Page 40 of Thorns & Fire (The Ashes of Thezmarr #2)

Torj

‘To truly understand the past, one must study the historian as much as the history’

– The Midrealms Chronicles

‘I SHOULD CRUSH your tiny skull,’ Torj hissed at the chronicler, clutching a fistful of his robes. ‘Come near her again, and I’ll do just that.’

He was throwing the scholar out of the study room when he heard a thud. And the sound of glass fracturing.

‘Wren!’ He was back in the room and at her side in an instant, finding her unconscious.

She’d fainted. And some of the vials in her belt had shattered on impact with the hard floor.

Careful of the broken glass, he took her in his arms, so her back was against his chest. ‘Wren, wake up... Talk to me, Embers...’

His heart was pounding. She looked so fragile, so small, and around her middle, blood was blooming across the linen of her gown and apron. She’d fallen right onto her belt of tinctures, breaking the glass with her fall.

He ran a thumb over her cheek, feeling the line of raised scar tissue there from the loyalty test she’d faced during the Gauntlet.

‘Embers,’ he murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head without thinking. He couldn’t bear the thought of her hurting, and he hated that he’d been so busy delivering his version of justice that he’d let her fall. He cradled her, kissing her temple. ‘Embers...’

Slowly, she came to. Her breaths came in quick and ragged, as though she were somewhere else in her mind.

Torj held her, stroking her hair. ‘I’ve got you. I’ve got you.’

He stopped her from writhing and embedding any more glass in her midsection, waiting for her to ground herself in the present. He hated to think of what she might be reliving, even in the safety of his arms.

At last, she stilled, wincing with a hiss. ‘What happened?’ she asked, voice hoarse. She didn’t pull away from his hold – that was a small victory in itself.

‘You passed out,’ he told her, eying the broken potions with his heart in his throat. ‘Your belt... Was there anything in there that could hurt you?’

Dazed, Wren looked down. ‘Oh.’

‘Can any of this harm you? Do I need to take you to Farissa?’ He couldn’t keep the urgency, the worry, from his voice.

‘No...’ Wren said, reaching for a long shard of glass sticking out from her stomach. ‘I’m immune to everything I keep in my belt.’

Torj batted her hand away. ‘We’ll treat this when you’re back in your quarters. Or I could take you to a healer—’

‘My quarters.’ Wren grimaced again. The colour hadn’t yet returned to her face.

‘You’re alright,’ he told her. ‘We’ll get you fixed up.’ The reassurance was more for him than her, he realized, but gods, he needed it. He had told her he’d never let her fall, and here she was—

‘Torj?’ she said softly, interrupting his thoughts. ‘Can you help me up?’

He didn’t need to be asked twice, but instead of planting her on her feet, he scooped her up behind the knees and carried her from the study room.

‘The books—’ she protested weakly.

‘Fuck the books.’

He should have crushed the damn chronicler’s skull.

All it would have taken was a single flex of his hand.

Standing outside the door, he had felt Wren’s distress.

He didn’t know how else to describe it, but her magic had called to him, somehow signalling that she needed help.

And then he hadn’t thought twice; he’d simply burst in.

Wren might have put on a brave face, but the war was an open wound to her, and that moronic scholar had rubbed salt in it. Torj wouldn’t stand for it. The prick was lucky he’d only been thrown from the room. Torj had wanted to do much worse.

He carried Wren to her quarters and sent the academy guard stationed at her door to collect the books she’d been reading.

When they were inside, Torj laid her on the bed.

Ignoring the ache in his chest at the sight of her in pain, he went to her workbench.

There, he found a small steel tray and a small pair of tweezers among her tools, which he set down beside her, along with an additional lantern so he could see the lacerations in the light.

With tender precision, he sat on the edge of the bed and sought those fine shards in her abdomen.

Using the tweezers, he grasped the first fragment, feeling her sharp intake of breath beneath him.

‘We’re always patching each other up, it seems,’ she murmured.

They didn’t speak after that as Torj worked gently and methodically, each piece of glass yielding reluctantly beneath his ministrations.

He dropped the fragments into the tray with a faint clatter and persisted, his focus unwavering, even as her discomfort seeped into him.

As another shard surrendered, he exhaled, his heart heavy with each flicker of pain he had caused her.

‘Thank you...’ she said softly.

‘I shouldn’t have let him talk to you,’ Torj ground out.

‘It was my choice,’ Wren countered, flinching as another piece of glass was removed.

Torj didn’t reply. He was too busy berating himself for his error. He’d made so many of those with Wren. He swept his hands lightly across her waist, searching for more shards.

‘I’m not mortally wounded,’ Wren said quietly after a moment, watching him with a strange expression. ‘It’s a few scratches. They’ll scab over by tomorrow.’

‘You’re always getting hurt around me.’ He heard the crack in his own voice and shut it down, clenching his jaw so hard he felt his teeth creak.

‘The world’s a dangerous place, Bear Slayer... You can’t protect me from external threats and my own stupidity all at once.’

‘I can damn well try,’ he bit out.

‘And try you do. Much to my dismay,’ she added. Her small hand closed over his. ‘At ease, Warsword. I can take it from here. But I think you’ll need to help with the laces at the back of my dress again.’

Torj’s cheeks went instantly hot.

‘Nothing you haven’t seen before,’ Wren said with a small smile, swinging her legs over the side of the bed with another wince at the pain. After carefully removing her apron, she turned her back to him. ‘I just need you to do the laces, please.’

It was her manners that nearly undid him.

Where were her sharp tongue and slicing words?

Torj was glad she couldn’t see the tremor in his fingers as he reached for the laces that started at the base of her neck.

It was intensely intimate, sitting on the edge of her bed with her, the ties of her gown unravelling beneath his touch.

A glimpse of another, impossible life, where the woman before him was his wife, and helping her with her bodice was a nightly occurrence before they curled up together. A dream long lost.

The folds of Wren’s dress fell away from her skin as he worked his way down her spine, and he could see her goosebumps as his fingertips brushed her bare back. She was soft and warm, and he wanted nothing more than to strip her completely and worship her—

She’s injured, you selfish prick, he told himself, freeing the last of the laces.

‘There,’ he said, standing abruptly, needing the distance between them. ‘You’ll clean the cuts?’

‘I think I can manage that, yes,’ she replied, capturing her lower lip between her teeth.

He had to get out of there before he did something stupid. Well, more stupid than all the other things he’d done since returning as her guard.

Torj forced himself to move towards the door.

‘Call out if you need me – anything – help.’ He stammered over those last words like an awkward youth with a crush and turned on his heel before she could see that flush creeping back up his neck.

Gods, he was losing sight of himself. He had sworn he would put their past behind him, he had sworn he’d protect her and no more, but nothing would quell the storm inside his chest – the storm that smelled like spring rain and jasmine, that had him in knots.

‘I’m alright,’ she reassured him from the bed. ‘A few shallow cuts. No stitches needed. Nothing a little salve won’t fix.’

‘That’s lucky,’ he said stiffly.

‘Lucky there was a great big Bear Slayer there to carry me back to my rooms and tend to me?’ she quipped.

‘I’m not sure my presence brings much luck these days.’

He found himself hesitating at the threshold between their two rooms. He had fought cursed bears, arachnes and shadow wraiths; he’d travelled the midrealms and led fucking armies.

He’d closed a portal to a world of nothing but pain and darkness, and yet.

.. it was the poisoner, the storm-wielding alchemist, who threatened to bring him to his knees.

He had never been one to concern himself with what others thought, but when it came to Wren? It was all that mattered.

‘Embervale?’ he asked, not turning around in case she was undressed.

‘What is it?’

He could tell by her voice that she was moving, tending to the cuts on her abdomen. But he needed to ask, needed to know...

Still facing his own quarters, with his back to her, he forced the words to form on his tongue. ‘Am I a good man? Despite... despite everything?’

The question hung between them, leaving him naked and exposed in an entirely new way. He had well and truly shattered the thing between them the moment he’d torn their soul bond in half. He hated the silence, hated that it confirmed all his very worst fears about himself.

But then Wren was there, touching his arm, trying to turn him to face her. ‘What do you think?’

He drew a trembling breath, not daring to look at her for fear of what he might say or what he might find written all over her beautiful face. ‘I don’t know any more,’ he admitted hoarsely.

‘Only a good man would say that,’ she said, her hand still on his arm, her thumb stroking the muscles there.

He came alive beneath her touch, his breath shuddering out of him as a wave of emotions hit. He felt that familiar storm magic dancing across his skin, calling out to him like a dark promise.

‘What I want to do to you isn’t what a good man would do,’ he murmured.

Wren’s hand reached up, cupping his face and turning him to her, finally. And he stared at her. She was wearing a nightshirt that hit the tops of her thighs, the fabric thin enough that he could see the outline of her sinful curves beneath.

‘Does that mean you want to do wicked things to me, Bear Slayer?’ she whispered, her thumb now tracing his bottom lip.

‘Wicked isn’t the half of it, Embers.’ He breathed her in like he’d been deprived of air, like he could fill his lungs with the very essence of her. His gaze travelled every inch of her, taking in the flush across her freckled cheeks, the curve in her parted lips, the heat in her stormy gaze.

The heir of Delmira would break him. He had known it from the moment he’d first kissed her, and long before. He reached for her, sliding his fingers along her jaw, scanning her face for any hesitancy.

There was none.

Instead, she was up on her tip-toes, pressing her mouth to his.

It was the whisper of a kiss, the promise of something far deeper.

They broke apart, staring at one another, their chests heaving with restrained desire.

‘Torj—’

But he slanted his lips over hers, kissing her hard.

Gods, he’d been wanting to do it for a lifetime.

Every little touch between them had been like a bolt of lightning, and now.

.. they both moaned at the contact, and Torj gripped her hair at the roots as she opened for him, allowing his tongue to sweep in and explore.

The taste of her, the sounds escaping her as they deepened the kiss – it was enough to make his knees buckle.

More. More. More. He had to have more of her. She was as intoxicating as ever, dragging the darkest want from his very being, turning him feral with need.

She bit his lower lip, the brief sting of pain causing a burst of pleasure, even as he tasted copper. Her cuts forgotten, Wren’s hands were all over him, demanding, claiming – and Furies save him, he’d give her exactly what she wanted.

Her nightshirt slipped from her shoulder as she raked her fingers across his chest and down his abdomen, as she shoved him against the doorframe. She was everywhere, just as impassioned as he was. The wall between them had come crashing down and now they broke upon each other like waves in a storm.

And as Wren’s breath flickered against his lips, as his desire nearly consumed him, he saw it...

That thread of gold linking them once more.

Wren was oblivious to it, her fists balled in his shirt, her mouth reclaiming his.

And then she broke away, as though sensing the jolt of shock that coursed through him.

The shimmer of gold vanished, and all Torj saw was her.

Running a thumb across her lips, she stepped back.

‘What are you doing?’ he managed, heart hammering. ‘I—’

But Wren cupped her hand over his mouth, her gaze fierce. ‘I’m going to leave before you say something to ruin this.’ Her hand remained over his mouth. ‘Let me have this, Bear Slayer. I don’t want every intimate moment we’ve shared to be tarnished by your words of regret.’

Her request seared the open fracture in his heart.

Regret? How could she think he regretted her?

She was all he’d ever wanted. To have shared what they had was a privilege he’d never thought possible.

His only regret was hurting her, not being good enough for her.

.. But he said none of this. Instead, he nodded slowly.

Wren released him and pressed a soft, gentle kiss to his lips before nudging him towards his room.

‘Goodnight, Torj,’ she murmured, and the door clicked closed behind him.

On the other side, with waves of feeling mercilessly barrelling into him, Torj braced himself against the timber.

I love you .