Chapter 7: Mine to Open

The ache in my wrist never went away, and neither did the tent.

I lay on his cot for an hour and watched him not look at me.

He sat on the edge of the table with his arms folded and his scarred hand tucked under one elbow.

He was ten feet away, close enough to stop the pain, and I could not stand it.

I had buried my brother that afternoon, and in six hours I would walk to a gate and kneel for the man who had burned him.

I did not want to be brave.

I did not want to be good.

I wanted one thing in the world that was mine.

"Corvin."

"Sleep."

"The bed is mine to open," I said. "I said so on the island."

He went still.

"You did."

"Then I'm opening it."

He looked at me at last.

His whole face had changed.

"Say that again," he said, very low.

"Come here."

He crossed the tent, and I was already sitting up with my hands in his shirt.

Our mouths hit hard.

It was not gentle and neither of us wanted it to be.

He kissed me with all of him at once, one hand sunk in my hair and the other braced on the cot beside my hip.

The mark on my wrist stopped burning and began to sing.

Every inch of me that touched him was the right temperature.

I dragged his shirt up over his head and threw it behind him.

He was solid and scarred and warm, and I put my mouth on his shoulder and bit.

He made a rough sound and pushed me back flat.

"Boots," he muttered, and tore them off me one at a time, and my trousers after them.

My shirt came open under his hands.

He looked at me, bare on his blankets in the lantern light, and for a moment he did not move.

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