile as he pressed his lips to the soft spot behind my ear. ‘Best night of sleep I’ve had in about three hundred and fifty years.’
He nuzzled my neck, and an image came to my mind of him beckoning me to jump off a cliff and then laughing as my body broke on the wet rocks below.
I mumbled something akin to, ‘Good for you,’ and pulled away from him. I wandered off to get myself ready for the day and ignored his puzzled expression.
We broke camp and headed toward the city. We were both very quiet. He seemed to be mulling over something in his mind; and as for me, I was trying to stop nervous flutterings from overwhelming me every time I glanced in his direction.
What is wrong with me? We have a job to do. We have to find the Golden Fruit and I’m acting . . . twitterpated!
I was annoyed with myself. I had to keep reminding myself that this was just Ren, the tiger, and not some teenage crush. Being close to the man for this long was making me come to grips with reality and the first thing I had to do was to get a handle on my emotions. As we walked, I pondered the problem that was our relationship and chewed my lip as I thought.
He’d probably fall in love with any girl who was destined to save him. Plus, there’s just no way a guy like him would ever be attracted to a girl like me. Ren was like Superman, and I had to grudgingly admit that I was no Lois Lane. When the curse is broken, he’ll probably want to date supermodels. Also, I’m the first girl he’s been around in more than three hundred years, give or take – and, although the time line is a bit different, he’s the first man I’ve ever felt anything for. If I let myself dream about having forever with him when this is all over, I’m sure to be disappointed.
In truth, I had no idea what to do. I had never been in love with anyone before. I had never even had a boyfriend before, and these feel-ings were exciting and scary all at once. For the first time in my life, I felt out of control, and it was a feeling I wasn’t sure I completely liked.
The problem was, the more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to be with him. And I was a realist. My brief moments with him now, though exhilarating, wouldn’t guarantee me a happy ending. I knew from painful experience that happy endings weren’t real. Now that the end of the curse loomed in the near future, I had to face facts.
Fact one: Once Ren is free, he’ll want to explore the world and not settle down. Fact two: Love is risky. If he decides that he doesn’t love me, it would destroy me. It would be safer for me to head back to Oregon and my solitary, normal life there and forget all about him. Fact three: I just might not be ready for all of this.
Some of my reasoning was circular, but the circles all led to one thing: not being with Ren. I swallowed a wave of sadness and tightened my fists in determination. I decided that, to protect my heart, it would be better if I nipped this relationship in the bud right now and saved myself the pain and embarrassment of our eventual breakup.
I would just focus on the task ahead get to kishkindha. Then, when this was all over, he could go his way and I could go mine. I’d just do my part to help my friend and then let him go off and be happy.
For what seemed like the next several miles of hiking through the strange, mythical world, I formulated a plan and started sending subtle signals that put the romantic brakes on. Whenever he reached over to hold my hand, I found a reason to gently pull back. When he touched my arm or my shoulder, I stepped away. When he tried to put his arm around me, I shrugged it off or moved ahead. I didn’t say anything or offer any explanations because I couldn’t think of a way to broach the subject.
Ren tried to ask me what was wrong, but I just said, ‘Nothing,’ and he dropped it. At first, he was confused, then he was somber, then he started closing himself off and became angry. Clearly, I had hurt him. It didn’t take long for him to stop trying, and I felt a wall as big as the Great Wall of China go up between us.
We arrived at a moat and found a drawbridge. Unfortu-nately, it was pulled up, but it did hang down slightly on one side as if broken. Ren walked down the creek bed on both sides and stared hard into the water.
‘There are too many Kappa here. I wouldn’t recommend swimming across.’
‘What if we dragged a log over and crossed on that?’
Ren grunted, ‘That’s a good idea.’ He walked over to me and spun me around.
I mumbled nervously, ‘What are you doing?’
‘Just getting out the gada.’ He continued sarcastically, ‘Don’t worry, that’s all I’m doing.’
He took it out, zipped up the backpack quickly, and then he strode off stiffly toward the trees.
I winced. He was angry. I’d never seen him angry before except with Kishan. I didn’t like it, but it was a natural side effect of the whole yanking-out-the-seedling-of-love-and-avoiding-the-jagged-rocks-below plan. It couldn’t be helped.
I gave Fanindra a cursory glance to see if she approved of what I was doing, but her glittery eyes revealed nothing.
A minute later, a heavy boom sounded, and a tree quickly sucked in its branches. Another splintering boom, and the tree crashed through the canopy and fell to the ground with a hard crack. Ren began clubbing the branches off the trunk, and I walked over to help.
‘Is there something I can do?’
He kept his back turned toward me. ‘No. We only have one gada.’
Even though I already knew the answer, I asked, ‘Ren, why are you angry? Is something bothering you?’ I grimaced, knowing that it was me that was bothering him.
He stopped and turned to look at me. His vivid blue eyes searched my face. I quickly averted my gaze and looked down at a quivering branch flexing its needles. When I looked back at him, his face was set in an unreadable mask.
‘Nothing’s bothering me, Kelsey. I’m fine.’
He turned and continued whacking the branches off the tree. When he was finished, he handed me the gada, picked up one end of the heavy tree, and started dragging it toward the creek.