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Why nurse him back to health, however?
Silence hovered in the small tent, and he wondered if she’d left, but when he opened his eyes, she was staring at him. She looked down and messed with the blanket even though there wasn’t anything wrong with it. Then she frowned. “I couldn’t leave a man to die.”
The earnest way she said it messed with his equilibrium. He didn’t know what to think, but his head was aching, and he was alive. He had every intention of staying that way. “Thank you,” he told her again and closed his eyes.
“Thanks aren’t necessary for doing the right thing.” Her voice drifted away as she left the tent. “Rest now,” she repeated.
Then she was gone, and Lachlan was left alone with his thoughts. What he did know was that the crown prince of Jast was in danger in the land of Kaloma. Someone had tried to kill him, even if it hadn’t necessarily been this woman. Tarley. He tested her name in his thoughts. But he didn’t know he could trust her, even if she’d saved him. He didn’t know her people. Didn’t know her connections. Only, he knew he needed her, so for what was probably the first time in his life, he committed to what his father had asked him to do. He wasn’t Lachlan Nikolas any longer because Lachlan had died in that river. He’d been baptized as Ollie, and that was exactly who he was going to be.
5
Tarley hadn’t slept well, her dreams filled with a man chasing her through the woods. He’d had sharp teeth while at other times he’d changed into a handsome man sent to trick her. There’d been harsh gray stone, chains with cuffs and locks, prison bars, and the cold, horrific cold, making her fretful, agitated, and unable to settle. It hadn’t helped that since finding Ollie near death days ago, she’d spent most of the time trying to heat him up, then trying to control his fever by force-feeding him spiked tea, pain tonic to manage the pain of his broken ribs, and rousing him to keep him from succumbing to the deep sleep. Add to it the size of the tent, which Ollie took up most of anyway. Whether curled in the fetal position for warmth or sprawled out as the fever fluctuated, his large body took most of the space, meaning she’d had to maneuver around him.
Except the night she’d had to strip naked and climb under the blanket with him, which she’d spent the better part of the last two days forcing herself to ignore. She knew using her body heat had been the only way to warm his dangerously cold body. She forced herself to ignore the beauty of his form as she’d lain against it, and justified she’d been trying to save his life. In the moment, that had been absolutely true. Though, she’d wondered why she was still thinking about it. She wasn’t beholden to him, and if—stars forbid—he was a collector, he deserved to die. Only it wasn’t her place to decide, so she’d chosen to act, refusing to believe she was swayed to save him because he was a beautiful man.
She could keep to those lines and had to. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down. The plan was to get him well enough that he could go back to do what he needed to be doing. She’d send him on his way and continue hiding in the woods until Mattias fetched her.
But Ollie had blurred the line, when at some point the night before he’d kicked out of the blankets yelling about assassins.
Tarley had bolted upright, her heart racing with fear as he panicked next to her inside an awful nightmare. Afraid he might hurt her, she’d backed up against the canvas wall and called out. “Ollie?”
He’d stilled and turned his head, his body falling still. “Tarley?”
She hadn’t been able to see his face in the dark, but she’d moved toward him. “I’m here. You’re safe.” When she reached out to touch his skin—her fingers grazing his sweaty face, the fever broken—he’d grabbed hold of her, drawn her into his arms, and curled around her.
“Safe,” he’d whispered and promptly fell back to sleep.
Now, weary and bleary-eyed with exhaustion, she reached out to check his fever once more. His skin was still cool to the touch. She scrambled up onto her knees and double-checked, feeling his head with both sides of her hand, his cheek, the side of his neck, his chest.
Cool.
Tarley couldn’t contain her smile, sighed, and laid back down, relieved. Perhaps he’d turned around at death’s door and was now making the journey back to the land of the living.
She’d done it!
Then she took a slightly easier breath, but her smile faded.
Now she had to worry about him being a collector.
She turned her head to look at him. He was on his back, sprawled wide in the tent so it was impossible not to feel some part of his body. His face was turned slightly toward her, relaxed in sleep, which made him look more boyish than man despite the beard growing in. He was very beautiful.
Tarley looked away and stared up at the tent’s ceiling, unsure why she cared if he lived or died. She didn’t know him, and the likelihood he was up to no good in the Whitling Woods was far more likely than not. It was a question she couldn’t answer. She didn’t know why she cared, but for some reason she couldn’t shake it, and she hated that she did. Her heart compressed into a tight, protective ball at the thought of him dying.
She wasn’t sure he was a collector, which was why she’d finally shared her name. It was in the things he’d said and the dreams he’d had since. Perhaps he was a rich man, but she had a feeling he was running from someone. Maybe hiding like her.Whywas the appropriate question, and she was certain she didn’t want to get caught up in it.
Heal him. Get him healthy. Get him moving. That was the plan.
It was nearing sunrise on the fifth day, the twilight teasing the flap of the tent. The birds were only beginning to sing, and though the music of the birds waking and the river beyond were usually her salve to get her moving, her eyes were so heavy, her body weighted with exhaustion. The sound of Ollie’s clear breathing and the birdsong lulled her mind and senses toward sleep, so she shut her eyes.
Just for a moment, she told herself.Ollie’s safe.I’ll rest. Just for a moment,she thought and slipped into the rest of the darkness.
“Tarley?”
She stretched her body, uncurling, basking in the gloriousness of warmth and rest. Her hand dropped against something unforgiving, her head pressed against a wall. She moaned, disoriented, and grabbed hold of the mound under her quilt, trying to figure out what had crawled into bed with her.
“I’ve always enjoyed a good fondling, but I prefer it being reciprocal.”
Tarley’s eyes snapped open at the foreign sound—a man’s voice with just the hint of an accent with which she wasn’t familiar. Skin. That’s what her eyes focused on. Lots of it. An arm. A shoulder. A jaw in need of a shave as she raised her gaze. Full lips arched with a smile, the bottom slightly fuller through the pronounced arches of the upper. He was grinning, and his eyes—a myriad of colors—were darkened with a ring of deep green at the edges.
