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“Like hell. I’d rather clean toilets.” I want to use the leg sweep on him but think better of it. “Take me to my job running the machines in the cavern. I know that’s where you moved me.” The idea of running the machines all night is soul-sucking. But losing my virginity to this man would kill me.
Instead of turning to lead me to the cavern, he grips my hair, making it obvious that he’s made up his mind. The other guards keep their gazes away from us, and I know this practice is a regular occurrence for the women of the wilderness.
He drags me behind a stand of trees, their luminescent glow lighting the twisted grin on his face. This is all about power for him, and I need to stop it. As he lowers a hand to unzip his pants, I plant my left leg and swing out my right, knocking him to the ground. Before I can think about running, he reaches out and snatches my ankle, and I hear the crack as I fall to the ground. My face plants in the soil. Pain spreads up my leg, but a voice in my head tells me to run. I can hear him crawling toward me, his panting heavy. As I lift to a sprinter’s position, my injury becomes too much to take. Seconds after he grabs hold of my injured ankle, twisting it in an unbearable grip, he releases, and I fall back to the ground, my face covered in dirt and tears.
Strong arms wrap around me, raising me from the ground. Gentle lips touch my ear and whisper, “You’re a badass.”
Right. The soldier was seconds away from raping and possibly murdering me, and I’m the poster child for tough women everywhere. I’m too tired to argue, nestling into his familiar scent—woodsy like a campfire. The pain of my ankle dulls in his presence. Bastian Hale makes me feel safer than my comforter in my bedroom in Avren. I keep my eyes closed, resting my head on his shoulder as l hear the snap of my ankle bracelet and the thud as it hits the ground. I let him carry me back to our cabin.
As he walks in silence, I want to ask him about the soldier. Is he dead? Not that I care. The Council allows guards to control the Undesirables however they see fit—to treat them like cattle, doing the dirty work to keep the people of Avren alive. For the first time, I see clearly why the Redeemed need to destroy the city.
“Susan will be angry. I told her we had the cabin to ourselves tonight.” His hand moves back and forth on my arm, and I’m not sure if he’s trying to comfort me or if he’s doing it as he’s thinking. “She’s already jealous of you.”
I open my eyes, letting them adjust to the lights above us. His face holds an unfamiliar look. His eyes appear softer as they search my face. His full lips lift into a slight smile.
“I’ve never studied your face before. You’re the first person I’ve met with perfect skin. I’m afraid to touch it because you might break like a doll.”
Is that a backhanded compliment?
“Before you came along, the soldier didn’t have an issue with burying my perfect face in the ground, so it must not be that rare.” I, along with the others in Avren, had ways to care for our skin using minerals from the caves. Exfoliating our skin in the mud baths of Galraith was a routine with my mother. My hand shaking slightly, I touch his cheek. “You should try a mud bath sometime.”
He laughs, shaking me with the movement of his chest. “A bath in mud. That’s a new one. I thought farmers reserved dirty baths for the pigs.” He lifts an eyebrow and raises the corner of his lip. “But I have to admit, it sounds intriguing.”
Silence falls between us, so I close my eyes to rest, nuzzling my face against his chest and taking advantage of the closeness—a luxury I’ll probably never experience again.
About halfway to the cabin, he stops and sits by a tree, keeping me in his arms. I readjust so I’m sitting in his lap but don’t move my head from his chest. “I never wanted to kill someone so badly in my life.”
“If I hadn’t twisted my ankle, I think I could have gotten away.” I look down at my boot. My ankle pulsates beneath the tight leather.
Bastian lifts to his knees, turns, and sets me on the ground. He touches the laces on my boot. “May I?”
I nod. The heaviness of the sole of my boot pulled on my ankle during our trek through the woods, making it ache more.
He unlaces the boot all the way, then gently lifts my ankle to slip the shoe from my foot. When he rolls down my sock, I wince, feeling a shock of pain shoot up my leg. A black and purple swelling protrudes from my skin.
“It’s more than likely broken.” With my sock still off, he scoops me into his arms and carries me to the nearby stream, having me rest on the bank. “Put it in the water for a while.”
Obeying my doctor’s orders, I gingerly dip the lower part of my right leg into the water. It’s ice-cold. “In the city, we have healers who care for the sick and injured. Are there any healers in the wilderness?”
“There’s Ben Finch. Lives on the far side of the Lake of Glass in a hermit’s hut. Guy’s as crazy as they come, but he’s helped me remove a stray arrow or two.” He lowers his tunic from his shoulder, revealing a scar about the size of a small stone. “Hurt like hell.”
“If my ankle’s broken, what do you think he’ll do?” Images of what I used to think people in the wilderness looked like come to mind.
“Keep it immobile, possibly reset it.” He gives me a wicked grin, setting my heart racing.
“Can we do it without Ben?” All I want is to lie in my bed and fall asleep. Walking another hour past the cabin, even in Bastian’s arms, sounds daunting. “It will heal eventually.”
“We could, but we can’t. If you’re the so-called savior of the world, I need to get you back out on the training field. Having you in bed for a month won’t work.” He carries my boot over from the spot by the tree then yanks the hem of his shirt from his pants. Before I know it, he has his tunic completely removed and I’m staring at his chest.
Oh, help me.
Bastian is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on. Runes dance along his skin, over his pectoral muscles and circle his arms. One is of the four intertwined circles on my locket, a sign of his commitment to his brothers and sister. His hard chest muscles lead down to a trim waist where his pants hang low.
I swallow, ripping my gaze away before he catches me looking.
He drops to one knee beside me, lifting my leg from the water and using his tunic to dry it. His fingers move in a slow, soft pattern which feels more intimate than it should. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”
“No.”
