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He raised an eyebrow. “And how many times had you lain with Mathias before you spoke of the same?”
I scowled. “That’s different.”
“Yes,” he said, but he somehow seemed smugly satisfied under that unaffected exterior. “It is.”
I shifted on the cot, trying to keep warm, and winced when it brought back the aching soreness in my shoulder.
“We need to find you a healer for that,” Jiron fussed, immediately reverting to protective daddy mode upon my flinch.
I rolled my eyes. “You already took care of it.”
“I’m not a doctor, my prince. I’m barely a field medic. Dios knows what the damage is like inside, especially with the filth of the river getting into it. That water is full of diseases.”
I looked away guiltily before I could meet his eyes, deciding not to confess that before he’d caught up with us, Mathias and I had been drinking the damn stuff.
“The Martinezes have a healer,” Jiron reminded me. “We’ll stop by their estate and I’ll persuade him to help.”
“Ooh, can I watch?” I asked delightedly, perking up at the thought.
“Watch him…heal you?”
“Watch youpersuade him,” I corrected. “It’s always fun when you go scary, Jiron.”
He gave me a small smile, a dark glimmer of satisfaction flickering in his eyes.
The door creaked open, revealing a shivering Mathias stamping his boots on the threshold as if he was worried that treading wet leaves into the hut could possibly make it any less habitable.
“You’ve been gone fordays,” I complained, huffing out a breath. “Don’t roll your eyes at me, brat. You thought being forced to act as my blanket was bad? I think it’s time I introduce you to predicament bondage, so I can get off on keeping you in a stress position all night.”
“Except that would require you to move, Your Highness,” he shot back unfazed, and damn, he had me there. As disgusting as this mouldy cot was, I’d collected some small measure of warmth curled up like this, and even the pleasure of tormenting my mouthy wildcat couldn’t compel me to voluntarily relinquish that.
“Right,” I said. “Then make yourself suffer while I watch. Or get Jiron to do it. Oh, and give me your knife.”
Mat, far too used to my abrupt changes in subject, didn’t even blink. He handed it over, an unfamiliar blade that I couldn’t begin to guess where he’d acquired it from. “Planning to slit your own throat so we don’t have to endure your cruel comments any longer?”
“Far worse,” I told him. “I’m going to cut my hair.”
Both men did a double take at that, and I was pleased that I could still catch them off guard.
“My prince?”
“I don’t want to,” I said in response to Jiron’s questioning tone and Mathias’ open-mouthed stare as I pushed myself upright, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and raised the knife to it. “But changing my appearance is the smart thing to do. We’re on the run, and I can’t-”
“Nyet!”Mat hissed loudly, and I startled, several strands flicking free as the blade sliced through them.
“A Quarehian with short hair would attract more attention for its rarity,” he pointed out, looking fierce as fuck as he folded his arms. “And the first person who recognises you despite it will report to Welzes, and then you’ve lost any advantageandyou’ll be insufferable for it. It’s not smart at all.”
“Oh, thank fuck for that,” I muttered, letting go with an audible exhale of relief. Mathias knocked the knife from my hand onto the floor, shaking his head and calling me a variety of insulting names in several languages. Then he gave a put-upon sigh that was as dramatic as any of mine. It seemed we had both altered the other, irrevocably entwining until it was impossible to pick the parts of him that had embedded into me and I him.
Jiron rose gracefully to his feet and pushed open the door Mat had just closed. “I’m going to check the traps.”
“Can I come?”
I wasn’t surprised by the request. Mathias had been watching Jiron closely these past few days; eagerly observing the way he built campfires, set traps for small game, hid our tracks through the woods, and foraged for mushrooms and shit. It seemed he’d taken to heart the guard’s half-comment about our lack of ability or willingness to get our hands dirty, and was applying his usual levels of stubbornness to proving him wrong.
I fought a sigh at having to go back out in the rain and swung my legs over the side of the cot. “Let’s go.”
“Rest,” they said in unison, making twin shooing gestures. I quirked an eyebrow.
