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“Thank you for taking care of me.”
His jaws shifted as if he was grinding his molars. “Don’t get used to it.”
This close to me, I took note of his slightly elongated eyes, the tan of his skin, the shadows that filled the hollows beneath his cheekbones. For someone occasionally covered in feathers, his chin was much too smooth, with not a single whisker in sight. Neither on his honed chest, where slabs of muscles shifted behind his shirt every time he moved.
Strange heat seeped into me, making me distressingly aware of the nearness between us. If Mother saw me this close to man—worse, a Raven!—she would faint.
Internally, I grinned at that.
I shouldn’t have.
This was dangerous.
“You shouldn’t have brought me here,” I said as I shifted back slightly. “It’s not becoming of a lady to be alone with a man… with no chaperone who can confirm that nothing indecent happened.”
“Indecent…” He pronounced that word slowly, languidly, while a lopsided grin tugged on his full lips. “Like what, Galantia? What are those indecent things, hmm? Tell me.”
My teeth ground together until my jaws ached. I’d listened to the maids’ gossip at Tidestone. Wasn’t entirely oblivious to the things that happened between a man and woman in the privacy of a dark corner.
“Are you teasing me?”
His grin climbed even higher, putting a spark of mirth in his eyes. “Aren’t you a little too old to be unmarried?Untouched?”
“Not for lack of Father’s ambition. For your information, I was betrothed twice before. And I would long be married, wasn’t for the fact that your awful kind has the tendency to behead my future husbands before I ever meet them.”
“Mmm, a tendency I’ll gladly continue.” His grin eased away. “You still didn’t tell me what those indecent things are, Galantia.”
“Things that might ruin my reputation, putting my current betrothal at stake.” Something they surely had to be aware of. But if not, then now was a good time to mention it in an attempt to emphasize my value. “I am to wed Prince Domren.”
Again, that teeth-grinding. “You sound as if it’s something to look forward to.”
And he sounded as if he was convinced it wasn’t. “What young lady wouldn’t look forward to marrying a handsome prince?”
“Handsome? Have you ever met him in person?” Bowl lowered to the floor, he tossed the cloth onto the nearby table, rose, and walked over to his armoire. “Sweetheart, he has the face of a horse.”
A lump swelled in my throat. Gods fetch him, clearly, he’d set his eyes on the prince before—an advantage I hadn’t been afforded. I wouldn’t ask him just how bad it truly was compared to the likeness the royal family had sent instead.
“Galant, then,” I said. “Honorable.”
“Honorable…” His lips pressed into a thin line. He once more sat across from me with a small clay pot resting in one hand. “This will ease the pain and quicken the healing. Apply it twice a day, but no more than that. The weed I need to make this only grows in the mountains. Difficult winds up there, hard to navigate for my ravens.”
“Because of your burns?” When he nodded, I watched how he gathered some of the dark green stuff on his finger. “Is that what you do when you aren’t busy capturing highborn women? Make salves? Potions?”
“We have studied Ravens for that, but I spend a lot of time in the wild harvesting the plants they need, so I know a thing or two about them.” His finger once more settled on my bottom lip, spreading a thin, greasy layer of the salve in a circular motion. The touch held a care I’d only ever known from Risa. Which was unexpectedly… comforting. “It comes easy to pathfinders like me, spotting herbs from the sky, scenting flowers not even in bloom yet.”
Which explained the scent of herbs that clung to him, along with traces of wet soil, pine needles,nature.“You have amplified senses?”
“To a point I hear the rush of blood in your veins. How your heart beats stronger when I’m close to you. How your breath quickens when I touch you…” another tug on my lip. “…right here.”
A touch so different from Malyr’s, inquisitive and delicate, but wrong, nonetheless. My heart shouldn’t beat stronger at it; my breathing shouldn’t alter. Worse was how he noticed…
I straightened, gaining us more distance. I was overwhelmed and confused, nothing more.
“That’s it?” I asked, though it explained his earlier comment about my scent. “That’s your magic?”
“We call them gifts. And no, a pathfinder’s gift holds a little more than heightened senses.”
No small amount of curiosity tingled through me. “Like what?”
