Sophia let out a sigh and rested her head against his chest, taking a deep breath. He held her for a moment, closing his eyes and relishing the feeling of holding her in his arms.
“You didn’t change your mind about us with everything that happened, did you?” he asked softly after a moment, lifting her chin with a finger to look at him, leaning down to rest his forehead against hers.
“Definitely not,” Sophia said with a shaky laugh, “as long as you haven’t changed your mind about me.”
“All I’ve thought about since our last kiss is how much I wanted to kiss you again,” Caspian said, tilting his face to lean in and do just that.
Her cold hands wrapped around his neck, and he closed his eyes. Tears welled up and he blinked them back as he kissed her like the world had almost ended—for them, it had.
They were alive. They were together.
And he was going to kiss her every day for the rest of his life.
He couldn’t form the words yet, couldn’t say anything but prayers of thanks for this moment happening after all the pain and hurt of the past twenty-four hours.
Sophia pulled away, her breath coming fast. “Thank you for saving me,” she said.
Caspian leaned in to kiss her again before saying, “I will always come for you, no matter what. I will always come for you.”
A tear escaped from Sophia’s eyes, and he wiped it away with his thumb.
Sophia ran her hand up his arm and pain sliced through it as she touched his wound. He gasped and she pulled away, covering her mouth with her hand. “I forgot, you’re bleeding,” she said. “Come, we need to bandage it.”
Caspian allowed Sophia to pull him toward the campfire that they had both tried to avoid earlier in the evening. There were men gathered around it again, but this time, they were on his side. They were here to help him protect his Sophia, not take her away from him.
What a difference an hour made.
As Sophia led him into the light of the fire, he could tell the bleeding had already stopped, but if she wanted to bandage him up, he had no reason to tell her no.
“Come sit,” she said, bringing him to a small log next to the fire. She reached out and plucked his knife from his belt, the first person to ever get past his guard in that manner.
“I’m afraid your mother’s dress is ruined,” she said as she lifted the hem and used the knife to cut a small notch in the hem of her underskirt. She handed his knife back and he sheathed it as he watched her rip a strip of long white fabric to make a bandage.
He pulled off his shirt to allow her to bandage his arm and Sophia stared at his chest, her eyes widening as she took in his frame. He felt a stab of pride as she stared with no shame.
Should he tease her for looking?
Probably not, but he would definitely bring it up later.
She ran her hand down his arm to the wound, which, as he’d suspected, had already stopped bleeding. “I’m sorry you got hurt for me,” she said as she began wrapping the strip of fabric around his arm.
“I’m not,” he said. “I would do it all again to save you.”
He couldn’t tell for sure, but he could almost sense the way Sophia blushed at his words as she bound his forearm. He winced as she put more pressure on it. He would have to clean it, but that could wait until morning. For now, he would let Sophia tend to him.
His brother came into the light of the fire, pushing a bound woman before him. Hatred blazed in her eyes as she took in Sophia sitting next to him, and he resisted the urge to put himself between them.
“Of course you made friends,” the woman spat out.
“They’re more than friends,” Sophia said, her voice ringing out, strong and true. “Meet Lords Kellan and Caspian Rendon.”
Faced with the fact that they were nobility, the woman shrank slightly.
“Shall we tell them what you told me earlier?” Sophia asked. There was no menace in her voice and Caspian looked down at her in amazement. How could she be so calm?
“What, the lies I told to make you doubt yourself?” the woman snarled.
Sophia shook her head. “I don’t think they’re lies. I think you are telling the truth, that my father is Lord Manning, and you have stolen my title, and you kidnapped me to keep the truth from being revealed.”
