Chapter 26 Isi
ISI
“See?” Trew said, his smirk tinged with pain. “You really do want to touch my body.”
“I’m not touching anything.”
“Going to heal me with magic, minx?”
My gaze flashed to his belly where I’d poked him with my blade. Not even a scar. “Who healed that?”
“I did it myself.”
“You don’t seem too happy about it.”
He shrugged, wincing when he did it. “I wish it had left a scar.”
“Why?”
“Wouldn’t you like to think you’ve branded me?”
Fates, yes.
I did not say that. Instead, I shrugged his question off. “Why haven’t you healed these wounds?”
“Wounds received on other realms don’t heal in the same way. It wasn’t supposed to touch me. But then, neither were you.”
On other realms…
I frowned, remembering the firecat who’d saved me. But…that would be impossible. I shook off the thought. “Wait here.”
I rushed to the washroom, fumbling for towels, both wet and dry, and a small tin of fraewort balm I discovered while searching a cabinet. Bandages too. All the things some random person might need if they happened to…oh, trip in the hallway and scuff their knee.
My pulse hadn’t settled. Maybe it never would, not with him sitting so horribly wounded and in pain nearby, not with everything that had happened in the past hour.
We were flirting.
No, never that. He was a rebel king. And I was here to rip off the cloak covering this place and expose the rot beneath. Find the children and free them. Discover who killed my sister and slit their throat.
He couldn’t be involved.
Could he?
I returned to the sitting room and dropped to my knees beside him on the sofa.
“I told you to take off your tunic,” I said.
He smirked, one brow lifting. “I’ll remove my pants too, if that would help the healing process.”
I didn’t dignify that with more than a traitorous glance at the front of his pants, where his cock pressed against the fabric.
It was thick.
Long.
Dragging my eyes away before he caught me gaping, I lifted my chin.
“If you’re wounded there,” I infused ice into my voice, “you’ll have to find someone else to tend you.”
“Pity,” he said.
I didn’t respond, though it took effort to keep my mouth smooth and my cheeks from flushing. He pulled the tunic over his head with a wince and let it fall to the floor.
Fates.
Golden skin stretched over a chest sculpted by war and discipline. His broad shoulders were dusted with old scars, but his abdomen—tight, carved muscles—rose and fell too fast. Deep gashes marred his side and chest, red and angry.
I gently washed the wounds, trying to ignore how he winced. I carefully blotted the deep gouges and applied the ointment, leaning across his lap to work on the back side. His thigh muscles tensed, and his exhale warmed my neck.
The jagged, silent story carved into his skin made my chest ache.
I looked up, and for the first time, I didn’t see the king but the man beneath.
Bruised. Wounded. And trying so hard not to flinch under my gaze.
When he leaned forward for me to wrap the bandage around his torso, his hiss shot out.
“Sorry I’m hurting you,” I whispered.
“It’s alright.”
No one else could touch him like this. Not his soldiers. Not his council. Maybe not even his lovers, if he’d had any. But me? He let me come close. Trusted my hands. My care. It didn’t make sense, but the truth settled low in my belly like a brand.
He didn’t flinch from me. Only for me.
Pausing while tying the bandage ends in a knot, I looked up, meeting his pupils that were much too blown for a man in pain.
My eyes drifted down to his mouth.
His throat worked in a swallow, and wild heat flickered through his eyes. My fingers remained on his skin, and I could feel the tension coiling through him.
I cleared my throat and looked away, focusing on my task.
I finished wrapping a second bandage around his ribs, trying not to brush against anything raw. “You’ll need to keep these clean. Wash the wounds twice a day with boiled water. And apply fresh balm.” I held the small tub of it out to him.
He took it from me and set it aside. “Thank you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. We weren’t friends, not even allies.
But I didn’t want to leave his side.
“What happened?” I asked again, climbing back into his lap. Such a vulnerable position. So why didn’t I take the chair opposite the low table where I wouldn’t have to feel the heat of his skin, the fire in his gaze?
He stared at me for a long while. I began to think he wasn’t going to answer. “I was protecting someone very important to me.”
My throat tightened. He must mean me.
His body was a canvas of strength and ruin, broad shoulders sloping into arms I could easily imagine wrapped around me.
My gaze lingered too long on the stretch of his abdomen, the V-shaped lines disappearing into his waistband.
The rise and fall of his chest. The curve of his neck.
The shadows cast by the fire across all that bare, golden skin.
The bandaging done, I started to shift off his lap.
“Stay?” he asked.
My breath caught.
He’d asked. Gently.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said.
“If anyone could,” he murmured, “it would be you.”
The words wrapped around me like a tether, drawing me closer to him. Slowly, I settled against him, curling into the warmth of his chest. His arms didn’t move to hold me, but I felt the tension in him, the awareness.
I tried not to stare at his chest again. I failed.
“This is strange for me,” he said after a while, his voice a quiet rumble. “Having someone here. Letting someone see me like this.”
I stroked the edge of the bandage, needing something to touch. “Because you’re royal.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Because I’m never allowed to lower my guard. There are always expectations. Enemies.” He looked down at me. “Surely you understand.”
I froze.
Did he know who I truly was, that I came from a rival court, from a place that taught children to fear his name?
If he did, he’d call me out. Throw me in the dungeon.
Wouldn’t he?
I studied his expression, finding it quiet, unreadable. No cruelty there. No threat. Just honesty, tired and real.
“It’s hard,” I said carefully. “Having to be strong when you feel anything but.”
Our gazes held.
For the first time, we weren’t tossing barbed words like daggers. We weren’t pretending. We were two souls spinning too close, warming yet wary. I didn’t know what to do with that.
Because he wasn’t supposed to be soft.
And I wasn’t supposed to care.
But I did.
And I wasn’t ready for what that meant either.
His voice found me again, quiet now. “There’s a kind of strength you learn when you have to lead before you’re ready. When there’s no one left to shield you.”
I glanced up, surprised. His gaze seemed distant, not sharp and assessing like usual. “You mean your parents?”
Trew nodded once. “My mother was buried with her crown still tangled in her hair. My father was killed before I could grow into his shadow. I was fifteen. I didn’t have the heart to rule, but I did it anyway.”
Something in me cracked.
“My mother died when I was ten,” I said, before I could stop myself.
“She used to sing to me in the dark, especially during thunder and lightning.” I’d never told anyone else this.
“I’m afraid of storms. I feel like the lightning will stab through the window and find me.
” It sounded weak. Pitiful, actually. “I still remember her voice.”
“Hold onto it for as long as you can. Don’t ever let anyone steal it from you.”
“You confuse me,” I said softly, almost hoping he wouldn’t hear.
“You confuse me too.”
I frowned. “Do you have someone who can help you care for this wound? A healer or a royal stitcher?”
“And take away this opportunity for you to tend to my body so sweetly?”
I leaned away, sighing. “Don’t do that.”
His jaw twitched. “Define that.”
“We were having a nice conversation.”
“Is that what we were doing?”
“What else could it be?”
“Yes, what else?”
“I should leave.” I started to slide off his lap.
His arms went around me, holding me in place. “Now it’s my turn to apologize. I’m sorry. Stay a bit longer?”
I stared at him for much too long before speaking. “Alright.”
He tugged me up into his lap, tightening his arms around me.
I didn’t resist. Not one bit.
He didn’t speak for a while. Just held me, his chin resting on the top of my head like I might vanish if he moved. I didn’t pull away; couldn’t seem to make myself do it. The night pressed in close, cool and still, our breaths puffing like secrets in the dark.
“Tell me about Isi Barlowe,” he finally said.
I stiffened. A dangerous request. But there was no malice in his tone, no edge to suggest he was waiting to catch me out. He wasn’t asking who I served or what I wanted. He was asking about who I was inside.
I tilted my head back enough to look up to see the clean lines of his face silhouetted in the firelight. “What kind of answer are you hoping for?”
“The kind you don’t tell anyone else.”
I sighed, unsure what to share. What I dared share. I wanted to open up to him, to tell him everything, which was dangerous.
“Hmm.” I pulled back from his arms enough to sit beside him, cross-legged, and he let me go without protest, though his fingers brushed my back as I settled.
“I like reading old legends. Not the sanctioned ones or the kind that makes the rounds to teach a lesson. I like the ones with soft spines and pages gone loose because they were loved. With stories that don’t end neatly.
I used to sneak into the library and take the books tucked away in the back.
I like the stories with trickster heroines who outwitted kings, or the tragic ones that left my chest aching for days. ”
I picked at the hem of my sleeve, then glanced up to find him watching me in that unnerving way of his, like he was seeing more than I meant to show.
“Do you still cry when you read the tragic ones?” he asked softly.
“I don’t cry,” I said, too quickly.