Her breath caught sharply. “Alexander?—”
She moved toward him at once, her hands already reaching, searching, her mind racing ahead of her. She pulled her handkerchief free with trembling fingers and pressed it against his shoulder, the fabric staining red almost instantly.
“Why would you do that?” she demanded, her voice breaking despite every effort to steady it. “Why would you throw yourself into the path of a bullet?”
He remained where he was, unmoving beneath her touch, his entire attention fixed on her with an intensity that made the world seem to narrow to that single point of connection. Something in his expression shifted as he held her gaze, theraw violence in it easing just enough to reveal something deeper and far more alive, something that settled low in her chest and refused to be ignored.
“Because it was yours,” he said quietly.
The words hit her like a blow.
“What—”
“That bullet,” he murmured, lifting his good hand to her face. His fingers brushed her cheek, warm despite the cold, roughened by the day, and the touch sent a sharp, trembling awareness through her entire body. “It was meant for you.”
Her breath hitched.
“And you thought—” She swallowed hard. “You thought that meant you must take it instead?”
“I did not think,” he said simply.
The honesty of it made her chest ache.
“I saw,” he continued, his voice lower now, softer, though the strain beneath it was unmistakable. “And I moved.”
Her fingers pressed harder against his wound without meaning to, panic rising again as she felt the steady warmth of his blood beneath her hand.
“You could have died,” she whispered.
His thumb brushed lightly beneath her eye. “Then I would have died doing something that mattered.”
Tears burned suddenly, fiercely, blurring her vision.
“You are insufferable,” she said, though her voice trembled. “Reckless. Impossible?—”
“And yet,” he murmured, a faint, strained echo of something almost like amusement touching his lips, “you are still here.”
Her heart clenched.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Because of you.”
For a moment, everything else seemed to fall away—the road, the bound man at their feet, the distant sound of hooves as the driver rode for help. There was only this. The space between them. The heat of his body beneath her hands.
Then his weight shifted.
His breath caught, sharp and uneven, and Diana felt it at once, the change in him, the sudden weakening beneath the strength.
“Alexander—”
He tried to straighten but failed. His knees buckled.
She caught him as best she could, though the force of it nearly pulled her down with him, her hands scrambling to hold him, to steady him, to keep him upright as his weight leaned heavily against her.
“No,” she said quickly, panic surging again. “No, you are not permitted to collapse now, do you hear me? You have done quite enough dramatic things for one afternoon.”
He let out a faint breath that might have been a laugh. “Diana?—”
“Do not speak,” she snapped, though her voice shook. “Save your strength.”
