Aimee paused with one hand on the doorframe, the other dropping to her hip. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She reached up, fingers snagging in one of the snarls. “I thought you liked the way I looked.”
When was the last time she’d run a brush through the mess? Every morning, she just yanked it into a ponytail before heading out to teach the younglings. Then, she would inevitably get shoved into whatever task the village tossed her way afterwards—fixing a pulley, sparring drills, hauling rice sacks. There was always something.
Kazuma looked up, one brow arched. “Oh, pet. I like every bit of you.”
Heat rose to her cheeks.
But he wasn’t done. “Even your inane drive to insert yourself at every opportunity to aid this charming prison of a village.” A faint grimace crossed his face as he pushed himself up from the chair, betraying the tug in his side. “But even you must draw the line at nesting the local wildlife.”
He shuffled over to the corner basin where cold, clear mountain water trickled into the wooden bowl balanced on the smooth, waist-height rock. Beside it was a short stool, a worn rag, and the single hairbrush they’d been trading for weeks.
Kazuma plucked it up, turned, and gestured to the chair he’d just vacated. “Sit. Before a squirrel mistakes you for home.”
Aimee narrowed her eyes. But she crossed the room anyway.
“It’s not that bad,” she grumbled, wood creaking beneath her as she sat, back straight. “Besides, I’m not the only one helping. Ever since you could sit upright again, you’ve spent all your time grinding roots for the Grannies.” Her nose scrunched as she braced for the first pull of the brush. “It’s been, what—two weeks since you started?”
After one too many questions about their techniques, the old woman had handed him a mortar and pestle and told him to earn his keep. He’d taken to it disturbingly well.
Behind her, Kazuma stepped closer. His fingers grazed the nape of her neck, light and careful, as he worked the tie free from her hair. Strands slipped loose over her shoulders.
“It feels like much longer.” Warm breath fanned her skin, grazing the shell of her ear with the kind of softness that shouldn’t have made her pulse quicken—but did.
“The healers here practice the old ways,” he continued. “Methods not reliant on Mana.” His nails grazed her scalp. “It is…worth learning.”
Aimee exhaled, her posture easing as his hands moved gently through her hair, eyelids fluttering shut before she caught herself.
“And it couldn’t possibly be that you just want to help?” she murmured. “That you’re actually grateful they saved your life?”
She heard the shift in his weight as he leaned back, then the scrape of bristles catching through the first tangle. He started from the bottom—deliberate, patient—and worked upward with quiet precision.
“I am grateful to you, Aimee, for saving my life.”
Her body relaxed with each stroke. It felt good. Too good.
Which meant she should stop it.
But then his hand cupped the back of her neck again, pressing lightly into the muscle where tension pooled. Her throat closed at the contact. The soreness from days of hunting, of hauling wild game down steep trails to the caverns below for winter storage, flared—then ebbed beneath his touch.
Her fingers dug into the edge of the chair. She wasn’t meant for this. For comfort. For kindness.
But still…she didn’t move.
The room hushed. No birdsong from the cliffside. No clang from the blacksmith on the terrace below. Just the quiet drag of his fingers, threading through her hair, smoothing and sectioning, palm resting warm at the nape of her neck. Her eyes stayed closed. One inhale, then another, and the stiff line of her shoulders began to give.
“There.”
He stepped back, and his absence was immediate. No more heat, no more steady mass at her back.
“Much better.”
She opened her eyes. A braid now curved neatly over her shoulder, thick and even. Her fingers drifted over it, following the length down to the end where he’d tied it off with a strip of leather. She traced back up, discovering where tighter twists wove along the scalp before feeding into the braid’s spine—clean, crisp, and practiced.
“Um. Thanks.” Her fingers ghosted over the crown of her head again. “Where…?”
She turned to find him pale, one hand braced on the table. His other hovered near the back of the chair like he hadn’t decided whether to use it.
“Shit—here.” She stood, pushing the seat toward him.
