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Guarding us, I realize.

Another pang of warmth ripples through me. When this is all over, I’m going to get Ferox the biggest hunk of meat I can.

Memnon shifts beneath my hands, and my attention snaps to him.

He’s alive.

Gods, he’salive.

A sob shudders out of me as I kneel there, blood and mud soaking into my pants. I press a kiss to his forehead and gather him onto my lap as best I can, my head bowed over him. I don’t realize I’m crying until I feel a tear slip off the bridge of my nose and fall onto Memnon’s face.

Beneath my palm, Memnon’s skin fully seals up, and my magic tapers off. I slip my hand from his abdomen then and move it to his other injury. Already, my power has healed most of his arm, the limb now fully reattached. The wound, however, still gapes open.

Gently, I lay my hand on it and force out more of my power, hating how little is left. What remains is thin and wispy, and it burrows into his skin sluggishly. Still, little by little, the injured flesh of Memnon’s arm mends itself.

Beneath me, my husband shifts, and I glance down just as his eyelids flutter open. At first, I’m sure it’s a trick of the light. I don’t dare hope for more. But then he reaches out and brushes his bloody knuckles against my cheek.

“So fucking beautiful,” he whispers to himself. He says it so intimately, like we’re tangled with each other in bed and not out here on this bleak battlefield.

Those words undo me.

Keeping a hand on his arm, I lean in and press a fierce kiss to Memnon’s lips. And now I’m crying against him, my whole body shaking with my sobs.

His arms come around me slowly.

I break off the kiss and lean my forehead against him.I was terrified you were going to die on me, I admit.

“I would never leave for the afterlife without you,” he murmurs hoarsely, stroking the back of my hair. “I don’t know if you remember, but I made you a promise long ago that I wouldn’t die in battle.”

Idoremember.

I hope you die,I said, so I never have to hear you again.

Just because you said that,Memnon responded, I’m going to makesureI live.

I pinch my eyes shut, pressing my lips together.

“Ssshhh,” he says softly. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

I nearly laugh at the ridiculous statement. “I’m supposed to be the one reassuring you.” The sob caught in my throat distorts the words a little.

“Tomorrow,” he says, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear, “when I’m moving inside you, you can reassure meallyou like. I do so love praise.”

My brows pull together, and then I begin to laugh in disbelief. He’s half dead and weak from blood loss, and he’s making sex jokes.

Once I start laughing, I can’t seem to stop. I laugh until it becomes sobs, and the tears I tried to fight back slip down my cheeks.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” I say, even as I sense the final dregs of my magic seeping from my palm into Memnon’s skin. Black dots smudge my vision.

“Whatever I want?” Memnon voice sounds far too thrilled at the prospect.

Beneath my hand, the last of Memnon’s arm wound seals itself up, thank the gods.

I lean in close to him, darkness swarming my sight. “So long as you live to see the end of battle,whatever you want.”

The words are no sooner out of my mouth than my eyes roll back and I collapse onto my husband.

I wake briefly, my body cradled against a firm, familiar chest, a wet snout pressed against my hand.