Soft hands skimmed his back, down the long healing scars, and he shivered.
“They healed well,” Delaynie said softly.
“You sound surprised.” His grin stretched a little wider.
She hmphed. “I had my doubts that you could keep them sufficiently clean.”
“Oh, I’m very clean,” he said, a thrill sparking through him at the banter. “Just not my mouth.”
She snipped the first stitch, a small pinch tugging his skin. “Gods,” she muttered.
He held his grin as she worked in silence, cutting the stitches down his back and gently pulling the threads from his skin. Her movements were confident and sure, as if she’d done this hundreds of times.
Maybe she had. Those months spent with the palace healers surely seemed to have taught her a great deal.
She was nearing the last few stitches when he figured it was time to try again.
“Are you ready to talk about what happened?”
Snip. Pinch. Tug.
Silence.
“No,” she whispered. “I’m not.” Her hands left his skin, the mattress shifting as she moved away from him.
“Delaynie—” Quentin turned. She sat at the head of the mattress, knees tucked up to her chest and her head bowed. “Please talk to me. Whatever it was, we can figure it out?—”
“No, Quentin.” She lifted her head, eyes flashing. Some of the familiar spark, but not quite in the way he wanted to see it. “Wecan’t. Because there is no ‘we.’ There never will be.” Her lip lifted in a snarl. “We’re allies, bound together by our queen’s command. I will follow her until the end. But that doesn’t mean I have to share anything with you while I do so.”
Something numb spread through Quentin, starting in the hollow of his stomach and reaching out into his limbs. He slowly stood from the bed, facing Delaynie fully, his shirt gripped tightly in his hand.
“‘Allies,’” he repeated softly. “I thought we werefriends.” He paused. “Lying only hurts yourself, little wolf.”
Delaynie turned away sharply, burying her head in her arms. Her eyes were still lifted, cool fire dancing in the blue. “You should leave,” she said softly, but with a bite.
Quentin stood there, watching her. Trying to read her, to get her to look at him, to get her to dosomething.
She didn’t. She stayed turned away, tucked into herself, auburn hair falling in a curtain around her shoulders.
He slid his shirt back on, trying not to let any of the things raging beneath his skin show. She waslying, she wasgiving up, she wasself-destructing.
He didn’t know what else to do but let her.
Quentin turned and retreated to his room, wondering when the fuck everything had gone so wrong.
Chapter 45
Hook. Parry. Jab.
Hook. Parry. Jab.
Hook. Parry. Jab.
“Easy, M.” Matheo shook out his hand, wincing. “No gloves, remember? That last one hurt.”
Sweat dripped down Mariah’s temple. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. “If you stopped letting me hit you, it wouldn’t hurt.”
Matheo frowned. “It’s an offensive sequence. You’re supposed to hit me. But fortechnique.”
