Page 34 of The King's Man 3

But the way Quin keeps looking at me is more off.

“What?” I finally say after we’re dropped outside the inn.

“Why?” Quin asks.

“It was the only option.”

“You could have given him your clasp.”

I grit my teeth. “You told me never to give it away. Besides, it would’ve alerted him to our act.”

“He would’ve only assumed we were desperate.”

A flare of frustration has me close to letting Quin hobble inside on his own. “What if theyhadbeen our real love tokens? Just hand them over? No way.”

Quin studies me, and I growl, “If you hadn’t left without me...”

“Think that all the way through, Cael.”

If he hadn’t left without me, we’d both have been captured. Myself, possibly killed in the ambush. No way could I duck all those whips.

I deliberate on this as I take him inside and lead him to my room. When he’s stripped out of his disguise and is resting on a stool, I quietly take off his boots and infuse strong pain relief through his acupoints.

I briefly close my eyes. ‘You will drag me down.’ He hurt me so I’dwantto leave.

I set down his foot gently.

He reads my face, every inch of it, and his jaw twitches. “Seeing you and those vespertines...” He huffs out a sudden laugh. “But what was I worrying about? You are phenomenally smart—” I preen, and he glowers “—at weaselling your way out of trouble.”

“You—” I flick his thigh all the way to his hip.

He captures my hand. “You saved me. I owe you.”

I slip my hand out from under his and stand. “Owe me so much, you’ll never push me away again.”

I leave him contemplating that and return with food and drink. I make him eat every crumb and send him off to bathe. Something perhaps I ought to do too.

I grab clean clothes and follow a few minutes after. He’s immersed in steaming water, arms outstretched along the rocks, head thrown back towards the sky. Peaceful, quiet.

The air is cool around me when I strip, and I quickly hop to the other side of the bathing pool and leap in with a splash.

Quin jerks his head up and spots me waist deep and wading towards him. He thrusts up a hand in a spray of water. I halt. “Out of my bath.”

“It’s communal.”

He swims to the adjacent side, further away. “From now on, I have a rule. Only the person I give my lovelight to may share the bath with me.”

“But—”

The set of his face tells me he means every word.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen—”

“Out.”

Alright, alright. I flee and return to the room damp. Neither of us mentions it when Quin returns later in fresh clothes.

I pull out the wanted poster, studying it before holding it up against his face. “Why is this picture better?”

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