Page 44 of Kit
“Were you seen by anyone?”
“There was a party. I was seen by many.”
Valor took the news like a blow, his mouth twitching into a grimace. “Given that you diverted to Dia, I presume you are under orders of some sort? She wouldn’t order me dead. She wants to do that part herself. But are you to cripple me? Drag meback to Aridia with broken legs and arms, so she can drown me in her well?”
“There are no orders,” Kit replied. “There wasn’t time.”
“You were two days on the river. You expect me to believe that in that time she didn’t give you a command in the event that you were taken? Last time, you left us in a bad way. Burning an entire ship of food while Aridia starves? Quite the cold-blooded move. That food wasn’t even for us. We’d procured it for our people.”
“So that you might grow in popularity.”
“That isn’t why.”
“It is all that mattered to Desre,” said Kit.
Valor’s head cocked to the side. “Since when did she allow you to drop the ‘Lady’?”
Kit’s tail twitched.
As they spoke, Ios moved quietly to peel the cloak from Nick’s back. It came away, but the shirt stuck to his back, the fabric pulling at the flesh around his shoulder blades. Kit’s head snapped to Nick, a growl bubbling up as his nostrils flared. His gaze levelled threateningly on Ios.
“Lashes,” Ios reported at Valor’s querying look. “Two of the wounds are split.”
He draped the cloak over the back of the chair and went to the hearth, ladling water from a simmering pot into a basin, stirring it with cold water and then checking the temperature with his hand.
“She made you whip him?” Valor asked.
Seche’s face scrunched in disgust. Valor’s tail lashed, a sign of anger.
“She did not know that I…” Kit trailed off, a look of pain crossing his features. “Not that it would have meant anything if she did.”
Nick didn’t know the extent of what scent-marking meant to kits, but he had experienced for himself the intimacy of it. He’d picked up enough hints, could read enough reactions, that it indicated a bond of some sort. Nick suspected that if Desre realised that Kit was in any way attached to Nick, it would only have been used against him.
Fingers brushed over the top of Nick’s shoulder. “I will pour this to easier separate the fabric from your back. It will sting,” Ios warned.
Nick slid forwards so that his elbows rested on his knees. The water was the exact temperature of his body; he didn’t feel it until it was running into open sores and Ios was deftly peeling off the shirt, carefully cutting the garment away.
“Release me,” Kit requested. “I am here on no mission; Desre has confined herself to her rooms. I have had no private audience with her since the decision to take the river was made, and she cannot compel orders through her handmaiden.”
“Confined herself?”
Kit’s expression shifted. Something proud flashed in his eyes. His tail hooked. All the kits in the room—even Valor—mirrored the gesture. “Nick broke her nose.Twice. She’s been confined to her rooms since the night we left Vi’s estate.”
Kit said it the same way Trevor used to talk about him playing rugby. With boasting pride. As an achievement to be shared so that others would admire it too.
“He would be dead,” Valor said flatly. But then his eyes moved to the marking on Nick’s inner arm—the one they obviously needed for something—and then to Ios at Nick’s back, with his bruised nose. “How?” It was a demand.
“A protection symbol,” Nick answered. “Before you ask, I tried to draw it on Kit, but it didn’t work.”
Kit turned a confused look on Nick. “It did work. Her influence—I felt it repelled.”
“Because I was holding your tail. My symbol did that for you, not the one we drew on.”
Kit didn’t make a sound. He didn’t blink. Nick’s heart sank as he saw the new realisation play out across Kit’s face. He thought that the drawing Mini had done protected him. Thought it was something he could replicate. “I’ll figure something out,” Nick promised. Though, as far as he was concerned, the best thing for Kit would be to stay far, far away from Desre. Where it wouldn’t matter what power she had because he wasn’t there to be affected by it.
“You are truly not here under orders?” Valor asked Kit once more.
“Truly.”
