Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“That should do it,” Luna says. “We just have to make sure the bandage stays clean.”
I come into the doorway to find Luna carefully placing Zarah’s now bandaged foot on the floor. Frances’ and Zarah’s eyes come to me, the former’s steady, the latter’s smiling, but Luna doesn’t see me yet.
“I wish we could have killed the guard who hurt you before we left,” Luna states.
“Oh, you can be sure he’s dead,” I state.
Her head whips around at the sound of my voice, her eyes turning from happy to glaring in an instant.
“Couldn’t even let us have a minute to ourselves, could you?” she all but hisses.
“Since Hallans don’t tell time by these … minutes you humans use, no, I can’t give you a minute.”
“What do you want?” she asks with venom in her voice, but as her eyes go up and down my body, they have quite a different emotion in them.
Desire.
Attraction.
“I see you got all cleaned up,” she points out as her eyes meet mine again. “Come to lock me away in some ivory tower this time?”
“Why would anyone make a tower out of ivory?” I question with furrowed brows.
She chuckles. It’s quiet, light, and the moment she realizes it’s at something I said, she tucks her lips in to stifle it, but it’s too late. I’ve heard it. I’ve seen her eyes light up at my words. My mind is already coming up with countless ways to hear that sound and see that look once more.
“I have something for you,” I say, trying to think straight … again.
She crosses her arms over her chest. “What could that be? A human head as a gift?”
I arch a brow. “Do you want one?”
“You would actually give me one, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course, I would. Any human head you asked for.”
“Because you think I’m your … Zawla?”
“I know you are. There’s no doubt about that.”
She swallows loudly, and I know there’s finally something she fears. Talking about what she is and means to me.
“What did you bring me?” she asks instead.
I extend my hand with the small ceramic jar. “It’s a healing cream, for your cheek.”
Her hand goes to it at the mention of it. “It’s fine. It only stings a little.”
“Any pain you feel is too much.”
She stares at me for a moment before reaching for the jar. I snatch it back, though.
“I have to put it on,” I lie.
“Why?”
“It’s from a Hallan plant. I know how to make its properties work on your wound.”
She looks at me with suspicion, but eventually takes a single, large step forward.
“Let’s go, then.”
“Maybe we should step out,” Frances says.
“Yes,” I state at the same time that Luna tells her father, “No.”
I hear Zarah lightly laugh, but I just shrug. I don’t mind if her father and Zarah stay, even if it would have been better if we were alone. I’m still going to do exactly what I came here for. To heal my mate.
I flip the lid back and dip my finger into the cream. When I begin to extend my finger towards her face, her eyes widen but she doesn’t move back. I don’t know if it’s because of the utter silence in the room or because I am listening so intently for any sound she makes, but the shuddering breath that escapes her at the first touch of my finger to her cheek echoes in my mind long after I hear it. I move my finger back to spread the cream across the wound. Her eyes stay on mine the entire time, flitting back and forth while I rub the cream in.
“It’s … warm,” she quietly says.
I nod. “It will sanitize the wound and begin to dry it out.”
“Why do you care about my wound at all?”
Her voice is barely above a whisper, and I almost point out that if she’d let Frances and Zarah leave, she wouldn’t have to speak so low. But as my father likes to remind me, he did not raise a fool. This moment is the most tender we’ve had yet. I am not about to mess it up.
“Because I cannot stand the thought of you being in pain. And I do not wish to look upon the evidence that someone hurt my mate and I was not there to protect her from it.”
“I am not your mate.”
“Do you think if you keep saying it, it will become true?”
Her eyes narrow, but I don’t see them for long since I move forward.
“What are you—oh!”
Her face had begun to turn, surely trying to see why I was invading her space, but when I lightly blow on the cream covering her wound, she stills. I know, from the many times I used this cream on my own wounds, that it is now turning cold.
“To help with the pain while it heals,” I explain.