My anger is blinding. It emanates from my very marrow. I wish I had kept them alive. I wish I could skin them and rip out their throats with my teeth.
I place her on a couch in my quarters—a new piece of furniture—as gently as possible. “I’ll be back.”
I rip into the castle storage, making a few warriors jump, but I don’t give a damn. I fill my arms with bandages, ointments, everything I can find, and portal back to her.
Her cheek is bleeding. Shards of glass litter her delicate palms. I again regret breaking their necks. They should have felt every second of their long, slow deaths.
How did I let this happen? I thought by staying away, I was keeping her safe ... but instead, I put her in danger. She’s clearly determined to find the sword. Our agreement is not one-sided. She needs our deal to work just as much as I do. She’s a ruler acting for the good of her realm as well.
She is going to get herself killed.
I sit next to her and begin with her shoulders. She shivers and bucks as I tend to her wounds, but I pin her down with one of my hands.
“These are Moonling,” I say, motioning toward the bandages. “They’re good at healing cuts.”
“Do you ... trade with them?”
I ignore her, too focused on her injuries.
“Let me see your hands.”
She tries to hide them, butnice try. I snatch one, cursing when I see the damage up close.
Her beautiful hands ... they have been shredded. Some fragments glimmer from where they’re embedded in her skin. They need to be removed.
“This will take a while,” I say. I need a better angle. I need to make sure she won’t move and I don’t do more harm than good.
In a moment, she’s in my arms, and then on my lap.
“What are you doing?” she asks, breathless in my grip.
I haveno idea what I’m doing, clearly, because I put her on my lap, and now, she’s squirming right against me.
“You need to keep still,” I grind out. “Or the glass is going to move while I’m working and make removing all of it almost impossible.” I offer an alternative. “I can make you pass out, if you prefer.” That way, I could lay her down. I wouldn’t have to hold her still. She wouldn’t be on top of me.
She bristles. “I most certainly do not prefer that.”
I wait for her approval. I won’t do anything she doesn’t want. Finally, she says, through her teeth, with a cutting glare, “Fine.”
As if I’m not here, healing her,helpingher. Even now, she looks at me as her enemy. I suppose I deserve it, but it doesn’t erase the sting. My eyes narrow. “So charming,” I say, before snaking my arms around her, pinning her in place.
I swallow down my body’s response to this position. It’s made harder by the fact that I can taste her desire in the air, sweet and heady. Gently, I open her fingers. I pluck the first piece of glass from her hand, and she bucks against me. I keep her in place.
She gasps.
I rest my chin atop her head and look at my work. “There are about a dozen more on this hand alone, so I would find a way around the pain.”
She looks up at me, and I’m momentarily blinded by green.
How I missed that green.
How I missedher.
She missed me too. I canfeelit.
I both hate that andcraveit.
“Where were you?” she demands.
