Page 62 of An Empress of Fire & Steel

Torin dragged his eyes from Emara’s concentrating face. “It’s fantastic,” he mumbled.

“You see, we used to be inseparable, Emara,” Artem announced as he brushed soap up and down his arms. “In the Selection, our Tori-boy used to get really homesick and long for his mother.”

Emara shut the book and lowered it to her thigh with an enigmatic grin.

Torin invaded the conversation before it could go any further. “You have five minutes to finish what you are doing and leave, Stryker. I would use my time wisely if I were you.”

But Artem continued without batting an eyelid. “But he powered through to become the best of the best, didn’t you, mama’s boy?”

“Four minutes.” Torin’s fist twitched again. It had been a long time since he had punched Artem’s face, but he was happy to end the dry spell of fists right now.

“I am happy he has found you, Emara,” Artem stated as he trailed soap all over his ink.

She choked.

“Three,” Torin growled.

“He has this tough exterior.” Artem looked over at Emara with a wink, and Torin had a maddening urge to blind him.

“Two.” Torin’s chest puffed out.

“But our favourite Blacksteel just loves to brood,” Artem counselled. “When we all know that, really, he is a big softie on the inside.”

“One.” Torin choked out as he bounded towards the bathtub.

Artem’s hand went up. “That was seconds, brother, you said I had minutes.”

“I changed my mind. Get your ass out of my room and get to your own. Emara doesn’t need to hear about our lives in the Selection.”

“Yes, I do.”

He turned to see her grinning.

Artem raised himself from the bathtub, naked as the day he was born. Emara probably wasn’t used to the brashness of hunting life and the way they were all conditioned in the Selection, so Torin quickly grabbed a towel from the floor for Artem and herded him out of the room like unwanted cattle.

“Towel, please.” Artem smiled as he crossed over the doorway.

Torin balled the towel up tightly and hurled it at him. Before he even witnessed the towel smack into Artem’s face, he slammed the door shut.

He sighed, standing at the door in case Artem had a second wind of bravery to interrupt again.

Emara laughed, flinging the book onto the bed. “Do you not like it when people find out you are not a big, bad warrior?”

“First of all, I am big, and second of all, I am bad,” he said, crossing the room to the tub. He pulled out the plug to drain Artem’s bath.

“I can confirm that you are big—”

He turned to face her. “Are you talking about what you saw earlier?” Torin lifted an eyebrow.

She pinned her lips shut as a blush tickled her cheeks pink. “Shut up and let me finish what I was going to say.”

The pent-up frustration on her face gave him more satisfaction than it should have.

“Carry on.” He smiled and turned the hot water on again to fill his own bath.

“What I was going to say”—her eyes dragged from his to his body as he began to unbutton his leathers—“is that it’s obvious that you are large, physically. In…person. And you are obviously a warrior. But I don’t think you are bad at all.”

It was so endearing when she was flustered.

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