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Hawthorne’s hand brushed her side. ‘You truly won’t tell me who did that to you?’

Thea’s lungs rattled. ‘No.’ It wasn’t his fight, it was hers.

‘I could easily find out,’ he warned. ‘I could punish them in ways you couldn’t even imagine.’

For a brief second Thea pictured Seb strung up and bleeding, all manner of horrors inflicted upon him. But she shook her head. ‘You could, but you won’t,’ she replied, her voice raw.

‘Won’t I?’

‘No. You wouldn’t take that from me.’

‘What is it I wouldn’t take?’ This time, the question seemed loaded.

But Thea met his stare, coming back to herself. ‘Vengeance,’ she said.

The Warsword’s nostrils flared, but his intense expression softened after a moment. ‘No,’ he agreed slowly. ‘I wouldn’t take that from you.’

Thea felt suddenly cold and confused; she became aware of the tiny, cramped space and how close the warrior seemed.

‘Where are we?’ she managed, her eyes heavy.

‘A broom closet,’ Hawthorne answered as he tore her shirt down the middle and studied the wound.

Up top, Thea wore a tight band of material around her breasts and her fate stone, but nothing more. She was too dazed to feel embarrassed as he peeled the rest of the fabric away from her battered body.

He swore softly at the state of her. ‘It’s deep,’ he murmured.

Everything was spinning and Thea felt completely untethered from herself. ‘Why?’ she mumbled.

‘Why what?’ His hands were hot on her cold, clammy skin as he pressed his fingers around the puncture.

She inhaled sharply through her teeth at the pain. ‘Why are we in a broom closet?’

‘Don’t ask me. I followed the trail of blood here.’

‘I… I was trying to find my sister. She… she can help.’

Hawthorne was tearing her shirt into strips now. ‘We have to stop the bleeding first.’ His fingertips brushed her skin as he wrapped the lengths of linen around her. ‘This is going to hurt.’

Thea didn’t register what he was doing until the strips tightened at her middle, crushing her tender abdomen and pressing painfully against her stab wound. Agony lanced through her and a strained gasp escaped, her hand shooting out, gripping his forearm, finding the strength there comforting.

He let her hold on to him as he reached for something with his other hand. From a pouch at his belt, he produced a dried leaf and held it to her mouth. ‘Chew on this,’ he ordered.

Thea’s lips touched his skin as she did as she was told, the plant bitter on her tongue.

‘It should make you more alert, keep you from falling unconscious,’ he told her, checking the makeshift bandage at her side. ‘I need you to stay with me, alright?’

Thea swallowed the herb with a grimace and almost instantly, she felt her senses prickle back to life. The first thing she noticed was that she was still touching Hawthorne, her hand wrapped around the corded bulk of his forearm. The second thing was that his hand was resting against the curve of her bare waist. Warmth radiated from his skin and she had to fight the instinct to lean in and savour his scent.

He went taut, as though he, too, had noticed where their bodies met.

‘Whatever it is you’re thinking, we can’t,’ he growled. ‘You’re half-dead, Alchemist.’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘You didn’t need to.’

‘My mind isn’t the only one that went there, Warsword.’