Chapter 14: The King's Door

We rode back to Highcrown in the dark with Brigid asleep in a guard's saddle.

Elspeth was behind the temple walls with a signet and a sanctuary claim, and the whole city was shouting her new name.

Evander had sent twelve guards to ring the temple and had not set foot in it himself.

"She will keep until morning," he said. "The priests will not hand her over before then."

I walked into the king's wing on my own feet, past his door and past mine.

I stopped at the great carved door at the end of the hall.

"This one," I said.

Evander looked at it, and then at me.

"That is my room."

"I know whose room it is. I'm opening it."

I pushed it wide with my good hand.

The room was bigger than mine, with a bed built for a man his size and a fire burning low.

He came in behind me and shut the door.

For a moment neither of us moved.

My ankles were blistered where the silver had bitten through my boots, my palm was throbbing, and my hair stank of smoke.

"You're hurt," he said.

"So wash me."

He looked at me.

"That's what I want," I said. "Then I want you to take me to bed, and I don't want you to be careful."

He filled the basin himself.

He knelt on the stone in front of me and unlaced my boots, and peeled them off over my ruined ankles.

The cloth was warm.

He washed the soot from my feet, my calves, the backs of my knees, and every touch went straight up my spine.

When he reached my thighs I put my fingers in his hair.

"Stand up," I said.

He stood.

I undid his shirt, button by button, and pushed it off his shoulders.

The long scar on his forearm was pink in the firelight, and I turned his arm and put my mouth on it.

He made a sound low in his chest.

"You first," I said, and took his belt.

His breeches came down, and his cock was already hard and heavy in my hand.

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