Chapter 6: Her Yes

He carried me up the long way, by the main stair, with blood soaking through his shirt and my feet off the ground.

I told him twice to put me down.

He ignored me both times.

At my door he set me on my feet, and my knees did something stupid, and his hand closed on my elbow.

"Someone cut those bolts," I said. "Someone stood in that stair with a saw and counted on me."

"Yes."

"Today. While I was asleep ten feet away."

"Yes," he said, and his voice had gone to gravel. "I will find them."

"You're bleeding on my floor."

"Tavia."

I was shaking.

It wasn't fear.

I had been afraid for two days.

It had burned down into something hot and clean and furious.

The only place left for it to go was the man in front of me.

I looked at his mouth.

Then I looked up at his eyes, and they were pale and steady and waiting.

He was not going to move, and I knew it.

He had said so.

"I feel nothing from your bond," I said. "I've checked."

"I know."

"Not a pull. Not a hum. Nothing."

"I know."

"Good," I said. "Then this is mine."

I took two fistfuls of his bloody shirt and pulled his mouth down onto mine.

He made a sound I felt in my teeth.

He kissed like a man who had been starved and was trying to be polite about it, and then he stopped trying.

His good hand slid into my braid and wrapped it around his fist, and he tipped my head back and took my mouth open.

I kicked the door shut behind us with my heel.

"Bed," I said against his lips. "Now. And you are not using that shoulder."

"Yes, Healer."

"Don't call me that."

"Yes, Healer," he said again, and I bit his lip for it.

I walked him backward until his knees hit the mattress and pushed him down.

He sat, big and dark in the firelight, looking up at me with his chest heaving.

I peeled off the wool dress and let it drop.

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