And he knew, without any doubt, there was nothing he wouldn’t do, that his beast wouldn’t do, to protect her. Somehow, they had crossed some kind of line, and he could never go back.
He broke the kiss and deposited her safely into the hut before he lost his mind and joined her. He grunted a rough command allowing the men to continue their duties, doing his best to ignore their grins and, in Mathos’s case, a ridiculous wink.
By the time Nim was dressed, a breakfast of bread and cheese had been arranged, and the men were sitting together talking softly. She walked over and sat beside him on the ground, accepting a plate from Jos with thanks.
He’d never met a woman who would sit cross-legged in the dirt without complaining before, and by the bemused looks around him, neither had anyone else.
“So,” she said eventually, “where did you go? Last night, I mean.”
“I rode down to a pub in the nearest village. We’re about five miles out of Kaerlud here, and I wanted to get a sense of what’s happening.”
“What did you discover?” she asked, her wings quivering behind her ever so slightly.
It was the question he didn’t want to answer. But he didn’t have a choice; he had to give her the truth. Everyone fell silent and focused on him. He kept his eyes on Nim.
He put down his plate and took her hand, wishing he didn’t have to be the cause of the tremor he felt in her fingers. “Honestly,” he said, looking down at her, “I don’t want to tell you.”
She sat quietly, gripping his hand, and waited, trusting him to continue.
He sighed. “Rumor is that Val is scheduled to be hanged tomorrow. There’s a big spectacle planned just before the legions ready to march north.”
“And?”
This was the part he particularly didn’t want to tell her.
He let go of her hand, but only so he could wrap an arm around her shoulders. “They’re saying that the king is holding him inside the castle. He’s… uh… been chained to the wall inside the great hall.”
The men around him bristled. Enemies were killed in battle. Or tried and hanged. Even traitors. Not displayed like trophies on a wall. It went against any kind of honor. It made so little sense that Tristan wondered if it was a mistake, a rumor that was out of control, growing ever larger in the telling.
Nim closed her eyes and leaned into him. “They’re torturing him.” It wasn’t a question.
“If it’s true,” Tristan admitted carefully.
“Okay,” She took a shaky breath. Then another. And he watched as she visibly pulled herself together, perhaps reassured by his skepticism, shook off her horror, and focused.
She turned those wide eyes back to him and asked clearly, “So, what’s the plan?”
He raised an eyebrow, slightly unsettled by her certainty that he had one.
Chapter Eleven
Nim unfurledher wings and tested them carefully, stretching gently and lifting them in different directions. Whatever Rafe had done when he’d worked on her injuries had made an immense difference. Enough that she was confident she could fly if she needed to. Although, from the look that Tris was giving her, he clearly thought she should be resting.
She was almost tempted to have a little flight around the pond just to annoy him. Gods, it was hard to believe how much had changed between them. He had genuinely seen her—for the first time in their long history. And he felt something. Not the love that she had held for him for so many years, she knew that. But something.
Maybe she should have been slower to forgive him—especially after how he’d left Val, how angry she had been, and deep inside her, still was—but in that moment, seeing the vulnerability in his eyes as he apologized, she hadn’t been able to hold herself back.
For the first time in weeks, she had hope. Together, they might just stand a chance of saving Val. And, whatever happened, she would have had this time with the man she’d always loved.
She grinned to herself and focused on folding his spare shirt and socks together to return to him. She was looking down, distracted, and didn’t notice that Tor had walked up beside her until he was right next to her.
The sudden appearance of his powerful arms, swathed in swirling red and black tattoos, right beside her, startled her, and she was flooded by an uncontrollable panicky fear that Grendel had found her. She gasped and flinched back, heart pounding, taking a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t Grendel beside her.
And then Tris was there, his warm body pressed against her back, his arm wrapped around her middle, and she knew she was safe. Her pulse gradually slowed as she recovered from her shock.
“What the fuck, Tor?” Tristan snarled behind her, and a deeper sound, almost a growl, rumbled through his body, so low that she wondered if he even knew that he was doing it.
Glancing up at Tor, she saw a flash of hurt across his face, quickly hidden, replaced by a blank and stony glare. She had created this problem, and she had to fix it.
