He set her down on her feet but didn’t move away from her.
“Tell me who made you cry,” he demanded roughly. “Who made you run?”
She found it amazing that he could tell she had been crying even soaked as she was. Without looking at him, she said, “I was at the opera, a musical performance, with Lord Richard and his parents. He…”
“Did he touch you, Isobel Nott?”
She opened her mouth, a lie already burdening her tongue.
Ved moved away from her abruptly. “Stay here.”
“Where are you going?” she blurted.
He’d already taken three strides away from her. “Hunting him down.”
“He didn’t— You can’tkillhim, Ved.” Isobel stepped toward him, the wet fabric of her gown twisting and sticking to her as she did.
He paused, turning to look over his shoulder at her. His eye shields were gleaming a sinister crimson. “He hurt you. I’ll do more than kill him.”
She shook her head, but he continued, “He put his hands on you, and so I will take them from him. As well as his tongue and eyes, since all have offended you. When I’m through, I’ll retrieve his skull and gift it to you.” He said a string of words in Xaala, too, and she could only imagine how bloody the vows were by the lethal tone of his voice.
The sheer horror of his words mixed with something else entirely, but she shoved it away. “Nothing he did has warranted his death.”
“Xaal—”
“But we aren’t Xaal. If you kill him, they’ll want to know who did it. They’ll suspect me or my family, especially because I left him at the opera.”
He shifted, his big hands curling in and out of fists. Everything about his posture said he was at war with himself. With his very nature. She already knew that on Runus, in Xaal culture, this wouldn’t be a conversation. Lord Richard would be a man marked for death.
She stepped closer to him, almost tripping over the wet gown.
Reaching out to steady her, he said something in his language, low and guttural, before saying, “I will not kill him this night if you do not wish it.”
“No killing. Just stay with me?” she whispered between chattering teeth.
He grunted. “You need to get dry and warm. Take this fabric off. I will put it against the thermal bands.”
She contemplated his order. Her decision to come had been impulsive. Reckless. She hadn’t considered what she’d actuallydo once she was here. But she couldn’t very well sit around a sopping mess. The dress itself was heavy and waterlogged, but her stays had repelled some of the moisture, and her shift felt somewhat dry. It wasn’t enough to remain modest but that didn’t matter.
None of it mattered. She nodded again.
He moved around her and, without further instruction, began undoing the buttons after briefly studying them. Thick fingers worked at them, and she couldn’t help but think how neither of them had been in such a situation before. He’d probably only ever taken off another’s armor, and a man undressing her seemed as much a fairytale as the books she read. He moved her wet hair off her back, laying it over her shoulder gently. Reverently.
When the gown was loosened, he stepped away.
She took a deep breath and shimmied out of it before she could think better of it. “My stays,” she murmured. He wasn’t looking at her, his head turned slightly as if he wasn’t fully certain what to do. But his muscles were tense, his stance stiff.
Taking a steadying breath, she pulled at the ribbons of the stays, numbly removing the overlayer. Her shift beneath clung to her more than she originally thought it would and her nipples were shadowed peaks beneath. Definitely improper. A shiver went through her as much from the cool air as from being exposed.
Crossing an arm over herself, she handed Ved her wet clothing.
Ved took it without fully looking at her and walked out of the room without a word. When he came back moments later, he had a towel the size of a small blanket with him. He was somehow completely dry, however, and had taken off his weapons’ belt—keeping his promise not to murder Richard right then.
He handed the towel to her and only stepped back far enough that she could dry off unimpeded. “What else happened at this opera?” he prompted.
She sighed as she attempted to dry her hair before wrapping the large towel around herself. How did she explain it to him? Explain what she was feeling when she couldn’t even reason it out herself? “While the music played in the background, the singer hitting the highest of notes, I had this overpowering feeling that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I felt sick, and Lord Richard was so unkind. I stood up to move out into the hall so I wasn’t disrupting the show, but he followed me.”
“Where did he touch you?”
