Page 83 of Ashborne: Defiance

She froze in my grip, and neither of us moved.

I swallowed, panting, relieved and terrified in the same breath. “Can you hear me, Grace?” I asked quietly.

She nodded, her head just below my chin.

“Good. Now, listen. This is important: Whenever we take a fall, we don’t move. Do you understand? We lay here for a moment and take stock of our bodies looking for danger of serious injury. Unless you’re under fire, you assess. Consider any part of your body that hurts—though you won’t always feel pain, shock and adrenaline mean it doesn’t always hurt. But you look for it. Pain. Tension. A limb that doesn’t want to work properly. Curl your fingers and toes. Roll your ankles and shoulders. Bend knees and ankles—and press on your stomach with both hands. You’re looking for spots that hurt when you press…”

She kept making small, strangled noises, but did as I said and eventually I rolled away from her, onto my back, and followed my own instructions.

Other than a painful scrape on my knee, I didn’t think I’d actually injured myself. But the noises she made worried me.

Slowly, I rolled to my hands and knees, then turned to face her again.

She’d rolled onto her back, her knees bent up, and her arms around her middle. Was she winded? Or something more serious.

“What is it?” I croaked. “What hurts?”

Her eyes were round and when I moved to lean over her, they snapped to my face.

“HA!” she coughed, then clapped a hand over her mouth.

I blinked. “Are you—”

“HA HA HA—” She slapped the other hand over the first. But that only succeeded in pressing her palms over the hacking sounds so that it sounded like she spluttered and coughed.

I sat back on my ass and shook my head. “Are you… laughing?”

Grace dropped her hands and turned her body, to roll onto hands and knees, tears running down her cheeks, while snorting, squeaking, giggles shook her entire body.

“It’ll… stop… in a moment,” she gasped, then was overcome with another wave of laughter she attempted to stifle. “It’s just… when I get a shock… and… you should have seen your face!”

She’d made it to all fours, but she spluttered and slumped, rolling to her back again, curling her knees up and gripping her stomach with mirth?

“You… you looked like…” she snorted and shook her head, burying her face in her hands again.

“Are you laughing at me?!”

I sat there, gaping, while she jiggled and wiggled and spluttered. Some little voice at the back of my head insisted that I should be insulted. But I was watching a noblewoman come apart at the seams. Dirty, exhausted, and fucking brave.

When she regained some composure, she pushed up to sit, facing me. Her lips kept twitching, though she fought it, waving me off when I asked worried questions.

When she finally dropped her head back, baring her throat, and sucked in a deep breath, my body tightened at the sight, which echoed the way she’d look in the throes of passion. I had to look away, but she was panting, her chest heaving as she sought to regain control.

And when she finally did, she lifted her head, beaming, her braid askew and half-fallen against her shoulder.

I made myself meet her gaze with one brow high. “Please. Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, biting her lip, then pushed to her feet. I followed her quickly, relieved. Both of us dusting off our clothes. But as she slapped at her trousers and that cloak, she beamed.

“Again,” she said in a high, excited voice. Like a child. “Can we do it again? I think I understand better now and I won’t get out of control again. Please?”

And when I gaped at her, she spluttered into laughter again.

‘Well,’ Kham said in my head, his tone tight with amusement. ‘It’s better than losing her nerve.’

We did fly again—we had no choice. The storm hadn’t broken, and though the skies grew darker, it was still dry. The wind gusts weren’t dangerous. With no way to know how long it would stop us, we needed to keep moving. So, within twenty minutes of being sure she wasn’t injured, we were in the air again.

She wanted to keep practicing, but apparently the one who’d lost their nerve was me. I used the storm as an excuse, and she accepted that, though her shoulders slumped.