Amma drew her arms into her sides and curled fists under her chin at the sharp memory of escaping Cedric’s grasp by plunging backward off the bed in Krepmar Keep. “I fell,” she said simply, focusing hard on the fluffy linens to blot the image from her mind.
Damien grunted out a skeptical sound but didn’t inquire further. His palms slid over her low back and beneath the chain that held up what little she wore, pulsing arcana into her hip and the fleshiest part of her. She sucked in a sharp breath, the much more intimate touch making her muscles tense.
He pulled away. “Apologies. The bruising is…lower.”
“It’s fine.” When his hands didn’t return, she peeked upward to see Damien gnawing his lip—hesitation still so strange on his face. “Please,” she said quietly, “don’t stop.”
After a slow exhale, Damien’s fingers found the worst bruise again, and she remained slack beneath them, even when they tickled. She knew he had meager spells to heal, despite that a blood mage had little use for them, but she supposed none of her injuries were grievous, which made mending them easier.
“Shift onto your back for me,” he said.
Amma carefully rolled over, being sure to keep what little she wore in place, and when she was mostly satisfied that she was covered, she glanced up to see him inspecting her. It had been different on her stomach, pressing her face into the linens, but the way his brow knit as his gaze traveled over her body made her want to hide under the blankets.
Too exposed, she pulled her knees up and arms in. She may have been wanting to rip her clothes off moments earlier, but this felt immensely more intimate. At least with his own chest bared, she was slightly less flustered at being so close to naked.
Damien gently took her wrists and placed her hands at her sides instead of on her stomach. Then he touched her knees, but before he pressed them back down, asked, “Is this too much?”
She shook her head and let him ease her legs into the linens. He gave the length of her a long look, but there was melancholy in his eyes, not desire, as he lifted her arm to survey the marks and treat them. She had developed minor scrapes and bruises on their trek well before what happened at Krepmar Keep, of course. Stumbling clumsily or catching herself on a briar, she thought little of the nicks and purple splotches that would come and go, tender for a few days until they healed. Damien, however, never remained marred for longer than a few hours, and as he studied the marks he arcanely tended to, he mutteredto himself between Chthonic spells.
He worked his way down, stopping at her thigh and a long scrape there. She let her eyelids flutter closed, heat building in her stomach and traveling lower as his fingers inched closer to the only concealed part of her. She pressed her lips together to keep from sighing out the suggestive noise building in her throat.
Then Damien’s voice disrupted the quiet of the chamber, strangely raw. “Amma, I broke my vow to you.”
Her mind was beginning to melt, the pain driven out by his touch now glancing over her other thigh and lightly massaging where the bruises had been. “I don’t care if I never go back to Faebarrow as long as you keep doing that,” she mumbled.
“I don’t mean returning you to your home.” Defeat was thick in his voice. “I swore to not use the talisman again, but I did.”
Amma opened her eyes to see him looking utterly distraught.
“My broken promise led to your abduction.” His hand came to her face, thumb sliding over her cheek. “And it left you wounded, even here.”
Amma’s tongue instinctively slid over the cut inside her mouth where her teeth had sliced in. “It was my own anger that made me run off, and it wasn’t your fault that Cedric struck me. He’d done it before, and it’s not the worst thing he…” Her voice trailed off as she watched Damien’s eyes go cold.
“Tomorrow I will find a necromancer, I will bring that bastard back, and I will torture him so meticulously that he will beg his gods to return him to the Abyss.”
She shook her head, laying her hand on his wrist. “No, Damien, please leave him dead.”
The blood mage stared down at her like he would never rest until it was done, but she squeezed his arm, and his features finally softened. “It would not truly be his soul anyway.” Damien whispered out another spell, thumb skimming over her cheek.The metallic tang inside her mouth disappeared. “I wish I could properly express my remorse, Ammalie, but I am sincerely sorry.”
She wanted to tell him to not be, that was always her impulse, but she knew he would not accept that, and also that his words meant more if left as they were. “Thank you.”
“I know that he was callous to you, and it is not difficult to infer how,” said Damien, voice hoarse so he had to clear his throat, “but if you are inclined to discuss it, I will listen.”
“Maybe someday, but for now I just want to forget.”
Damien nodded and slowly appraised her body again. More comfortable under his eyes, she let the rest of the tension wring itself out of her limbs, and when he brought a hand to her chest, she didn’t hold her breath. His finger slipped into the band, but only tugged it down the slightest bit to reveal an angry, red slice between her breasts.
“I did that to myself,” she said, “to summon you with the feather.”
He knit his brow and ran a finger over the cut. “I can mend this.”
“Leave it.” She caught his hand with a quickness. “That, I want to remember.”
Damien frowned but obliged, asking after any more pain, but there was none, and deep circles had formed under his eyes. He hesitated, looking out into the room and then back. “Is it all right if I share the bed with you?”
Amma nodded and moved aside, giving him more room.
“Good.” Damien yawned and slid down beside her. “It will be safer this way.”
