"No." The word lands like a command, firm and clipped. He plants a hand against my chest. "Get one of my clean shirts and a few blankets from upstairs. I'll handle it."
"All right," I say, throwing my hands up. "You wanna be the one to undress the mystery girl, be my guest. Didn't peg your holiness for the hands-on type."
I smirk and saunter toward the stairs.
He doesn't dignify that with a response. Boring bastard.
Once I return, Asher gets things under control. He changes her under a blanket into his shirt, dries her hair with a towel, wraps her like a human burrito, and drags the couch closer to the fire.
"She's warming up," he says, fussing over her clothes, tossing the soaked ones in the wash like he's running some supernatural inn for lost girls. "You should patch yourself up. That wound's deep."
He opens a drawer, pulling out a first-aid kit.
I wave him off, tilting a glass of his good scotch toward my lips. "This is all the medicine I need."
I sink into an armchair across from the couch. She's still unconscious. Still silent.
But I'm waiting. Because when Sleeping Beauty wakes up… she's not going to find a prince.
She's going to find me. Her executioner.
Asher looks over at me and shakes his head, like he can hear the thoughts clawing around in my skull.
"If she's the one you told me about—"
"She is."
"Then she's also the one who spared your life, in the end," he finishes.
I frown. "I wouldn't have needed saving if she hadn't tricked me in the first place."
He doesn't argue. But I can see the thoughts churning behind his eyes as he crosses his arms and stares into the fire.
"She drugged you. They locked you and drained your blood. It was a targeted and organized operation. And now she's on the run from the same people. I wonder what it's all about," he says, quiet but sharp.
"Then we'll find out what it means." I grin, wicked and hungry. "Because guess what, brother?" I tilt my glass toward the couch. "The princess awakes."
Sage
The first thing I register is warmth. Heavy, cocooning. A fire crackling somewhere nearby. My limbs ache, my head swims, thick and sluggish, like cotton packed into my skull. Thoughts drift slowly, unfocused.
Then it hits me. The lake. The pursuit. The wildbane.
That sharp, bitter taste still clings to the back of my throat like poison.
I blink against the haze. My eyes are sticky, vision blurred. Shapes sharpen gradually. A room I don't recognize. Wooden beams. Firelight dancing. And across from me, in an armchair…
A man.
"Darius?" I croak, my voice hoarse and raw.
Did they take me back already? How long was I out?
"No Darius here, sunshine."
The voice is low, smooth, and far too amused for comfort.
I blink again. Focus.
