He settled back on the mattress. His hand fell to her arm, his thumb tracing little circles on the skin above her wrist. “You wouldn’t be lying here wounded if it wasn’t for me.”
She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t put me here, Casrian. Is that what you were doing tonight? Sitting in the dark and feeling guilty?”
It seemed like something he might do.
His thumb stopped moving. “I needed to know you were all right. I thought I lost you out there. When they told me the witch had taken you, I…” A shadow crossed his face and he looked down at her bandaged hand. “I couldn’t sleep tonight anyway. I lay down in one of the guest rooms for a while and I just stared at the ceiling.”
She remembered him saying he’d never slept in a room by himself before. “Too quiet for you?”
“Something like that.”
“Stay here then,” she said. “You don’t have to sleep in the chair. It’s a big bed.”
“Rowan…”
“I promise I won’t sully your virtue.”
Some of the tension eased out of him and he seemed to come to a decision. He stood up and crossed to the door, which he locked before moving to the fireplace. He placed another piece of wood on the dull embers. The firelight lit his outline as he turned around.
He wore breeches and an untucked shirt. His feet were bare. He looked strangely vulnerable without the uniform. Less like a hero, more like a man.
When he returned to the bed, he gingerly crawled over her, careful to avoid her bandaged hand. He stretched out beside her on top of the covers.
“Did you lock the door to protect my reputation or yours?” she asked as she curled on her side to face him.
“My reputation is already tarnished,” he said with a grimace. “I tried to storm the fort when I heard you’d been taken. I attacked Emrys for putting you in irons.”
“You did not!”
A smile tugged at his mouth. “Daris helped stop me. They held me down until there was a plan in place. We intended to distract the witch, attempt to lure her out. I wasn’t supposed to go inside. We were waiting until morning to attack.”
“I’m glad you came when you did.” They would have been dead by morning.
His smile faded and he lifted a hand to cup her cheek. His brow furrowed as his thumb slid along the curve of her cheekbone.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life.”
“I’m sorry.”
He huffed a laugh. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. It was my fault you were out there in the first place.”
“It was my choice to go into the woods. It was a job. I knew the risks. You owe me money, by the way.”
“I’m good for it.”
She knew he was. She also knew he was going to keep feeling guilty that she’d gotten hurt until long after her wounds had healed. It was one of the things she liked about him—that protective, honorable streak. But she didn’t want him to feel guilty about things he couldn’t have done anything about.
“You should try to sleep,” he said, curling an arm around her waist and pulling her in close. His warmth seeped through the blankets. His scent was a familiar comfort. She nestled up against him and felt something settle inside her. But she wasn’t quite ready to go back to sleep.
“Why did you ask if you could call on me tomorrow?”
It had been bothering her all day, wondering what he wanted to talk about.
He hesitated a beat and sighed. His breath stirred her hair. “We need to talk about what happened between us in the woods.”
“Do we?”
“Yes, we do.”
