Damn, she was maudlin.
She shook off the thought and did her best to grin. “Not myself, no. But I know my way around a bow and arrow. Crossbow even better.”
Tor narrowed his eyes at her, as if aware that she had forced herself to smile when it was the last thing she felt like doing, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he moved to stand at her side while Rafe opened his case out onto the bed. Inside, she could see bottles and bandages, gleaming knives.
“I’m going to have to cut it out,” Rafe said softly. “But I’ll do what I can to… encourage it.”
“Encourage it?”
Rafe shrugged, and she looked at Tor instead. “It’s a Nephilim healer thing. They don’t explain.”
Rafe poured something into his hands and carefully rubbed it into his skin. A sudden astringent smell made her eyes water as he looked through his case and selected a blade.
Keely looked away. Pain was one thing. Watching it happen was something else entirely. She felt Rafe’s hand settle beside the arrow, but instead of the sharp pain she was expecting, her body filled with a slow, spreading warmth. Far more soothing than the darkness she’d drifted into earlier.
She gritted her teeth, waiting for the pain to start, and turned her head toward the window. “Will you open the curtains, Tor?”
“Of course.” He pulled the heavy fabric back, letting in the cool air. Bard. She had always loved the open air. It was one of the things she’d missed the most when they left Duneidyn—feeling the wind against her face as it blew down off the mountains. Well, that, and feeling safe.
It was pitch-dark outside the window, and the lamplight shone on the glass, turning it into a hazy mirror. She could see the room, herself, and Rafe working on her arm. But mostly, she could see Tor.
He was everything Niall was not. Tor was big and muscular and gruff where Niall was lean and always smiling. Tor, unlike Niall, was a man of very few words and rigorously contained emotions. His face was hard, but his mouth was full and soft. Bard. She shouldnotbe looking at his mouth.
Rafe tugged something in her shoulder, and pain crackled down her arm. And then Tor was there, picking up her other hand and holding it in his.
She concentrated on that. On the feeling of his rough hand in hers. On his solid, anchoring presence. On the low rumble of his voice when he spoke to Rafe. He had an amazing voice. So deep and resonant, she could feel it vibrating through her entire body.
She concentrated on the feeling of his hand, on the sound of his voice, and she kept her eyes firmly on the window—watching Tor.
Chapter Three
Keely strodeacross the clearing and peered down the path. Still empty. Damn it to the Abyss. Should she stand there staring into the quiet woods? Or do another lap of the clearing?
Nim and Tristan were talking quietly on one side of the small glade while Mathos stood on the other, staring up at the passing clouds. Tor sat just behind her. All of them were waiting impatiently for news of Alanna. To find out whether the Hawks’ desperate rescue had succeeded.
Keely had left Alanna behind and Ballanor had wasted no time in arranging her friend’s execution. Val had taken the other Mabin and flown back to Kaerlud to save her, but the rest of them had to wait.
She bit her lip—a bad habit she had developed after Niall had died. One she had tried to break, but never quite managed—she had needed it, that sting, the bite of pain reminding her she was still alive. It kept her grounded in whatwas, rather than lost in what should have been or might have been.
“Why don’t you find something to do?” Tor rumbled from his seat on the log behind her. “It’ll help.”
She spun around and glared at him—him and that deep voice, richer and smoother than the dark chocolate of the Sasanians. The voice that had anchored her in the icy churn of the heaving ocean and rumbled quietly beside her as Rafe drew out the arrow.
Tor had cared for her in the farmhouse that had been their brief refuge. He’d helped her hide when Grendel had found them, and he’d ridden beside her as they made their harried escape, following Nim as she flew off to find and rescue Tristan with the other Mabin, killing Grendel in the process.
He had stayed with her as they fled north, staying off the roads, keeping to the shadows, looking for somewhere to hide until they could rescue Alanna. Tor had helped her to set up a tent when her exhausted body had rebelled and the agonizing ache in her shoulder threatened to overwhelm her, and distracted her when the constant fear for Alanna made her want to throw her head back and howl.
It was Tor who had woken her from her broken sleep, bringing her to the campfire where Jeremiel was explaining that Alanna was going to be executed that day; that her friend was due to die at noon. Tor who had helped the Hawks plan the mission, sitting beside her, his strength a solid, reassuring wall that she wished she could lean on. And Tor who had looked her in the eye and promised that he trusted the Hawks to get Alanna back. He’d promised her like he believed it. And, Bard help her, she believedhim.
She couldn’t remember anyone spending that much time quietly supporting her in her entire life.
Ordinarily, she wouldn’t need it; ordinarily, she wrapped a wall of competence around herself, too high for anyone else to consider breaching. But she hadn’t been able to maintain that wall with Tor. He’d helped… and she’d let him.
A riot of emotions seethed through her, one after the other: guilt, shame, sorrow, fear, all woven through with hope. She was responsible for Alanna. And Alanna was going to die if the Hawks didn’t reach her in time.
Keely had come to Kaerlud as Alanna’s maid because it was the only role that Prince Ballanor would accept—no companions were allowed for the Princess of Verturia, but servants were another matter. Or rather, one servant.
In reality, their mothers were cousins, and they were friends, though Alanna was a little younger and a lot sweeter. Keely felt responsible for her. And she had bloody left her. Oh, she knew all the reasons why it had been the right thing to do, but it didn’t help. Not now, standing alone to watch the empty path.
