Chapter 8

I threw open the window and found Leo crouched on the sill like a drenched black cat.

Before I could even breathe his name, he grinned.

“Miss me?”

I hit him.

Not hard.

Just enough to make him blink.

Then I grabbed him by the front of his robe and dragged him inside.

“You idiot,” I said, and my voice shook so badly that it barely sounded like mine. “Why are you coming through the window again?”

“The gate creaks,” he answered automatically.

Then, seeing my face clearly in the dim dawn light, his smile vanished.

He reached up and wiped at my cheek with his thumb.

“You were crying.”

I could not even deny it.

I threw my arms around him instead.

His body went rigid for half a breath, then softened all at once as he held me tight.

“Where’s Liam?” I whispered into his shoulder.

“He’s alive.”

That was not the answer I wanted.

I pulled back.

Leo’s face had gone serious in a way I rarely saw.

“He’s finishing something. He told me to come first and get you moving.”

Cold spread through me.

“Moving where?”

“Away from here.”

He stepped back and looked around the room quickly, already calculating.

“We don’t have long. Some people slipped through in the capital. They know about Ethan. They know about the village. They may know about you.”

I tightened my hands.

“And Liam?”

“He’ll meet us.”

The floating words finally came alive again.

He’s back!

But where’s the older brother?

Don’t do this to me.

I looked into Leo’s eyes.

“Tell me the truth.”

He held my gaze for a long second.

Then he did.

“My brother’s hurt.”

Everything inside me dropped.

“How badly?”

“He can still kill a man, if that’s what you mean.”

“That is not what I mean.”

For once, Leo did not joke.

“He took a blade for me,” he said quietly. “We got separated near dawn. He told me to come for you first.”

I turned away and started packing before the fear could swallow me whole.

Leo watched me for a moment, then moved too.

He was fast, efficient, almost harsh with it.

He took only what mattered.

Money.

Documents.

Dry food.

The smoked pork.

Of course the smoked pork.

Even in that moment, I almost wanted to laugh.

Outside, the world was just barely brightening.

Inside, my pulse would not slow.

By the time the sun rose, we were gone.

Leo put me on horseback and rode behind me, one arm around my waist, the other hand always close to his weapon.

This time I did not mind the speed.

I wanted only forward.

Only Liam.

We changed roads three times in one day.

Twice we hid while riders passed.

Once Leo dismounted to check tracks and came back with blood on his sleeve that had not been there before.

I did not ask.

Near nightfall, we reached an abandoned hunting cabin deep in the woods.

“He’ll come here,” Leo said.

“How do you know?”

“Because if I were dying, this is where he’d look for me.”

That answer did not calm me.

Still, we waited.

Night came.

The woods grew dark and wet and endless.

Leo built a fire too small to draw attention and sat by the door like a wolf.

I sat inside, staring at every shadow as if I could force Liam to step out of one of them.

Hours passed.

The floating words came and went in restless bursts.

This is the worst.

Please let him come back.

If the gentle one dies I’m done.

At some point near midnight, Leo rose so suddenly that my heart slammed into my ribs.

There was a sound outside.

Not loud.

Just wrong.

Leo drew his blade and stepped into the dark.

I was on my feet before he could stop me.

Then a figure staggered into the firelight.

Liam.

His face was white.

Blood soaked one side of him.

For one frozen second I could not move.

Then I was running.

He caught me before I could collide hard enough to hurt him, but his breath hissed through his teeth when I touched his side.

“You’re hurt.”

“I noticed,” he murmured.

I could have cried right there.

Instead I dragged him inside while Leo muttered curses fierce enough to frighten the trees.

Between the two of us, we got Liam out of his outer clothes.

The wound was deep.

Not deadly yet.

But it would become deadly fast if it was not cleaned.

My hands shook at first.

Then they steadied.

I boiled water.

Tore linen.

Held pressure while Liam leaned his head back against the wall and breathed through the pain without making a sound.

Leo knelt beside him and looked angrier than I had ever seen him.

“You stupid bastard,” he whispered. “I told you I could cover my own back.”

“And yet,” Liam said faintly, “here we are.”

Their eyes met.

Something deep and old passed between them in that look.

Something made of blood, danger, and years before I ever knew them.

I cleaned the wound until my fingers were slick and red.

I packed it.

Wrapped it.

Made him drink water.

Then I sat back on my heels and realized my whole body was trembling.

Liam lifted a weak hand and touched my wrist.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For making you afraid.”

That broke something in me.

I lowered my head and cried at last.

Quietly.

Not the wild grief I had wasted on Ethan’s grave.

This was sharper.

Realer.

Because this fear had come from love that was still alive.

Liam drew me closer with his uninjured arm.

Leo looked away and pretended to focus on the fire.

By dawn Liam’s fever had started.

For two days he drifted in and out of sleep.

For two days Leo and I took turns watching him, forcing broth between his lips, changing the cloths on his skin, checking the wound again and again.

Leo did not complain once.

Not really.

He muttered, yes. Cursed often. Snapped at the air.

But every time Liam’s breathing changed even slightly, Leo was there before I was.

On the second night, while Liam slept at last without burning, Leo sat outside the cabin with me and stared into the dark.

“You know,” he said after a long time, “when he first stayed in your bed, I thought he’d lost his mind.”

I turned to look at him.

He kept his eyes on the trees.

“Then I saw the way he looked at you the next morning. That was when I knew we were both doomed.”

Despite everything, I smiled.

“You too?”

He clicked his tongue.

“Especially me. You kissed me first, remember?”

I leaned my shoulder against his.

“Yes. And you nearly fainted.”

He finally laughed.

Softly.

Then the laugh faded.

“If he had died,” Leo said, still looking at the dark woods, “I wouldn’t have known how to come back from that.”

I understood.

Not only because I loved Liam too.

But because by then I loved Leo just as fiercely in the bright, difficult, impossible way that belonged only to him.

So I reached out and caught his hand.

He tightened his fingers around mine.

And in the quiet of the woods, while Liam slept inside and danger still wandered somewhere beyond the trees, we stayed like that until dawn.