Page 29 of Legacy Ascended

"I did trust you. That's why I needed you somewhere safe."

"That isn't the same thing." Her fingers tighten around mine. "You decided you were the one who could be risked and I wasn't. You didn't even look at me before you did it."

There isn't much I can say to that, because she's right.

"I couldn't let them take both of us."

"And I couldn't stop them from taking you." Her voice breaks again. "Do you have any idea what it was like running away and hearing the guns?"

"I'm sorry."

"I don't want you to be sorry for saving me." She shakes her head. "I want you to let me help next time."

"I hope there isn't a next time."

"You're a direwolf everyone thought was extinct, you may be heir to a Great House, and you have a few princes for mates. I wouldn't count on a quiet life."

That gets a laugh out of me, although it pulls at my shoulder.

Freya waits until I stop wincing. "I can fight, Jessica. Maybe not like you, but I'm not helpless. Trust me enough to give me something to do beside you."

"I do trust you."

"Then act like it."

"I'll try."

"That isn't a promise."

"It's the best you're getting while I'm drugged."

She studies me, then nods. "Fine. I'll ask again when you're sober."

"Fair."

Freya stands and leans over me carefully. Her arms go around my neck without touching my shoulder, and she holds on. I close my good arm around her and feel her take one shaking breath against my hair.

"I'm so glad you're here," she whispers.

"Me too."

She stays there until someone taps once on the door.

When she pulls away, her eyes are red, but she looks more like herself.

"Your hair smells like a car."

"Thank you."

"I'm going to write down what Bergström said about the sling, because you will absolutely lie about it."

"Freya."

"I nearly lost you. You're never getting away with anything again."

Then she opens the door and lets everyone else back in.

The suite is warm, and there are three bags standing by the door, packed and zipped, boots lined up beside them. There's a blanket on the couch folded the wrong way with a dent in the pillow at one end. On the kitchen counter there's a sheet of paper with the day written down its left-hand side in four different hands — Jon: route confirmed east. Sophia: WHY IS NOBODY ANSWERING. Ander: has a road. The last line just says GOING.