Page 24

She must have visited the bathing chamber and splashed water on her face, too, if the curling, damp strands of hair framing her wide eyes were any sign.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, watching her closely for hints of the lies I’d learned to pick apart.

Vale bent her head, studying her rings. A wave of hair slipped across her face, and without thinking, I tucked it behind her ear.

Fuck. I shouldn’t be doing that.

I couldn’t be taking those small steps, little actions that would make things easier between us. Closer. I couldn’t let her in again. Nothing that had happened tonight changed that.

Fear had been a cold snake woven between my ribs, and I didn’t have room for it. I cared about enough people in mortal danger. Five. Tolek, Malakai, Ophelia, Santorina, and Jezebel. That was all I needed or wanted.

Still, when I’d seen her so weak and vulnerable, that Starsearcher’s hands on her, I’d been lost.

And when I touched her now, my skin tingled. Vale’s sharp inhale said she felt it, too. So responsive. She’d always been that way.

“I’m all right. Tired, but better than usual after…”

Sometimes it took her days to recover from an episode, but she really did appear okay now. Skin and eyes brighter, limbs not shaky.

Turning to face her, I said, “We?—”

“Your head,” Vale gasped.

My brows pulled together, and—“Fuck, ouch.” I winced as the slice to my eyebrow throbbed. “I forgot about it.”

Vale fought a smirk. “Forgot you had a head wound?”

“There were important things happening.” The blood staining my cheek was probably gory in the moonlight. The cut was likely almost healed over by now, just tender. It had been a deep one, though. More of a mess than anything. “I’ll go wash up.”

“No,” Vale said, pushing to her feet with a firm hand on my shoulder. “Let me.”

She disappeared inside and was back before I could say anything, towels both damp and dry in hand. She carried a myriad of other supplies that I hadn’t realized she had with her.

I wanted to ask where she got them. Wanted to know more about what happened tonight. But Vale crouched down in front of me, practically sitting in my lap to reach the cut. When her ass rested gently on my thigh, I couldn’t form a damn sentence.

And then she raised the damp towel to dab at my forehead. Gentle fingers picked away the reminders of the night, close enough that each of her breaths fanned across my cheek, loud in the silence. I closed my eyes and inhaled, trying to focus on anything other than where she was so warm in my lap and dig up a semblance of sense.

“Thank you,” Vale said, swapping a wet cloth for a dry one.

I swallowed over my dry throat. “For?”

Where was I supposed to put my hands? I couldn’t grip her hips, but they hung useless at my sides now, tapping the tile.

“For coming for me tonight.” She dragged the cloth down my cheek where the blood had dripped, her touch so careful yet confident, as she was in everything we did. “I felt safer when you arrived.”

My eyes flicked open, brows rising, and I hissed at the pain of that action. Vale gave me a scolding look. I almost laughed, but something about her gratitude bothered me.

“You shouldn’t thank someone for caring for you, Vale.”

Because I did care.

I shouldn’t.

I didn’t want to.

But I did, only a little bit. She was easy to care for, and there was no person on Ambrisk that deserved Vale’s thanks for something as simple as that.

Her chest rose at my words, putting her breasts right in my face beneath that thin chiffon, and I closed my eyes to focus on anything besides her. She felt…nervous. Could someone feel nervous? That was how her thigh barely daring to touch mine felt as her fingers continued to clean the slice to my head.