“Don’t flatter yourself.” Someone hadfuckinghurt him. “You’re the one who nearly bled out for…whatever reason you’re pretending was worth it.”
I glanced up, finding his expression unreadable. But his hands were fisted on my hips, and his breath came shallow.
I sat back on my heels. “Take the shirt off. If you’re injured lower, take your pants off too.”
26
ISI
“See?” Trew said, his smirk tinged with pain. “You reallydowant to touch my body.”
“I’m not touching anything.”
“Going to heal me with magic, minx?”
My gaze flashed to his belly where I’d poked him with my blade. Not even a scar. “Who healed that?”
“I did it myself.”
“You don’t seem too happy about it.”
He shrugged, wincing when he did it. “I wish it had left a scar.”
“Why?”
“Wouldn’t you like to think you’ve branded me?”
Fates, yes.
I did not say that. Instead, I shrugged his question off. “Why haven’t you healed these wounds?”
“Wounds received on other realms don’t heal in the same way. It wasn’t supposed to touch me. But then, neither were you.”
On other realms…
I frowned, remembering the firecat who’d saved me. But…that would be impossible. I shook off the thought. “Wait here.”
I rushed to the washroom, fumbling for towels, both wet and dry, and a small tin of fraewort balm I discovered while searching a cabinet. Bandages too. All the things some random person might need if they happened to…oh, trip in the hallway and scuff their knee.
My pulse hadn’t settled. Maybe it never would, not with him sitting so horribly wounded and in pain nearby, not with everything that had happened in the past hour.
We were flirting.
No, never that. He was a rebel king. And I was here to rip off the cloak covering this place and expose the rot beneath. Find the children and free them. Discover who killed my sister and slit their throat.
He couldn’t be involved.
Could he?
I returned to the sitting room and dropped to my knees beside him on the sofa.
“I told you to take off your tunic,” I said.
He smirked, one brow lifting. “I’ll remove my pants too, if that would help the healing process.”
I didn’t dignify that with more than a traitorous glance at the front of his pants, where his cock pressed against the fabric.
Itwasthick.
