AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I chewed another bite of meat and swallowed before responding. “I suppose.”
“Well, for your information, it was only halfway sarcastic,” she informed me rather tartly.
I glowered at her, thinking about how deeply unfair it was that she could be so pretty even when she was irritated with me.
“Being reminded that I’m weak? Yeah. Not exactly glad about that even if it is kind of true.” Some of the sour edge bled out of her voice. “But I am glad that you’re not that hurt, at least according to you.”
“Who else should it be according to?”
“I don’t know. A healer?”
I snorted, nearly dropping my next bite of felkora.
“A healer?” I scoffed. “For a bloodied lip?”
“Well, I don’t know!” she cried, her cheeks pinkening in a way that made me want to reach out and touch them. Or lick them, sands help me. “It bled a lot!” she went on frantically. “I’ve got the bloodstains all over our cave floor to prove it.”
I gave a careless toss of my tail against the stone.
“Do not trouble yourself over that,” I said. “I can clean that up.”
If it were merely some random cave in Gahn Thaleo’s mountain then I would simply say, curse you twice, you may keep my bloodstains or get down upon your knees to clean it yourself. But Fiona seemed somewhat distressed about it, and I didn’t need her constantly dithering about how weak or injured I might be every time she saw the dark splotch of my blood in her sleeping cave.
“You don’t have to clean it up. I’m the one who kicked you,” she muttered as I ate a few more bites. She shook her head. “Between that and the whole braxilk-braid-eating-incident, you’re really having quite the day, aren’t you?”
“It is just hair. It will grow back.” I stiffened, then peered at her so closely she reared back, her eyes so wide I could see the white all the way around the dark central sight stars. “Does your hair not grow back when you cut it?”
“Of course it does!” she said, putting down the tray and swatting at my hand as I tugged the hood of her cloak aside to better see her silky strands.
I released her hood. “Then why are you so concerned about it?”
“I don’t know. I just...” She cast her eyes down, nudging a bit of moonbark away from the edge of the tray so that it would not fall. “When I first saw it happen, I thought it was blood. I thought the braxilk had cut your throat.”
Just how frail does this female think I am?
It was a physical pain inside me, a grating scrape against my bones, to know that Fiona was walking around this world thinking that things like little female feet and braxilk beaks could actually damage me.
“Fiona,” I growled, fighting to keep impatience from making my words too snappy and harsh. She never seemed to respond well to that. “The braxilk are strong creatures, no doubt. But if I had been in any real danger, I would have drawn a blade and felled it in an instant. It took my braid. It did not – and would not have been able to – take my life.”
“If you say so.”
“I do,” I sighed, irritated and perplexed. “Did you not just hear me say it? I will say it again if you did not understand me the first time.”
“No, no. Not necessary.” She gave me a strained smile. “Ah, shoot. Tilly and Nasrin have already fed half these guys and I’ve just been sitting here with you.”
“Good.”
Fiona had gotten one foot underneath her, half in a kneel, half in a crouch, but her upward progress halted as suddenly as if the top of her head had bumped up against an invisible wall.
“What? What’s good?”
Ah.
I said that out loud, did I?
Well, nothing for it now.
“It is good you have been here with me and not those other males,” I said. “In fact...”
