A dizzying feeling comes over me again, but I lift my hands in front of me to ward him off.
Rip’s eyes harden like inky steel, his spikes erupting from his sleeves and down his back. They seem to breathe, each sharp curve expanding like ribs.
He glares down at me. “You can barely stand. Youareill.”
“I said I’m fine.”
He takes a step forward, coming into my space, forcing my head to tilt back. “AndIsaid don’t lie until you can do it better,” he replies quietly, his voice an even rumble, a saw dragging through wood. “Go to the tent. I’ll send for the mender.”
I grit my teeth at his order, since that’s obviously what I was doing in the first place. My head hurts too much to think of a retort though, and I can’t breathe correctly with him so close.
Cursing him under my breath, I turn and walk off, keeping my attention on my feet, feeling his eyes on my back until I duck into the tent.
There’s a slight chill in the space since the burning coals haven’t had enough time to heat it up, but I kick my snowy boots off and strip out of my coat before I collapse onto the pallet on the right, burying myself beneath layers of blessed fur.
I feel like I’ve just barely closed my eyes when I feel a hand pressing against my brow. My head swims, and for a moment, I think it’s my mother’s hand, her comforting touch come to say goodnight.
But then I notice the calluses on the palm, the rough grit sliding against my forehead like sandpaper smoothing wood.
It can’t be her—her hands were soft, dainty. Hers was a mother’s caressing touch, not this clinical, unfamiliar graze.
I startle awake, blinking blearily as Hojat comes into focus above me. It takes a second, but once I realize that it’s his hand touching my forehead, blind panic comes roaring up.
In a rush of alarmed horror, I jerk upright, my ribbons straightening out, acting on pure instinct. They shove him away hard, curled edges of satin slamming into his chest with a furor.
With wide, surprised eyes and a grunt from the force of my push, Hojat’s body goes flying back. It happens almost in slow motion, while I watch in horrified shock.
A strangled yelp chokes out of me as his body barely misses hitting the burning hot coals. His momentum keeps him going, my hit far too hard, and I suck in a breath as I watch his trajectory head for the poles of the tent.
A second before he would’ve crashed into them, Rip is there, taking the brunt of the mender’s fall.
The commander manages to catch him, hands on shoulders, where Hojat regains his feet instead of colliding into the tent and taking the whole thing down, probably cracking his head open in the process.
An exhale whooshes out of me.
For a moment, none of us move, none of us speak. With my ribbons flared out on either side of me, the only sound that can be heard are my heaving breaths.
When I manage to calm myself enough to breathe normally, my eyes flick to the tent flaps, where I can see the blackness of night bleeding through the cracks. I must’ve only dozed off for a little while.
But in my panicked overreaction, I just showed my hand—or more accurately, my ribbons.
Hojat steps away from the commander to straighten himself. “Well, you’re a strong one,” he jokes with a nervous laugh that tugs the left side of his scarred mouth in a grimace.
Blearily, my ribbons drop as I lower myself back onto the pallet, shaky legs curled beneath me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” I say, shoving sweaty strands of hair off my face. “I just...I don’t like to be touched. No one is allowed to touch me.”
Pity crosses his face. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I find the courage to flick my eyes to Rip. I don’t know what he’s thinking. His expression is far too unreadable, his stare too still. It sets my already racing heart on edge.
Sweat gathers across my brow and back, and I suddenly regret falling asleep beneath all those furs, because I’m no longer cold. I’msweltering.
And it has everything to do with the way that Rip’s gaze is burning into me.
Chapter 20
AUREN
Rip and Hojat continue to standthere, staring. I feel like a little girl caught red-handed with stolen food.
