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As if nothing happened.
“You are a force of nature, aren’t you, buddy?” Taj shakes his head with a grin and slaps Kiaran’s shoulder. “It’s good to have you on our side.”
Kiaran’s mouth tilts briefly to the side in a smirk, then he goes back to slurping his stew and ale. He doesn’t even bother with the spoon the innkeeper provided, lifting the trencher to his lips instead, dripping stew all over.
Finnen would have been incensed at this lack of manners. He’d have snarked at Kiaran, then instructed him how to behave as not to embarrass him anymore.
“What is it?” Taj’s gaze is piercing. “Something’s bothering you.”
“Finnen is also a force of nature,” I whisper, suddenly overwhelmed by grief. “I miss him.”
“We’ll get him back,” Taj says, his voice gentling. “Now scoot over. Let’s finish eating and retire to our luxurious apartment.”
“What’s that?” Taj asks a while later, after we have indeed retired to our luxurious apartment—in the stable of the inn. Nobody had dared bother us after Kiaran’s show of power, and even the innkeeper brought us a plate of stale fried honeycakes afterward, without a word, a frightened look in his eyes.
I bet he can’t wait to see our backs. He didn’t even ask to be paid in advance.
Yeah, he has to be very frightened.
“Ari…” Taj lifts the lantern he has carried from the dining hall. “What the hell is that?”
I glance down at the small item in my arms. “What? Oh, this? A small cushion.”
“Where did you get it?”
“In the dining hall.”
Kiaran snorts, walking ahead and scouting the stables for a suitable place to bed down for the night. “Cushion,” he mutters.
Taj stops and blinks at me. “Did you steal a cushion from the inn?”
“I didn’t steal it,” I protest. “I… found it. Someone must have left it there.”
“The innkeeper, you mean.”
“No, look. It’s a lady’s cushion.” I show him the embroidered flowers and birds on it. “It might be good to rest my head on.”
“I want your head on my chest tonight,” Taj growls and cups my face, stepping close, so close his body is pressed to mine. “Not on some stupid little cushion.”
“Don’t insult my cushion,” I growl back and he blinks again. His mouth twitches.
“Did you just protect the cushion’s honor?”
“My cushion,” I mutter.
“Hm. And I assume you’re taking it with you?”
“Yes, why not?”
“Hm…”
I clutch my cushion to me. Cute little cushion. “What does ‘hm…’ mean?”
“Nothing.” He brushes his mouth over mine, a twinkling in his eyes I can’t read. He lifts the lantern again. “Kiaran! Find a good place?”
“Here,” Kiaran says from somewhere in the darkness of the stable, and Taj pulls me that way.
“It had better have a good mattress without bedbugs and thick blankets,” he says, placing the lantern on the ground.
