Page 47 of On Broken Bonds

I feel my eyes widening. “Do you think they would?”

Thorian shrugs a shoulder, his jaw ticking as he crosses the room and closes the curtains. I try not to stare at his back as he does, try not to track the motion.

“I can’t rule out that someone might try. It’s not like the gods are going to punish anyone for thinning the herd before the Trials begin, and we’re far enough from any law enforcement that the incentives not to murder are rather low.”

Thorian finally looks up at me, his expression serious. “And maybe Talon changes his mind. Decides to come back for a drink.”

Heat immediately floods my face.

“You make it sound as though I’m a bottle of wine.”

One corner of his mouth twitches. “A particularly appealing bottle of wine, perhaps.”

I stare at him.

“Was that a joke?”

“No.”

“Right.”

His expression sobers again.

“Or he comes back for something else.”

The words send an uncomfortable flutter through my stomach.

“What?”

Thorian is quiet for a moment, considering. “I’ve been turning it over in my mind, and there are only two reasons he would've rescued you. The first is that he intended to gain your trust, catch you off guard, and drink you dry.”

My stomach drops. “And the second?”

Thorian comes closer until he’s standing in front of me. He simply studies me. His gaze travels over my face before returning to my eyes, and his expression softens.

“The obvious answer,” he says. “A man being charmed by a beautiful woman.”

I scoff, suddenly completely flushed with heat. I don’t like how aware of myself Thorian makes me feel, and it’s especially so with how close he’s standing right now. With the knowledge that it’s only he and I in this room, the door closed, nobody the wiser to what we might do.

Back home, there could be societal consequences to relations before marriage. Potential husbands might be turned off by the idea of a lady who had her fun before the wedding. But here, and now, it’s like Thorian said. We’re far from enforcement of the usual rules. And I’m risking my life tomorrow. Taking mortality in my hands. Would anyone really blame me for spending one night with a man, even if only to know the taste of it?

To have a taste of him. His large hands, his rough scruff against my cheek. When I imagine it, it’s like I can feel the heat of his chest against mine, the slick of our skin together. All I have to go off is the time I walked in on a farm hand and servant girl in the barn, and what Lyra and I have gleaned from various romance books pilfered from my mother’s collection.

“Well, it must be a trap, then,” I blurt out, no longer able to take the tension in the room. I realize I’m breathing hard, my face hot, my mind running away with itself. “I may not be homely, but I’m certainly not some sort of great beauty.”

This I know to be true… surely my family’s fall from grace wouldn’t have discouraged a man from me if I was pretty enough? I’d heard nothing could stop a man from stealing the hand of a beautiful woman once he saw her, yet no men were knocking at my door.

Thorian lets out a breath. “You don’t have to be modest, Nyx. We’re both aware of your beauty.”

I hold his gaze, staring back at him, and he laughs. “Or, maybe it’s just me. You are beautiful. It’s worth being aware of. There’s…an allure about you. Heads turn when you walk into the room. Surely you’ve noticed?”

Of course heads turn, but I assumed that was due to the more recent ridiculousness of my situation. Or due to my mother’s actions, our family’s fall from grace. The thought that Thorian thinks me beautiful is warming and distracting, but doesn’t speak to the rest of the male population. Or even those who will try to kill me tomorrow.

“It could be a benefit,” Thorian muses, his hand scrubbing at his chin, “all the other men falling over themselves for you.”

“I do not possess the kind of beauty that men fall over themselves for.”

Thorian goes on, as though I haven’t spoken at all, “As long as you don’t get distracted. As long as you remember your sister. The spoils of the Trials are far more useful than beauty will ever be.”