Lose me. She can neverhaveme. “You shouldn’t be out here, Rapunzel,” I mutter, pulling the blanket tighter around me. Itiscold, and I lost enough blood that my body isn’t doing a great job of keeping me warm.
Freya comes to my side, her arm pressed to mine. Behind her, two guards stand with their backs to us and at a far enough distance that they’re unlikely to hear our conversation. If I were anyone else, I doubt they would take their eyes off the princess after what happened today, but I’m grateful for the privacy they’re giving us for now.
Freya leans a little more heavily against me. “I do believe I am not obligated to take any order from you unless my safety is at stake.”
“You wouldn’t listen even if it was.”
“How are you feeling?”
Sighing, I turn to face her, planning to tell her I’m perfectly fine and we should get ready to leave. But at the sight of her hair spilling over her shoulders in the moonlight, my heart throbs in my chest and leaves my resolve feeling slippery. I don’t want to leave this place. Leaving means riding the rest of the way through the pass, which sounds exhausting and painful, and facing reality as soon as we get to the town on the other side where the royal vehicles are waiting for us.
I would so much rather stay in this little guard-surrounded bubble and pretend we’re alone again, like we were before.
“Sit down,” I say, adjusting the blanket to free my arms.
Freya frowns. “What?”
Pointing at a log near her feet, I repeat my command with raised eyebrows. “Please,” I add when she gapes at me.
“I will remind you about orders.” But she does sit, wrapping her arms around her knees. She’s wearing a jacket that was probably supplied to her by one of the guards, but I don’t miss the shiver that runs through her.
Slipping the blanket from my shoulders, I drape it around her and speak over her when she tries to protest. “Take it, Freya. I need my hands free for this.”
“For what, exactly?”
Instead of answering, I slide my fingers into her hair and start pulling it away from her face. It’s been a few months since I last braided the girls’ hair, and neither of them had quite this much. But Freya needs someone to help her tame her waves, and Runa isn’t here. I wasn’t much help to the princess after leaving the arena, but I can be useful now.
“It is still hard to believe you are as skilled with hair as you are with everything else,” Freya murmurs as I take pieces of her hair on one side of her part to do a Dutch braid.
“No one said I was skilled.”
The frogs continue their song as I work, helping fill the silence between us. I don’t mind that we aren’t talking. Freya’s hair is not only long but thick, and it’s taking all of my concentration to weave it into something that will last longer than a few minutes without any pins to hold it in place. I’m hoping for a functional braid crown, something to last until we meet up with the rest of the staff.
Freya sits with the blanket tucked around her, her arms hugging her legs, and she looks like a regular human this way instead of a princess who never lets anything get to her. I wish I could see her face and have a chance at guessing what she might be thinking about, but since my whole focus is on the back of her head, I start replaying some of the things she said last night.
She was full of compliments, and frankly I might have dreamed up half of them in my wounded delirium, but I was still conscious for one thing in particular:You could be royal material.
Freya isn’t one to lie. But does she really think I could be…enough?
My fingers grow still on her scalp, and Freya tilts her head back to look at me. “Elliot?”
Unable to resist, I brush a finger along her temple, then resume my braiding, working more quickly now that I’ve finished braiding across the front of her head. I just need to work the rest of her hair into the braid I’ve already done and hope that it stays in place. “I said a lot of things last night,” I mutter. “Things I probably wouldn’t have said if I hadn’t been shot.”
“So did I. Do you regret anything?”
“It’s hard to regret being honest.” And I will never regret that kiss. I shouldn’t have done it, but her request felt enough like an order that my body overtook my brain and obeyed. If not for the holes in my side, I’m not sure I would havestoppedkissing her once I started.
Finished with the last of the braid, I tuck the end into the crown and settle on the log, facing the opposite direction from the princess but pressed up against her side. “Do you? Regret anything, I mean.”
After admiring my handiwork by tilting her head from one side to the other and patting the front of the crown with her hand, she takes one end of the blanket and holds it out to me. It’s an awkward way to share, facing the wrong way, but I’ll take the warmth however I can get it.
“I cannot regret saying what I feel,” she says, her voice as soft as the breeze around us. “And you…” Her hand lifts to my chest, cold fingers splaying across my skin. “You make me question everything I thought I knew, Elliot Reid.”
“That sounds like a terrible thing to do.” Kissing her would be equally terrible, but that doesn’t mean I’m not tempted. Close as we are and relatively on our own, now could be my only chance to taste her again.
Freya smiles. “Or the best thing.” Is she talking about making her question things or kissing? “I always thought I knew what I wanted.”
“But?” As a chill shudders through me when the breeze picks up, I lean closer to her, as much for warmth as from simple desire.
