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“Really?” I said in a small, uncertain voice. “Are you sure?” Because I definitely didn’t feel like a good person at the moment. “I haven't lost my humanity yet?”
“Lost your humanity?” He cracked out an amused laugh. “My lady, you were willing to die to save a horse just a few days ago. No, I wouldn't say you’d lost your humanity at all.”
I bit my lip. He had a point. “I guess that’s true.”
“It is. And I’m alive because of what we did. You’re alive. I will not regret the unpleasantness we had to wade through to get here. And neither of us should let it haunt us, either, but rather, we can learn from it and carry on, honoring the world by taking this gift of life we’ve been granted and living it to the fullest from here on out. Doing something good with it.”
A slow smile spread across my face. His warmth and sincerity told me this was a man of great integrity. Thank God, the mark had helped me find my mate. I never would’ve learned all the wonders he had to offer, otherwise.
“I like that answer,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
He nodded and held out a hand. “Good. Then, come, my lady. Since you needed a change in meals, I’ve caught a rabbit and have it roasting over the fire.”
I fell to a surprised stop. “You…?” When I realized he really did have a small animal skewered on a spit and it was cooking over the open flames, emotion clogged my throat.
He’d done that for me, because I’d complained about eating too much of the same thing. That felt like the sweetest deed anyone had ever done for me before.
“After we hide that tattoo, we can see about breaking our fast,” he added, his back to me as he once again crouched down before the fire and poked a stick at it to increase the heat.
I knelt next to him and watched as he reached out to rotate the spit.
“Appears to be about half done,” he decided with a satisfied sigh and stopped tending to the fire so he could pick up a leaf full of muddy brown paste.
I reared back, making a face. It smelled awful. “What is that?” I hoped he didn’t expect me to eat it, because I would refuse.
Turning to me, he dipped two digits in and scooped up a goop full. “It’s a poultice of things I found out here to apply to your tattoo and conceal it. I couldn’t make anything to match your skin tone, so I went for your hair color.” He lifted his eyes and studied my face a moment before motioning with his chin. “Look that way, will you?”
His words were soft and encouraging, so I tipped my face to the side. He reached out, and I sucked in a breath at contact.
“It’s cold.”
“Welcome to Far Shore,” he said, his eyes glittering with amusement as he smeared the concealer over my tattoo, somehow dispelling the putrid odor as he applied it. “Everything will get increasingly colder the closer we get to the Back Sea. The weather, the people, all of it.”
It sounded
almost like he was trying to warn me.
And not just about everyone else. About himself, too.
I wanted to tell him he wasn’t a cold person. I’d been in his company long enough to know. There wasn’t a ruthless, uncaring, monstrous bone in his body. But it was possible I’d misinterpreted his meaning to begin with, so I cleared my throat. “You seem good at camouflaging skin. Where did you learn such things?”
He didn’t speak for a moment, frowning at his own work as he continued to apply the concealer. Then he made a defeated sound in the back of his throat and briefly met my inquisitive stare.
“My mother was a lady of the night.” When I sent him an odd look, letting him know I had no idea what that meant, he explained, “She worked in a brothel. Sold the pleasures of her flesh to men for money.”
My lips parted. “O-oh.”
Ohhhhh.
He nodded, focusing his attention back on my tattoo. “Aye. So I grew up watching courtesans making all manner of unsightly spots on their skin disappear. Or sometimes wanting marks to appear, whatever the case. The prettier you were, the more business you got, ergo the more money you made.”
I gave the explanation consideration. “Makes sense,” I finally decided.
Farrow pulled his hand away to study me intently. “What? No comment about the fact that I’m a whore’s son?” He arched a challenging, sardonic eyebrow. “Still think I’m your true love, princess?”
Back straightening with self-righteous indignation, I proclaimed, “Working in such a manner doesn’t automatically make a person wicked. And even if it did, your origins do not affect our match in the least. In fact, did you know the crown prince of High Cliff married a washerwoman because of their marks matching up?”
He sent me a curious glance. “Really? I did not know that, in fact. So the king was perfectly agreeable to the fact that his heir wanted a—”
