Page 28 of Blood Marked

“Move,” he snapped at the nearest healer when she hesitated.

Selene’s eyes fluttered open, just for a moment.

“You’re scaring the staff,” she rasped.

He crouched beside her, hands braced on either side of her body. “They should be scared.”

She tried to smile.

It came out wrong.

The healer pressed cool hands to her side. The bleeding had slowed, but the wound ran deep—enchanted steel, if the stench of the blade was anything to go by.

“We can close it,” the healer said. “But she’ll need rest. Time. She was lucky.”

Kael didn’t feel lucky.

He felt raw.

Like his skin didn’t fit right.

Like the rage hadn’t settled.

He stayed there, by her side, as her breathing evened out and the healer wrapped her ribs in charmed linen. The room emptied until it was just the two of them, and the soft hiss of the hearth behind them.

Selene stirred.

Her voice was hoarse. “You didn’t need to carry me like some fainting noble.”

“I didn’t think you’d appreciate being dragged.”

A soft exhale, half laugh, half groan. She opened her eyes fully now, their stormy grey clouded with pain and something quieter beneath it.

“Kael,” she said, and something about the way she said it made his throat tighten.

He couldn’t look away from her. Even bruised and bloodied, she was too much.

Too bright.

Too close.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he said quietly.

Her brow furrowed. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Ifeltit, Selene. The moment the blade hit you.”

Her lips parted.

“I felt your pain like it was mine,” he continued, voice low and fraying at the edges. “I don’t know if it was the Mark or?—”

He stopped.

Because saying it aloud might make it real. And he wasn’t ready for that.

Neither of them were.

Selene’s hand found his. Not forceful. Not dramatic. Just… there. Warm. Present. Her fingers slid into his palm like they belonged there.

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