Page 83 of Thorns & Fire
‘I shouldn’t have let him talk to you,’ Torj ground out.
‘It was my choice,’ Wren countered, flinching as another piece of glass was removed.
Torj didn’t reply.He was too busy berating himself for his error.He’d made so many of those with Wren.He swept his hands lightly across her waist, searching for more shards.
‘I’m not mortally wounded,’ Wren said quietly after a moment, watching him with a strange expression.‘It’s a few scratches.They’ll scab over by tomorrow.’
‘You’re always getting hurt around me.’He heard the crack in his own voice and shut it down, clenching his jaw so hard he felt his teeth creak.
‘The world’s a dangerous place, Bear Slayer...You can’t protect me from external threatsandmy own stupidity all at once.’
‘I can damn well try,’ he bit out.
‘And try you do.Much to my dismay,’ she added.Her small hand closed over his.‘At ease, Warsword.I can take it from here.But I think you’ll need to help with the laces at the back of my dress again.’
Torj’s cheeks went instantly hot.
‘Nothing you haven’t seen before,’ Wren said with a small smile, swinging her legs over the side of the bed with another wince at the pain.After carefully removing her apron, she turned her back to him.‘I just need you to do the laces, please.’
It was her manners that nearly undid him.Where were her sharp tongue and slicing words?Torj was glad she couldn’t see the tremor in his fingers as he reached for the laces that started at the base of her neck.It was intensely intimate, sitting on the edge of her bed with her, the ties of her gown unravelling beneath his touch.A glimpse of another, impossible life, where the woman before him was his wife, and helping her with her bodice was a nightly occurrence before they curled up together.A dream long lost.
The folds of Wren’s dress fell away from her skin as he worked his way down her spine, and he could see her goosebumps as his fingertips brushed her bare back.She was soft and warm, and he wanted nothing more than to strip her completely and worship her—
She’s injured, you selfish prick,he told himself, freeing the last of the laces.
‘There,’ he said, standing abruptly, needing the distance between them.‘You’ll clean the cuts?’
‘I think I can manage that, yes,’ she replied, capturing her lower lip between her teeth.
He had to get out of there before he did something stupid.Well,morestupid than all the other things he’d done since returning as her guard.
Torj forced himself to move towards the door.‘Call out if you need me – anything – help.’He stammered over those last words like an awkward youth with a crush and turned on his heel before she could see that flush creeping back up his neck.Gods, he was losing sight of himself.He had sworn he would put their past behind him, he had sworn he’d protect her and no more, but nothing would quell the storm inside his chest – the storm that smelled like spring rain and jasmine, that had him in knots.
‘I’m alright,’ she reassured him from the bed.‘A few shallow cuts.No stitches needed.Nothing a little salve won’t fix.’
‘That’s lucky,’ he said stiffly.
‘Lucky there was a great big Bear Slayer there to carry me back to my rooms and tend to me?’she quipped.
‘I’m not sure my presence brings much luck these days.’
He found himself hesitating at the threshold between their two rooms.He had fought cursed bears, arachnes and shadow wraiths; he’d travelled the midrealms and led fucking armies.He’d closed a portal to a world of nothing but pain and darkness, and yet...it was the poisoner, the storm-wielding alchemist, who threatened to bring him to his knees.He had never been one to concern himself with what others thought, but when it came to Wren?It was all that mattered.
‘Embervale?’he asked, not turning around in case she was undressed.
‘What is it?’
He could tell by her voice that she was moving, tending to the cuts on her abdomen.But he needed to ask, needed to know...
Still facing his own quarters, with his back to her, he forced the words to form on his tongue.‘Am I a good man?Despite...despite everything?’
The question hung between them, leaving him naked and exposed in an entirely new way.He had well and truly shattered the thing between them the moment he’d torn their soul bond in half.He hated the silence, hated that it confirmed all his very worst fears about himself.
But then Wren was there, touching his arm, trying to turn him to face her.‘What doyouthink?’
He drew a trembling breath, not daring to look at her for fear of what he might say or what he might find written all over her beautiful face.‘I don’t know any more,’ he admitted hoarsely.
‘Only a good man would say that,’ she said, her hand still on his arm, her thumb stroking the muscles there.
