Page 33 of A Court of Masks and Roses (Royal Scout #1)

KALI

T race’s body goes rigid.

Beneath the pulsing pain of my own wounds, I feel another set of legs and arms, another body.

The muscles of that other body are tense with fatigue, the heart racing in panic.

One of the hands holds something precious and warm, but not warm enough.

The temperature of my own hand. Trace jerks the healing crystal away and stares at me, hints of panic and bewilderment shimmering in his gaze. “What the bloody stars did you do?”

With the contact severed, my body is once again just my own. My breaths come in broken pants. “I don’t know.”

His eyes tighten, a hundred thoughts racing through them, before his face becomes stone once more, and a very displeased stone at that. “I’ve had just about enough of Kal and Lianna and whatever other masks you wear.”

“I’m not lying to you.” My chest squeezes tight around my ribs. “Trace, I swear it. I wanted to push the pain away and then...”

“And then?” he demands.

And then I felt what he felt. Intruded without his permission. And he thinks I did it on purpose. “I pushed and it worked. It was like jerking a finger away from a fire—it’s not something you plan, it just happens. I don’t even understand what happened, much less how.”

“You pushed the magic?” His brow creases, but at least the anger seems to be melting away.

“I don’t know.” I swallow. “I’m not a whisperer.”

“No,” Trace agrees. “You are not. We work through crystals.”

I say nothing until the silence claws at me from the inside. “Then what am I?” I whisper finally.

Trace runs his hand through his hair. “I truly don’t know. Nothing odd happened the last time I healed you, but you were unconscious then. We’ll try it again. Don’t fight me this time.”

I nod and press the back of my head into the ground while Trace checks the binding on the healing crystal. “Trace.” I reach out and touch his hand before he can pull away. “I’m sorry.”

Trace looks down at my hand, and just when I’m sure he’s about to jerk back, he squeezes my fingers.

“The pain ends,” he whispers. “It feels like it won’t, but it will.

” He holds my gaze as his other hand, the one holding the crystal, reclaims its spot at my collarbone and that oily fire sears me once more.

I bite back a howl that would wake the whole forest. “You... feel that?” I ask.

Trace nods, beads of sweat rising on his temple. “I feel the pain, but I’m aware that it is a phantom, the injury not truly mine.” The words are strained and Trace’s dark eyes shimmer in the crystal’s pale glow. “It makes it easier. That, and being the one in control. ”

The shackle of flaming agony shifts closer to my knee, and gripping Trace’s gaze is all I can do to keep myself together. I wait for him to look away, but he never does.

With the exception of a few short breaks, Trace keeps the healing going for hours on end, moving with meticulous care from bone to bone.

I am fortunate enough to black out several times, but Trace has no such luxury.

By nightfall, the splints are off my legs and I crawl outside the cave to be sick.

When I return—slowly, on legs that feel like a newborn foal’s—Trace is holding the wall for balance just to remain upright.

Through his haze of exhaustion, he gives me a small, triumphant smile.

A sudden overwhelming desire to touch him washes over me.

I want to rest my forehead against his shoulder, feel the rise and fall of his chest against my cheek, the familiar rhythm of his breath that I clung to while he healed me.

I want to say thank you. To ask why. Why did you come after me, Trace?

Why did you save me? Why did you work through hours of agony for my sake? No one but Leaf does that. Not for me.

I go to the opposite wall and slide down it. If there is a proper way to go about thanking someone for one’s life, Lord Gapral hasn’t taught it to me.

Beyond the cave, the thunderstorm rages in full glory.

Trace’s smile dissolves and he watches me wearily. I wonder if he is yearning for Raza just now. I would be if I were him. Stars. No, I wouldn’t. Of course I wouldn’t. Because I’d have known better than to get involved with someone in the first place. And they with me.

I search my mind for words. Something appropriate. Something a man might say. “We should eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You have to be hungry.” Mostly because it’s the only appropriate activity I can think of.

My clothes, the ones Trace removed while I was unconscious, are little more than blood-soaked rags.

I put them outside to let the rain wash off some of the gore and scoot to our small stack of provisions.

A handful of dried meat strips, a canteen, the thin blanket I was lying on, and the cloak wrapped around me.

We only have one. My hesitation is ludicrous, considering that his hands have been on my body all day.

But it’s different now. I procrastinate another moment, then surrender to practicality and settle beside him.

“Where did you learn to heal?” I ask, pushing food into his hand.

Trace takes the meat. Chews. Swallows. Shuts his eyes for a moment of respite. “Monastery of Qilar, like everyone else. You can see why healing is an unpopular field of study.”

“Is Leaf right about it being dangerous?”

Trace nods. “The training itself breaks most before they learn even minor skills.”

“It didn’t break you,” I say quietly.

Trace closes his eyes, leaning his head back against the stone. “Only because there was nothing left to break,” he says, so softly and distantly that I’m certain he meant to keep the thought to himself.

I let him believe he has.

After a moment, Trace takes hold of the hem of his shirt and pulls it over his head. “You need something to wear,” he says, holding it out to me.

I open my mouth to protest, but he is right.

Besides my underclothes, the only thing I have for covering is Trace’s cloak.

Trace turns his head while I pull the thick cotton tunic over my head, letting it fall down to my thighs like a dress.

Thus clothed, I return to my slot beside him, maneuvering the cloak to cover both our bodies against the cold.

Leaf’s heat crystal lost its tune hours ago, and Trace can barely sit up, much less attempt to tune it again.

I shiver, hugging my knees and listening to the staccato of falling rain. It was raining when I first decided to go to that prisoner camp too. The cool drops landed on my nose, the thump, patter patter a prelude to what would come next. And then—

A bolt of lightning slices the air, silhouetting our wall of tree branches, before thunder cracks. My heart leaps. The crack of branches snapping beneath my captors’ boots is deafening in the evening rain. Prisoners’ silent, horrified eyes watch me. My blood—

“Frightened of lightning?” says Trace.

I gasp, focusing my eyes on him. My mouth is dry, my breath quick and ragged. I swallow. “No.” I clear my throat to get my damn lungs under control. My teeth chatter. “Just startled. And very cold.”

Trace reaches out a muscled arm, hesitates a moment, and then, with a decisive swoop, gathers me against his body.

Settling me between his legs, Trace wraps his arms around me, pressing my back against his chest. The smell of him—the lingering lavender soap and the stronger musk of sweat, leather, and steel—fills my nose and lungs.

The heat from Trace’s chest seeps through the single layer of fabric between us, warming my shivering muscles.

I let myself melt into him and feel Trace’s slow breath caress my ear.

Stars, it feels good. Blissfully, sinfully good. Like a cocoon of strength and warmth and concern wrapped around my soul.

I bite my lip. It is cold and Trace is practical. And with Raza. I would be a fool to forget that. Ignoring the feel of Trace’s arms, I focus my attention on the steady rhythm of his breathing, letting my own match his. “Why did you come after me?” I whisper into the cold .

Trace’s arms tighten around me, pulling me closer. “I was afraid something had happened.” His voice is soft. “That you were hurt. I couldn’t not go. Not when it was my fault you left.”

“It wasn’t your fault at all,” I mutter, resting my cheek against Trace’s bicep until my eyes finally drift closed.

Only to pop open a second later, quick as a child’s toy. My heart thunders.

“What is it?” Trace asks.

“Nothing.” I rub my face. It is nothing. Just my body adjusting. “The storm is keeping me up.”

“It’s not the storm,” Trace says tiredly. “Trust me.”

I ignore him.

“Suit yourself,” says Trace. Within minutes, the stillness of his body informs me that at least one of us is smart enough to sleep when he can.

I watch the darkness. Lightning sears the sky again. I brace myself for the coming thunder, but jump all the same when it comes. Trace startles awake.

“Sorry.” I scrub my face. “The noise just...”

“Sounded like a bone breaking?” Trace offers, ignoring my shaking head. “Or the crack of a whip?”

“Stop it.”

He brings his lips close to my ear. “Or that ringing in your ears when—”

“Stop it!” I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, the obsidian wall blocking my memories shuddering precariously.

My face heats, my racing heart ferrying a sudden burst of energy through my limbs.

“It was a loud sound, no more, no less. I’m tired and I want a little leeway to bloody shudder at a sudden noise. ”

“Is that all?” Trace’s voice has a growl to it, which vibrates his chest .

“What do you want to hear?”

“Start with the truth and we’ll go from there.”

“What truth?” My head pounds, words rising in my throat and demanding escape.

A torn abscess spilling puss. “That I was stupid and reckless and overconfident? That I got caught and endangered people and failed to rescue a soul? That you had to come save my sorry hide?It’s all true and I know it, and I’m sorry.

All right? I’m sorry.” The thin tremor running its course through my body grows violent. “I’m sorry.”

Trace says nothing.

I breathe deeply, ordering my body to quit its relentless shaking. When the order fails, I try digging my fingernails into my palms instead. Then stealing my breath altogether. Nothing works. But Trace never lets go of his hold.

“I was sixteen when Viva captured an infantry company that I’d recklessly led into Sylthia,” he says after a stretch of silence.

I shift in his arms to see his face and brace myself for the coming deserved scolding.

But Trace isn’t looking at me. Or at anything.

His unfocused gaze stares only into the past, and his words are soft.

“I’d never been in true combat before. I chafed for glory and I’d disobeyed orders to go into the zone in the first place.

“Viva thought I had information they needed, and that I’d give it to them if they hurt me.

They were right.” The apple of Trace’s neck bobs as he swallows, and the muscles anchoring his cheekbones tighten with tension that I long to brush my fingers across.

Trace exhales. “It didn’t take them long.

I told them everything, even when I knew my information would kill people.

And it did. People died. More died getting me out, and I think they were glad to give their lives just to stop the damage I was doing.

” He shakes his head, his gaze refocusing.

“I did everything, anything, just to stop the pain. But even when that stopped, the fear didn’t.

Not even when I got out.” His voice grounds, reclaiming its usual hard timbre.

“Which is to say that I know a thing or two about arrogance. And about flinching at sounds.”

Not the response I expected. Or deserve.

I wait for shock to ripple through me, but it never comes.

I’ve always known something happened to Trace, and in the wake of the last two days, I can believe many things.

That day early on, when I told him off for trying to whip Kal into telling on Wil, Trace asked for Kal’s age.

And when I said sixteen, Trace went silent and abruptly ended our training session.

I understand now. Truths that would have once shattered my whole view of the guardsman are now just other strands woven into the rope of confessions and secrets that ties us together.

And in my gut, I know that he knew as much before speaking.

So instead of gasping or staring at him with wide, shocked eyes, I simply nod. “When does it stop?”

“I’ll let you know when I find out.”

My hand rises to rest against Trace’s face, my thumb rubbing small circles over the coiled muscles of his jaw. “Deal.” The skin beneath my fingertips is rough with stubble. “I hope you know soon.”

“As do I.” Trace shifts me again, once more nestling my back into his bare chest, and adjusts the cloak that’s slipped down from our shoulders.

“You know, if Raza saw us right now, she might get the wrong idea,” I say. I mean the words as a jest but it sounds flat even to me. I beg the stars to keep Trace from hearing my heart pounding.

Trace sighs. “It’s more complicated than you think.”

“That’s impressive, because I think it’s plenty complicated already.” I pause. “You really love her, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Trace answers with no hesitation. Just as before .

My chest tightens. “And she loves you.”

“Yes.”

I turn my face up toward him. “So why not leave with her? What is there for you in Dansil but a guardsman’s post?”

Trace shakes his head and shuts his eyes. “It’s more that there is little good I can do in Everett. As I said, it’s complicated. You’ll have to sleep at some point. Try to do it at night.”