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Jiron was far too professional to speak ill of me, even by way of tacit agreement, although he very much looked like he wanted to.
“Mmm,” he said neutrally and I cackled, enjoying watching him be so obviously torn between loyalty and what was probably quite well-deserved sympathy.
“Sounds delightful, if I do say so myself,” I said. “Jiron, if you can find a spare set of manacles, you’re welcome to clip them on and join us.”
“Or I could just free you both,” he suggested, producing a key between his thumb and forefinger that he must have taken from Filiberto’s corpse. It looked tiny in his huge hand.
“Yes!” Mathias exclaimed with an insulting amount of gratitude, just as I gave the opposite response. He scowled at me and held out his hand for the key, so I grabbed hold of the swaying chain between us and yanked sharply at it, sending him down onto his hands and knees. The startled yelp he made as he fell was just delicious.
“Kingsfirst,” I said in mock reproach, grinning when Mat glared up at me and brushed his palms together to clear them of the damp leaf litter.
Jiron undid my manacle and proceeded to fuss over the resulting wounds left on my skin, while I gazed at Mat thoughtfully.
“What do you say to us shackling his other wrist so we have something pretty and all tied up to play with?” I proposed, and I didn’t miss the way Jiron’s amber eyes flared with heat as he looked down at Mathias on his knees.
“Funny,” my lover deadpanned, snatching the key from the guard’s unprotesting grip and working it into the lock.
I pouted. “Don’t be like that. Jiron’s getting hard watching you too.” Mat scoffed, so I nudged my guard with my elbow. “Tell him.”
Jiron shot me a wounded look, but obligingly upheld the promise he’d made at Sesveko to obey me despite his better judgment, and his next words, uttered quietly, made Mathias blink. “It is a rather enjoyable sight.”
Then he ruined it by reaching out a hand to pull my northerner to his feet.
“Idecide when he’s allowed off his knees,” I complained, but when I lunged forward to force Mat back down to them, he neatly avoided me by sidestepping around Jiron’s bulk. “Just so you know, it would have beenafterI’d made him properly express his gratitude to you for saving us, so it’s entirely your fault that you’re not getting a thank you, Jiron.”
“Thank you, Jiron,” Mathias said from somewhere behind him, and I rose to my tiptoes trying to spot him and the eye roll I knew had accompanied the words.
“You must both be starving.” Jiron ran an appraising eye over me before glancing over his shoulder to do the same to Mat. He didn’t seem to approve of what he saw. “Have you eatenanythingsince I saw you last?”
I shot him my most brilliant smile. “We’ve been hunting and cooking ourselves five course meals over campfires we had absolutely no trouble lighting,” I said. “But if youinsiston taking care of us, we will of course graciously and selflessly permit you to do so.”
*
Chapter Nine
“You deal with this,” Jiron said, depositing a wriggling bundle of fluff into my arms. “I’ll get some wood to get a fire going.”
My grip tightened on the struggling rabbit, my fingers curling around its neck and then...stopped.
“Well, fuck me,” said Ren as he peeked over my shoulder. The animal twitched its little nose in his direction, its eyes huge and fearful. “That’s the cutest thing I’ve seen all day.”
“Only because you don’t have a mirror to hand.”
The prince laughed and nipped at my ear. “Naww. For that rare compliment, you and the critter can share first place.”
“We need to...” I trailed off, feeling the rabbit’s pulse beneath my fingers and unable to bring myself to end it.
“Knit it a little pair of trousers!” Ren exclaimed delightedly.
“I’m quite sure that’s not what Jiron intended bydealing withit.”
“You’re right, of course. No one in my country should be wearing clothes.” He clapped his hands together, startling both me and the rabbit, who kicked against my chest with a surprising amount of strength in its back legs and hopped clear out of my arms. I feared falling from such height would hurt it, but the animal landed deftly in the thick scrub and immediately bounded back into the undergrowth that Jiron had plucked it out of. “But he would have lookedstupendousin a tiny hat. One with cut outs for the ears and everything!”
I was still picturing that delightful image when Jiron returned to us, a pile of logs in his arms that looked as though they weighed the same as I did. He deposited them at our feet and glanced at me, and then Ren. “Where’s our dinner?”
“We...I...couldn’t,” I said. My fingers absently played with a loose thread in the bandage that Jiron had wrapped around my wrist after tending to Ren’s wounds.
The man looked between us both once more, wearing a bland, dispassionate expression which I knew meant he was barely keeping a lid on his emotions.
