“Impatient?” Something close to a laugh escaped him. “Is that what you think this is?”
“Isn’t it?”
His hand was still in my hair. His eyes were dark, darker than I’d ever seen them, the red almost black in the lamplight.
“I’ve been patient,” he said. “For days. Since the first time you looked at me like you were trying to figure out if I was worth trusting. Since you said ‘Don’t die’ and I realized I actually wanted to listen.” His thumb traced the line of my jaw. “This isn’t impatience. This is running out of reasons to wait.”
My chest tightened. I couldn’t name what was building in my chest. Too big for the space between us.
“Later,” I said. “When you’re not bleeding.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes.”
The word hung between us. Simple and certain. Something to hold onto through whatever came next.
More reinforcements arriving by morning. Enough to bury us. The math hadn’t changed.
But something else had.
I touched his face. Traced the line of his jaw, the edge of his mouth. He turned his head, pressed a kiss to my palm, and the tenderness of it made my eyes sting.
“Rest,” I said. “I’ll take first watch.”
“Anhara.”
“Rest. That’s an order.”
He almost smiled. I’d never seen him almost smile before. It changed his whole face, softened the sharp edges, made him look younger and less like a weapon.
“Yes ma’am,” he said.
I climbed off the table. My legs were unsteady. My hands shook. The kiss had lasted seconds, but something in me felt permanently rearranged.
He watched me gather the medical supplies. Watched me wash the blood from my hands at the sink. Watched me with those dark eyes that saw too much and said too little.
“Anhara.”
I turned.
“Thank you,” he said. “For trusting me with that.”
He meant the story. The ugliest parts of who I’d been, the violence I’d committed, the person I’d had to become to survive. I’d handed him all of it and he’d held it without flinching.
“Thank you for listening,” I said.
I left him there, on my kitchen table, with his fresh stitches and his almost-smile and the taste of him still on my lips.
Outside, the stars were coming out. The bodies in the fields would need dealing with tomorrow. The reinforcements would need planning for. The future would need facing.
But right now, just for this moment, I let myself feel something other than fear.
Turnip huffed from his spot by the hearth. I reached down and scratched behind his ears.
“Don’t start,” I told him.
He huffed again. It sounded like agreement.
