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He looked stricken for a moment before my face broke into a grin, giving away the joke.
He scowled. “Then it is a good thing for that little neck that I am neither overbearing nor annoying.”
“Guess that depends on who you ask,” I teased, still grinning.
“Ask anyone in the Deep Sky for confirmation,” he scoffed.
“OK. I’ll ask Gahn Thaleo.”
He paused, grinding his fangs together before grunting, “Anyone but him.”
“Hmm. OK. I’ll ask your little brother, then.”
“No. Do not ask him either. Ask... Anyone except for those two.”
I shook my head, chuckling softly.
Then I froze.
Hold on... Am I fucking flirting with Gahn Errok?
And am I flirting with him while he bleeds all over my goddamn sheets because I’m not healing him?!
“Stop distracting me,” I said brusquely. I took a deep breath, my stomach twisting when I looked at the arrow shaft in his chest.
“So... I guess we need to take that out first,” I said, suddenly feeling entirely unprepared for this.
But clearly, Gahn Errok wasn’t feeling that way. Just like he’d done outside, he placed his palm on the butt-end of the arrow at his chest and began to shove.
“Wait!” I cried, stumbling forward on my knees to grab his wrist. “I’m not ready yet!”
“You do not need to be ready. Because I am. I’m always ready,” he said.
“Smooth,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Was there ever a moment in conversation with this guy that didn’t serve as a chance for him to try to show off?
“But I’m serious,” I continued. “We need to take off all these straps and your bow and stuff so that I can see what’s happening and have more clearance for the Vrika’s blood.” I didn’t want to waste even a moment fiddling with a weapons strap that might get in the way. The millisecond that arrow was out, I had to be ready with the Vrika’s blood.
Gahn Errok grunted, gingerly taking his bow off over his head. Then, he slipped his quiver off of his back. The straps turned out to be trickier. They were a lot tighter and closer to his body, and some of them needed to be reached from the back to undo the knots in the leather-like straps.
When Gahn Errok reached back to start on the first weapons strap, his breath lurched out in a painful sound.
“OK, stop right there,” I tsked at him. I scooched around on my knees, shuffling onto the bed beside him. I kept moving until I was behind him.
“Just hold still,” I muttered, sweeping my eyes over the work ahead.
His hair was in the way. Even though it was tangled from his flight and fighting, the strands looked incredibly silky and perfectly straight. The firelight gleamed on it, turning it into an inky river with blue highlights that shifted bronze in the warm light in the cave. I needed to get all that hair out of the way. I shook myself, despite how weird and intimate it felt to be touching him like this.We need to get a move on and get him healed.
I gathered his hair in my fists. I was right - it was silky. And thick. My two hands barely circled the entire gathered clump of his long hair.
Working quickly, I gently brushed off his hair to one side, slipping it forward over his right shoulder. As I settled his hair there, out of the way, my knuckles skimmed across the back of his neck.
He let out a twanging huff of a breath, a slight tremor going through his muscles.
“Sorry. Did that hurt?” I said, yanking my hands back.
“It did. But not in the way you think,” he groaned. A raw, aching edge had crept into his voice.
