“I lost track of time,” I mutter, reaching for my bag. My fingers brush leather, his sketchbook, and my pulse stutters. Every question I’ve been holding since last night presses against my tongue, but this isn’t the moment. Not yet.
“My dad… how bad was it?” The words scrape out before I can stop them, weighted heavily by the fact he’s wrapped head-to-toe in clothes he didn’t need last time I saw him.
Ares snorts. “Your dad was peachy. Thinkhe wants to get a pint with me next week.” The sarcasm is sharp enough to glitter, but behind it sits something frayed, something brittle.
He studies me again, more slowly this time. “Why are you alone out here?”
“Liam had something with Theo, and Sebastian is visiting his sister.” I shift, trying to stand fully, but pain cuts through my side like a rusty blade. I hiss under my breath, clutching the spot as my frustration spikes. My head tips back against the trunk, the bark digging into my skull as I curse myself for ignoring the wound.
“You still haven’t gotten that treated?” he asks, and the low simmer of irritation in his voice tells me exactly how little patience he has left for my bad decisions. I shake my head anyway, stubborn as ever.
He leans in, eyes narrowing. “Let me see how bad it’s gotten.”
“I’m fine.” I step around him, but he moves quicker, blocking my path with a silent, fluid shift of his body. His hands never leave his pockets, yet somehow he still manages to cage me in with just his presence. His height forces my chin up; his closeness scrapes heat along my nerve endings.
“If it gets infected,” he says, voice dropping into something that crawls down my spine, “you’ll be stuck in the infirmary for days when you could be training. I won’t hurt you. Just lift your shirt enough so I can see it.”
There’s no threat in his tone. Not really. It’s worse, concern he refuses to name, irritation he can’t hide, and something darker threaded between the words. Something that tightens my stomach.
His gaze locks onto mine, unwavering, unblinking. It steals the breath from my lungs more effectively than pain ever could.
And the worst, most dangerous, part?
I want to obey.
He waits without moving, watching me with that carved-in-stone stillness he wears like armor. His expression gives nothing away, but the faint furrow between his brows tells me he’s concentrating, on me, on the wound, on the choice I’m about to make. The silence stretches, taut as a pulled thread. I bite the inside of my cheek, glance anywhere but at him, and then lift the hem of my sweater.
The fabric drags upward, exposing the bruises and the angry, darkened edges of the gash I’ve been pretending doesn’t exist. The oversized knit had hidden the toll, but there’s no disguising how lean I’ve gotten, how hollow the last week has carved me. Before I can talk myself out of this, I hear a soft crunch of leaves. He steps closer. His scent reaches me in slow waves, sandalwood first, then clean cotton, and something warmer underneath, something expensive and subtle and fleeting like lavender pressed between book pages. It steals a breath from me.
His fingers come next.
He touches the skin around the wound, not the center, just the edges, his restraint somehow more intimate than if he'd grabbed my waist outright. The moment his fingertips meet me, a shiver skates violently up my spine, goosebumps racing across my arms as if my body has been waiting for something it didn’t know how to name. He traces upward, the path dangerously close to where Theo had touched earlier, but Ares’s touch is different, gentler, slower, as if he’s mapping the damage rather than assessing it.
And then he pulls away.
So fast it feels like loss.
The absence of his hands leaves heat trapped under my skin. I drop my sweater back down, swallowing the embarrassment clawing at my throat as I force myself to meet his eyes again.
He’s already retreated a few steps, jaw clenched hardenough to fracture stone. His hands disappear into his pockets. A leaf drifts down in front of him; he snatches it midair without even glancing at it, rolling the stem between his fingers just like Liam had earlier. But unlike my brother, Ares doesn’t look away from me once. His gaze stays on me, sharp, unreadable, unsettlingly focused.
“How bad is it?” My voice feels thinner than I want it to.
His silence drags just long enough to make my skin prickle.
“It’s not infected,” he finally says, though his tone makes it clear it’s closer than I realize. “But it’s close.”
Before I can argue, he steps forward, grabs my bag, and slings it over his own shoulder with a practiced ease that shouldn’t make my pulse jump the way it does. The motion shifts the flap, exposing the corner of the sketchbook. I freeze, but he doesn’t seem to notice, or he hides it well. His hand presses the flap down without comment.
“In terms of your training,” he adds, turning his back to me, “I’m not going to waste time teaching someone who’s nearly starved.”
There’s no cruelty in his voice, just blunt truth wrapped in annoyance and something else I can’t decipher.
He starts walking toward Anavris, coat sweeping behind him, shoulders rigid with purpose.
“Let’s go find you something to eat.”
He doesn’t look back to see if I’m following.
