“You’re cold.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
“Here,” he said, removing his armor and belt. He began unraveling his cloak, pulling all the folds from around his waist out and then bringing it over to me, draping me in it.
I stilled. “You didn’t have to?—”
“No. It’s okay. You need it more than I do.” He frowned, watching me, his face red against the fire.
“I’m not that cold.”
But he shook his head. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you back there?”
My eyes burned with unshed tears, and I was suddenly so, so fucking angry. Why should I be upset? That was probably the best I’d ever fared in Kormac’s hands. They’d drugged me, bruised the shit out of me and cut me up as they dragged me unconscious from the house. But they hadn’t beaten me, or humiliated me. Or raped me. So why was I on the verge of tears? I’d been through far fucking worse.
Dario reached out a hand. “I’m sorry, Julianna. I got to you as fast as I could.”
“How—” I narrowed my eyes. “How did you find me? Did you hear them take me?”
His jaw worked and he looked away. “I should have. I could have sworn I heard something. And I went to the room to check—but then—well, I didn’t think you wanted to see me, so?—”
Shit. I almost lost my fucking life because Dario was actually respecting my boundaries and trying to give me space.
“But then I went in a few minutes later.” He hissed through his teeth. “And you were gone. We tore the house apart. Meera prepped a nahashim to come find you. But then I remembered the babies in their boxes. They saw what happened to you—saw that man grab you and drag you off the balcony. I took off after you at once, running and tracking every clue I could find until I found the wagon.”
“You tracked me? Using nothing more than a vision of me being kidnapped?”
“Well, I could make some deductions based on their methods and the fact that no one else had seen anything. I had to make some quick guesses. Thank the Gods I was right. If anything had happened to you—” His hands fisted.
My throat went dry. “You would have broken your promise to Lyr?”
Dario grimaced. “Yes.” His eyes met mine. “But more than that, I would have lost it. Because I—” He paused and I could see the uncertainty in his eyes. “Because I care about you,” he said softly.
I looked away. I was tired. My body ached. My brain felt heavy and stuffed, like my head was full of wool. But it wasn’t either of those things that was making me feel exhausted. It was far more simple than that. It was feeling. Just feeling. Feeling anything. I had worked so hard during my time in the Palace to become numb. To everything. My body. My mind. My heart. To feel nothing, just so I could survive. Keep my oath to Seth. And now, I realized that for the past month, I’d been feeling so much. Like I was using muscles I hadn’t tried to use before, or had forgotten. And I wasn’t sure I was ready.
“Are you hungry?” Dario asked after several moments of silence between us. “I have some food in my pack.”
I turned back to him and nodded. I was hungry.
“Have a seat,” Dario said. “I’ll give you everything I have.”
“What about you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about me.”
I started to sit down, but suddenly cried out. Now that we were still, that the threat was gone, my injuries were catching up to me. At least a dozen cuts and bruises, it felt like.
“Can I look?” Dario asked.
My heart started thundering. My stomach twisted. It suddenly occurred to me how alone I was with him. How at his mercy. But he held up his hand. “I’ll only look, I swear. I won’t touch you. Not unless you say it’s okay.”
“Okay,” I said, eyeing his hands, and slowly inched his cloak off my shoulders.
He reached for a pouch on his belt and came to kneel before me.
“Show me where,” he said quietly. “Oh, hold on.”
He pulled out a small cantina of water and splashed it over his hands, rubbing them together. Then he pulled out a jar of golden sunleaf paste, and popped the lid, sticking his finger in. His eyes narrowed. “You have a cut on your cheek.” His jaw tensed. “May I?”
