Page 36 of The Uncrowned Prince

He didn’t bother mentioning the traps—considering that she’d already broken in once on her own, she must have discovered a way to avoid them.

Magic, he wondered? Or an impeccable memory?

She made quick work of stowing his purchases before turning to face him with a frown of resolution.

“Your ribs,” she said coolly. “Are they broken?”

“I have no idea,” he answered honestly. “I’ve never broken a rib before that I know of. All I can tell you is that one of those guards caught me with his cudgel and it hurts to breathe.”

“I have had many broken ribs,” she said, as if such things were common and barely worth mentioning. And before he could recover from the shock of such a statement, she added, “If you will remove your shirt, I may be able to determine the extent of your injury.”

Remove his shirt?She said it so casually. And perhaps it was a casual thing, where she was from. Perhaps in a training school for assassins, she saw shirtless men every day.

Sadly, that train of thought did nothing for his confidence.

But… he did want to know if anything was broken. He would hate to be a nuisance to Emmerick by asking for another favor again so soon, but he did not have the luxury of waiting for bones to heal. Not when there were assassins running around the city and at least two people had known of his real identity.

Sitting up on the couch, he leaned forward and eased out of the sleeves of his long black coat. The shirt was a little more difficult, but as he sat there trying to figure out how to pull it over his head without injuring himself further, Karreya suddenly appeared right in front of him, the blade of her dagger mere inches from his throat.

Vaniell froze. He didn’tthinkhe’d done anything that warranted murder. And if she meant to hurt him, she’d had plenty of other opportunities.

“I haven’t even taken the shirt off yet, and you are already prepared to stab me? I swear to you, the sight of my bare chest isn’t quitethatoffensive.”

Sadly, she seemed unimpressed by his humor.

“The blade is for your clothing, not your throat,” she replied acerbically. “But if you continue to say absurd things, I am willing to change my mind.”

Oh. “Be my guest.” Vaniell held out his arms with a relieved grin. “I confess that allowing a beautiful woman to cut off my shirt seems like the best idea I’ve had all day.”

Karreya shot him a glance that landed somewhere between startled and annoyed. “Hold still.”

A moment later, his shirt hung in two pieces, neatly sliced down the front and the back with as little fanfare as he might slice a loaf of bread.

“Impressive.” Vaniell pulled at each sleeve until both halves lay beside him on the couch. The room was not quite warm enough for shirtlessness, so he found himself shivering, wondering if he should make another joke, but mostly watching Karreya warily, not because he feared her, but because…

He wanted her to be comfortable with him. He wanted her tolikehim. And most of all, he hoped she could come to respect him, which even he could admit was unlikely. He possessed none of the skills she’d been trained to value, and even if he had, there was nothing in his history that proclaimed him worthy of such respect.

Sadly, despite his hopes, she did not stop to ogle his bare chest or admire his arms. Instead, she crouched down, clasped one hand on his knee and pressed the fingers of the other to the spot where the guard had…

“Ow.” A single glance showed him a black and purple bruise larger than his palm, and that was all he cared to see. His eyes shut as pain shot down his side. It was difficult to even focus on the surprisingly gentle warmth of her fingers, because every touchhurt.

But then her fingers began to skate lightly over the sensitive skin of his side, brushing across his ribs with only the gentlest pressure. It caused him no pain, but heat trailed in the wake of her touch, and his heart seemed to seize in his chest. A tremor of longing shook him from head to toe, and he had to grip the edge of the couch to keep from reaching for her hand.

Whether to tell her not to stop or to keep from giving himself away, he had no idea, but he hoped it was the closest he ever came to torture.

“You bruise easily, Abreian,” was Karreya’s final terse assessment. “But your bones are strong. I don’t believe anything is broken.”

Did she sound tense? Nervous? Or just clipped and clinical?

“That’s a relief,” he said, letting out a long breath and then regretting it when the pain stabbed him again.

“But it will take time to heal,” she warned. “You should neither lift nor climb for a few weeks until the bruising is faded.”

Vaniell opened his eyes and saw that she still lingered, her face close to his. For the first time, he noticed light, almost silvery freckles across her nose and cheeks, and coppery flecks in her golden brown eyes.

“Thankfully,” he murmured, “my tree climbing days are far behind me, and the most I lift on a daily basis is my dinner plate.” It was an old habit, formed at court—to make himself sound physically unthreatening, so that no one would take him seriously. But Karreya did not laugh.

“In the short time I have known you, you have lifted considerably more than that.”

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