“For Nala,” he corrected, but there was no real edge in his voice.
I looked up at him, the side of his face half-lit by firelight, his lashes casting faint shadows on his cheek. “That was brave.”
“So was staying outside to fight off the hunters,” he said, turning just enough for our gazes to meet. “We can both do brave things for the people we care about.”
Something pulled in my chest then, low and slow and impossible to ignore. I didn’t look away, and neither did he.
The fire crackled. The wind whispered outside again.
Tearing my gaze away, I worked methodically, cleaning the burnt fabric and dirt from the burns and cuts as best I could. He’d received these injuries saving Nala. If only I could take away the pain for him, too.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For letting you live out your dream as a torturer?”
“For saving Nala,” I said.
He tensed under my ministrations for a moment, breathing steadily but otherwise remaining still as if he expected me to say or do something else.
When I continued to tend to his burns, he relaxed. “You’re welcome.”
The fire crackled low in the hearth, its light flickering over the worn wooden walls of the cabin like a heartbeat.
Ace stood close, too close. Bare-chested, raw and open, a fresh bandage wrapped around his shoulder where I’d cleaned a deep cut. The scent of singed cedar clung to him.
“I think that’s the last of it,” I said. My fingers trembled slightly as I finished tying off the bandage. “You’re lucky you didn’t pass out in that fire.”
“I’m too stubborn to die,” he said, voice low and rough like gravel.
I snorted. “I believe that.”
“Your turn,” he said.
I stiffened. “I can do it myself.”
“Em.”
When he used my name instead of calling me Mouse, it did something to me—something I wasn’t ready or willing to name. I swallowed the sting of pride and sat down on the cushions. I peeled off my shirt and flung it to the side so Ace could see the arrow wound on my upper arm better. The effects of the poison had already faded, burned away by the phaanon magic in my blood, but the skin was torn, angry, and slow to knit.
Ace didn’t join me right away. Instead, he found a fresh shirt to pull on, retrieved a new cloth, and changed out the water I’d used to clean his wounds. While I waited, I basked in the heat from the fireplace and tried not to let my eyelids close for too long.
Soon enough, Ace knelt beside me and placed a fresh basin of water beside us. His hands were gentler than I expected.
“I saw the arrow hit you,” he said quietly, voice tight. “I thought the poison?—”
His touch lingered longer than necessary, and I should have pulled away. I should have told him not to look at me like that, like I mattered. But phaan, I didn’t want him to stop.
“You’re healing fast,” he said, trying for clinical, failing miserably.
I forced a smile. “Perks of being the cursed immortal.”
“Not cursed,” he said, and for a moment, just a breath, I believed him.
But I was cursed. I would outlive everyone I knew and cared for while keeping my phaanon ancestry secret.
Ace dressed the wound carefully, fingers brushing bare skin as he tied the bandage. I didn’t breathe until he stood and offered his hand. I pulled my shirt back on and then placed my hand in his.
He led me to the ladder, and I climbed into the loft ahead of him. My whole body ached with weariness, the kind that made every limb feel twice as heavy. But when I lay on the lumpy mattress and pulled the scratchy blankets over me, a chill crept in. My body was too tired to warm itself. Shock had finally set in.
