He looked up to argue, but whatever he saw on her face gave him pause. His expression softened. “Let me tend to your injury as you tended to mine. If you can’t tolerate my hands on you, tell me what else I can do to help. I’m not trying to get into your breeches.”
Of course he wasn’t. Look at him. Even with blood spattered across his face, he was unfairly handsome. Women probably dropped their breeches the second they saw him. Or lifted their skirts. He liked women who wore dresses apparently. In any case, someone like him was never going to be interested in someone like her.
But they were partners. And she would have insisted on helping him if he’d been the one to get hurt. Releasing a shaky breath, she nodded. She undid the ties to her breeches. And even though it took too long because her hands were shaking, he didn’t try to do it himself. She shimmied the fabric down her hips and stared over the top of his head as he bent to take a look.
His fingers drifted lightly over her skin and she tried to ignore the way her attention narrowed to that single point of contact.
“It will bruise for certain, but there’s no broken skin.” His voice sounded strained. He was probably impatient to settle the horses. He looked up. “Can you put weight on it?”
She shifted her weight, testing it. She winced as pain shot down her leg, but it held. “It’s not broken. Only stiff.”
He nodded. “You can’t ride like this. I’ll get the liniment. Don’t move.”
He said it like an order, which was annoying, but she stayed where she was, feeling terribly exposed with her breeches around her knees. He rummaged through his pack for a moment and returned with a small bottle. He dropped to his knees and poured a small amount into the palm of his hand.
He touched her hip, and she flinched.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “Sorry.”
He smoothed the liniment over the bruise with surprisingly gentle hands, despite the calluses on his fingers. He worked the oil into her sore muscles until it began to warm, numbing the area.
She looked down at the top of his head. She didn’t know what to do with this version of the witch hunter. The one who was kind. The one who felt guilty about Jarn and wanted to help her. She wished she didn’t know what his hand felt like on her thigh.
“That’s good,” she said, stepping back and ignoring the pain that shot up her leg at the motion. “We should get going.”
He looked up at her. “You’re sure? We can take a moment to rest.”
She shook her head, pulling up her breeches and yanking on the ties. “The muscles will only stiffen the longer we wait. I’ll rub some more liniment on it tonight.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but then shook his head and climbed to his feet. “You’ll tell me if you need help.”
Another order she didn’t intend to heed. But she nodded because she wanted to be done with the conversation.
When he turned away, she took another step toward the horses and winced as pain flared in her leg. She grabbed her bow off the ground and swung it across her back.
The witch hunter bent down to place a round stone on the bear. He traced the glyph marked on it and said a word she didn’t recognize. The stone started to glow, and he backed up a few paces. The bear caught fire. Orange and red flames ran over the big body, turning blue, then white. She was a good distance away and it burned hot enough that her face heated. It wasn’t a natural fire. The flames were concentrated and hungry. The bear seemed to shrink as the fire consumed it, but the flames didn’t spread to the dry leaves.
Casrian looked up at her, and she raised an eyebrow.
“It’s a relic,” he said.
It was clearly a charm.
“Why are we burning the bear?”
He shrugged. “You said bear attacks are rare in this area. It’s likely this one was infected to some degree by the witch’s corruption. We don’t want it to spread.” He nodded at her bow. “You can put that away. You don’t need it anymore.”
She attached the bow to her saddle and stashed the quiver. She managed to haul herself up onto Copper’s back, which was a feat with her stiff leg. He settled as she murmuredsoothing words to him and stroked his neck. Kenzi seemed fine, apparently used to seeing worse things than this.
In silence, they watched the bear burn down to nothing. The last of that strange fire extinguished abruptly. Casrian plucked the stone out of the ashes and then mounted Kenzi. She fell in beside him, content to let him take the lead even though she was the official guide. Which was funny because at the moment she felt like she didn’t recognize the woods at all. They were like an old friend who’d become a stranger.
That feeling of wrongness persisted. The woods. The bear. The witch hunter who she’d just watched calmly face down an enraged animal twice his size like it was something he did every day. As graceful and savage as one of the big cats that haunted the mountains. She’d never seen anything like it.
She’d thought she was safe with him.
Casrian gave her a long, steady look, his blue eyes clear and assessing. This time she saw the hard determination he hid behind the heroic façade. A shimmer of restrained violence. A hint of the ruthlessness she’d seen in him when she was a child. There was more to him than the city manners and the pretty face. She’d been a fool to forget it.
And how disconcerting was that? She was out here alone in the Black Woods with a stranger she’d made the mistake of thinking she understood.
