She shot him a quick narrow-eyed look. “You saying I eat too fast?”
“Not even a little. If anything, you could stand to eat more and faster.” Pushing his bowl away, he crossed his arms and rested them on the table. “You’ll eat better on my homestead. When the weather clears some, we’ll?—”
“I can’t go with you,” she sighed.
Trying to restrain his growing frustration, he argued, “You say that, but we both know it’s not true.”
“It is,” she insisted, suddenly all agitation and energy. “I swore to do my duty. As did you! How can you be so comfortable abandoning your cause, Henrik? You act like you’re a man of morals and principles, but how can that be true when you’re willing to just walk away?—”
“From what, Mabel?”
He had a lot of patience, and he was willing to fight with his mate until Grim ushered in the end of days, but one thing he couldn’t stand was her dedication to a cause that saw her as little more than meat for the grinder.
Henrik leaned forward a little, trying with everything in him to impress on her the truth of what he said. “Whatevercauseexisted once at the heart of this war died a long time ago. For gods’ sakes, Mabel, you wereborn into it.You’ve never known a life beyond it. I’m telling you that more exists off the battlefield, but you won’t get to see a bit of it if you go back.”
Her chin wobbled, but his stubborn, beautiful mate firmed it enough to bite out, “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“You volunteered,” she argued, “you chose this life. And now you want to abandon your men? All for what?”
“Foryou,”he snapped. “My orders — the entire Orclind army’s orders — are to capture or kill healers, Mabel. And it’s not just us. It’s the shifters. It’s the elves. It’s the dragons. You’re too dangerous to be allowed to stay with an enemy, and the fewer there are, the bigger targets you become. I’ve put my time in. I should’ve retired from the front lines a decade ago, but I didn’t because I didn’t know what else I was good for. But now I do.”
Her eyes were glossy in the firelight, and when she spoke, her voice was husky with unshed tears. “And what’s that?”
Instinct compelled him to reach across their table and draw her into the safety of his arms, but he restrained himself. They’d been arguing circles around this conversation for two weeks. It had to be out, to be done, for them to truly find their footing.
Swallowing hard, he answered, “Protecting you.”
Mabel looked away quickly. In that raw voice, she breathed, “Henrik…”
“No, you gotta hear me,” he insisted, at last giving in to the clawing need to reach across the table to grasp her perfect, powerful hand.
Nearly growling the words, he confessed, “You’re worth a thousand of me, Mabel. I’ve done nothing but take lives that ought not’ve been taken for too many years. I’m drowning in regrets, and Grim will count them all when I meet her at the riverbank. But this fool war won’t change because we aren’t there to fight it anymore. It’ll keep grinding on, chewing up folks like us, until the day there’s just no one left. You can’t tell me you don’t see that. And you damn well can’t tell me you trulywantto go back to that life.”
Her fingers curled around his. They shook a little, but they held on tight as her eyes closed. The fringe of her lashes glittered with tears in the firelight when she admitted, “I hate it. I’m… I’m sotiredof not being able to save people.”
His heart broke for his poor mate. It was unnatural, crushing a healer under the weight of so much death. They were the stuff of life. Not being able to save those in their care would be a fate worse than death for creatures crafted by the gods to heal.
Still holding her hand, Henrik got up from his chair and circled the table. Kneeling by her chair, he brought her knuckles up for a lingering kiss. “You’ve done your best, my blessing. That’s all anyone could ask of you.”
“But don’t you see why that means I have to go back?” Her eyes opened, revealing so much conflict and pain. “If— if I’mcapable of saving even one life and you don’t, that makes me a killer.”
His nose wrinkled with a snarl. “Tell me, how many lives will you save if you die on a battlefield tomorrow, Mabel? And how many lives will you save if youlive?If you abandon the meat grinder and find ways to help the suffering that won’t end up with you blown to pieces? There are civilians who need you. Babies. Soldiers too wounded to fight. There is more to this war than the front line, my blessing.”
Pressing his lips to her knuckles again, he murmured, “I’d never ask you to stop healing. All I’m asking is for you to live.”
Her index finger slowly uncurled. Brushing his cheek, she whispered, “And you’d help me do that? Save other people? You just met me.”
“I would,” he answered, thrilled to his bones by that gentle touch. “Because you’re my mate, my blessing, my light in this terrible world. The gods gave me a gift when they picked me to guard you, Mabel. I intend to cherish it.”
She said nothing. Her eyes, so bright and uncanny in the flickering light, darted back and forth as she examined his face. Whatever she found there must have moved her, though, because she leaned down slowly.
He held his breath, afraid that even a sigh might scare her off. His heart hammered as she brushed her lips against his — a chaste kiss that tasted like sugar and magic that made the world go bright.
Too bright.
Magic was a bomb blast between them, as hot and devastating as any ordinance, and within a few heartbeats, the world fell away, as dark as the winter solstice itself.
