Always.
Not that he ever dines with us. Which makes it all the more shocking when he lowers into the seat and drops his face into my line of sight ...
I’m too stunned to do anything but stare.
He’s all hard lines and chilling resolve—square jawline dusted with two-day-old growth almost hiding his chin dimple.
The dimple I’m trying so very hard to focus on rather than ...anythingelse. Certainly not those broad shoulders. Nor the strong line of his neck or the peek of light olive skin visible through his unbuttoned collar.
He clears his throat, the sound a crush of his deep vocals, and my gaze darts to his beckoning finger.
A silent request for me to look him in the eye.
My chest feels too crowded to contain my lungs and fluttering heart, but I draw a tight breath and abide.
Sable, silver-licked curls that have nothing to do with age are currently pushed forward, half-shielding me from pewter eyes framed with thick, black lashes. Eyes that search my face before cutting across every other part of me like a shaving blade, leaving me utterly boneless.
“You’re hurt.” His words are nails hammered into the too still air.
“Just a graze.” I wave my injured hand at him. “Nothing major.”
“And the one on your leg? Is thatalsonothing major?”
Crap.
“I—”
His eyes narrow as I flounder for words, feeling Baze’s attention bore into the side of my too-hot face.
Yes, I nicked my leg during training, then chose not to disclose it since I was so jacked on exo that to stop would have beentorture.
Problem is, Rhordyn doesn’t know we train, and I prefer to keep it that way. The only reason I agreed to it in the first place was because Baze let it slip that Rhordyn wouldn’t approve of me learning to fight like one of his warriors. I’d be lying if I said I don’t get some sick satisfaction from going against his coarse grain.
But that slice on my thigh? I have no doubt that if he were to inspect it, he’d knowexactlywhere it came from.
“You were saying?” Rhordyn asks, challenging me with a hardness that practically begs me to lie.
So I do what I do best. Because lies are pretty little masks we place on our words to tint the truth into something palatable.
I straighten my shoulders, finding my spine. “No, nothing major. I got them both tripping on my stairs.”
The words slip out like silk, but I can tell by the way his midnight brow jacks up that he knows my tongue is tainted.
I take a sip of my juice, smacking my lips against the sharp tang. “Clumsy feet.”
“Clumsy, you say?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
He reclines in his chair, ankle resting on his knee. His boots are covered in dirt and soot and ...
Blood.
I glance away, the honey buns becoming little lumps of lead in my stomach.
At least he changed his shirt.
“Well, you’ll have to be more careful,” he chides, waving off the servant trying to pour him some juice from a large, sweating jug. She’s garbed in the traditional threads of our territory: black pants, black coat, black boots. A silver pin clings to her lapel with Rhordyn’s sigil pressed into it—a crescent moon pierced through the middle by a lone sword. “Tanith will tend to it after breakfast.”
