“Hardly,” he said, stepping in closer. His voice dropped lower. “Everything changed the day at the palace for me, and it’s not because of the dragons or the bond.”
She looked up at him, heart knocking against her ribs. “You’ve got a strange way of showing it.”
“I know,” he admitted. “I want to make a real effort to show you. I’m trying.” He raised their still-linked hands and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. The warmth of his lips lingered long after he pulled away. Her throat tightened. Then he smiled, a flicker of mischief again slipping past the emotion. “You know,” he said lightly, “you don’t have to limp all the way to your dorm just to scrape off dragon dust and pretend your braid didn’t try to strangle you mid-flight.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What are you suggesting?”
“My new room,” he said. “I was reassigned for safety. Come clean up in my room. I’ve got extra towels, clean water, and no roommate now. We can eat together, away from the others, in the eating hall. It’s late, and I know you’re hungry.”
“You want me to come back with you,” she said, lips twitching, “to bathe, eat, and what, let you undress me by torchlight?”
His brows rose. “Tempting offer, but no. I’ll behave. Mostly. Unless you ask otherwise.”
Thaelyn snorted. “You are theleasttrustworthy man I’ve ever met.”
“And yet, you’re still holding my hand.”
She looked down at their joined fingers. “Damn it.”
He laughed. “Come on. I won’t bite. And if you need a guard to keep the towel bandits away, I’ll station Vornokh outside the bathing room.”
“I don’t think I need a dragon, and he wouldn’t fit anyway. I could disembowel you just fine with a spoon.”
“I know. Stubborn, independent, and so sassy.”
Thaelyn hesitated, but her smile broke through, slow and reluctant. Her eyes flicked up to meet his again.
“One condition,” she said.
“Name it.”
“You get the dinner from the eating hall and bring it back to the room. And after my bath, you give me a back rub and rub my sore arms. My muscles hurt so bad from all the flying.”
He laughed, head tilting back, voice rich with amusement and somethingwarmer.
“Deal,” he said. “Come on, Stormborn. Let’s pretend we’re normal for one evening.”
Hand in hand, they turned away from the dorm tower and walked down the torchlit path together, toward firelight, food, and something still unspoken, but rising like wings behind them.
His dorm was tucked into the upper edge of the riders’ tower. The door creaked open into warmth, fire already crackling in the hearth, shadows dancing against the stone. The room was expansive, clean, and barely lived-in. Weapons lined the walls in perfect order; his bed was perfectly made. In the connected bathing room, the copper washtub that was in the corner was steaming faintly under a window cracked just enough to let in a wisp of fresh mountain air.
Thaelyn toed off her boots and stretched her arms, letting her muscles groan in protest.
“You planned this,” she said, nodding at the drawn bath.
“I always plan for emergencies,” Thorne said, pulling off his gloves. “And I suspected you’d eventually stop pretending not to like me.”
She flicked water at him from her hair. “Arrogant.”
“Accurate.”
He moved to grab fresh towels and a bar of soap that smelled faintly of mint and pine.
“Do you want me to step out?” he asked softly.
Thaelyn studied him for a moment, then shook her head. “No. I want you to stay.”
She stripped off her outer layers without hesitation, ignoring his sudden stillness, and slipped into the tub with a sigh that shuddered out of her lungs. The warmth wrapped around her like a second skin, easing aches she hadn’t realized she carried.
