Page 55 of The Cost of Blood and Bonds

What does she need?

The question loops through me with every step. I’ve spent years learning how to read people, how to anticipate threats before they materialize, how to position myself between danger and the ones I’ve sworn to protect. But this isn’t a threat I can meet with steel. I can’t put my sword through heartbreak.

I glance at her again. She’s shivering, not dramatically, just small tremors running through her shoulders. She doesn’t even seem to realize it. She’s too deep inside her own head for the cold to even reach her.

I shrug off my jacket and drape it over her shoulders. She blinks and looks up at me like she’s returning from somewhere far away.

“Thanks, Grier,” she says, her voice hollow.

But she pulls the jacket tighter, and the weight in my chest lifts, just slightly.

I wrap my arm around her shoulders, and she comes easily, too easily. We keep walking until The Barrel’s familiar silhouette comes into view. When we step inside, her mask will go back on. This real version of her, broken and quiet, will vanish. But for these last few steps, she’s here, unguarded and pressed into my side.

And for a moment, I let myself be weak enough to think, mine, even if she doesn’t know it. Even if she never will.

I press my lips to the top of her head. She doesn’t react, but I needed it. Needed something to hold onto before I let her go.

We reach The Mossy Barrel, and Gemma pauses at the threshold. I watch her shoulders shift, watch the moment she finds her mask. It’s always been one of the things I admire most about her, how fast she can become unbreakable. I’ve seen her hold it together for terrified children all the way to safety, then break apart in a back alley after they were gone. Tonight it makes my whole chest ache.

I offer my arm and guide her inside. Despite the late hour, the tavern still holds a crowd, millers, a few merchants, and couples too wrapped up in each other to notice anything else. It smells like ale and wood smoke from whatever Fletcher cooked earlier. It smells like comfort.

“Corner booth,” I say.

I walk her over, then head for the bar.

Fletcher’s already clocked us. His eyes flick to Gemma, then to the dress. He slides into his usual theatrics, with his arms wide, voice booming, and exaggerated charm. The same harmless flirting he’s been throwing her way for years.

Gemma gives him a smile that looks real, and she loosens. I wish I didn’t hate that it takes another man to do it. But I’m not stupid. Fletcher is safe, he’s home, he’s everything she had before castles and princes complicated everything.

Fletcher dips back behind the bar, and I return to the booth with a bottle and two glasses I didn’t bother asking for.

For a while, we drink in comfortable silence, and the waitress drops off two meat pies Fletcher clearly sent.

Color starts to return to her as she eats.

“You were right,” she says quietly. “This is helping. Getting out of the castle.”

Her hand rests on my arm, and I go still, not because I want to, but because I don’t trust what I’ll do if I move.

“Thank you,” she adds, and then she pulls her hand back far too soon.

“Anytime. You know that.”

We drink. The whiskey warms her from the inside out, and I can see it happening, the way her shoulders soften and the hollow look in her eyes dulls.

I let myself watch, probably more than I should.

This is the part that always gets me. Not the fire or the sharp edges, but this quieter version of her. The part of her that always slips through my fingers.

Around us, the tavern thins. Chairs scrape back, coins clink onto tables. Millers drift toward the door, laughter fading as they go. Fletcher starts wiping down the bar, slower now, stealing glances our way. Last call isn’t far off.

“It’s getting late,” she says, though she doesn’t move.

I swirl the whiskey in my glass, watching the amber catch the light, buying myself a moment.

I’ve lived years inside the space between want and don’t. Years of wanting her and knowing better. Years of being the steady place she lands when everything else burns. If I ask, I risk breaking that. If I don’t, I don’t let myself finish the thought.

“We don’t have to go back tonight,” I say carefully. Like I’m offering a bed, not a life.