Page 76 of On Brutal Thrones

My arm still aches beneath the clean bandage. Fenric had found a few healing herbs in the forest and crushed them into a poultice for the wound. Thorian held my arm steady while Talon spread it gently over the injured skin, then wound the cloth carefully around it, his fingers so gentle I barely felt them.

“Too tight?” Talon had asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

He’d adjusted it anyway, loosening the cloth by the tiniest amount.

I noticed everything else too. The tension in Talon’s jaw. The way his throat worked whenever he looked at the wound. How his gaze kept flicking up to mine, searching my face.

Checking.

Making sure I wasn’t afraid of him.

I’m not. I was afraid in the blood field. I won’t lie to myself about that. But I’m not afraid of him now, and I’ll prove it to him eventually.

I settle more comfortably against Thorian and let Talon’s hand move absently over my shin. Talon’s attention is somewhere far away. Maybe back in the blood field. Maybe in the flowers. Maybe both.

I wish I could reach inside his thoughts and pull him out of them.

Instead, I nudge his thigh lightly with my heel.

His eyes drop to me.

“You all right?” I ask.

His brows lift. “I believe I’m supposed to be asking you that.”

“I asked first.”

Something flickers in his expression before he smiles. “I’m all right.”

I don’t entirely believe him. But his hand closes gently around my ankle, his thumb brushing once across my skin, and I decide not to push. Not tonight.

Across from us, Fenric glances up from the rabbits. “You know, I’m still not entirely convinced what you did back there was possible.”

I blink at him.

Talon gives a quiet laugh. “That makes two of us.”

Thorian’s fingers pause in my hair for just a moment before continuing. “Three.”

Heat creeps into my face. “I almost got us killed.”

“You got us through,” Thorian corrects, his voice quiet but certain.

Fenric nods. “You held off an entire field of man-eating flowers.”

“And Magnus,” Talon adds, his mouth curving. “I particularly enjoyed that part.”

“I didn’t exactly plan what happened to him.”

“No,” Talon says. “But I’m still going to treasure the memory.”

I laugh, then immediately sneeze.