Page 26 of Held

It was a pale answer. Wick touched her ribs through her laced shirt, feeling them contract under his touch. He had only seen her naked a handful of times, but he could remember every inch of her. There was a slash scar over her torso.

“Here?” he asked.

Briar’s eyelashes fluttered. Her mouth moved wordlessly, and Wick was helpless to do anything but stare at it. Even with her scars, she was the softest thing he had ever touched.

“A knife fight,” she said breathlessly. “A few years back. I wasn’t even involved; I was just unlucky enough to be standing there.”

Wick’s hand migrated to her back, touching a burn scar through the wet fabric. “And this?”

Briar’s throat worked. She swayed back, and for a moment, Wick feared he had pressed too far. Was it her turn to ask? She hadn’t clarified how the question game worked.

“I—I was paid to smuggle something from a kitchen,” she said, too fast. “A ledger. The cook caught me, pushed me up against a boiling cauldron. My shirt burned onto my back.”

It was not a particularly brutal explanation. But the image would have made Wick grimace if he truly believed it.

“You’re lying,” he said.

Briar blinked rapidly. A shocked grin spread over her face. “Excuse me?”

“Why do you lie?” Wick asked. “I will not tell anyone.”

Briar laughed. One of her nervous ones—still charming, still sweet. But nervous. He was beginning to tell the difference.

“I’m…” Briar paused, looking up at him with that wary look that she rarely let slip through. “I’m not worried about you telling. I just don’t tell people these things.”

“Why?”

“Do you go around spilling your life story to anyone who asks?”

“Nobody has asked,” Wick said honestly.

Briar said nothing. Her chest rose and fell against his own. A small shiver ran through her, and Wick itched to rub her arms again. If only his touch would help as much as his fiery eyes.

“It’s not a terribly interesting story,” she said finally. “I was trying to save a dog.”

“A dog?”

Briar sighed, annoyed. “I was young. Hadn’t learned that you save yourself and you don’t look back. I woke up to an inn burning down around me, so I leapt out a window. I was about to run into the streets, find somewhere else to hide—the city guard was on my tail that month—but I heard a dog barking.”

Her mouth twitched. She still looked annoyed, but now it was a mask she was using to hide whatever was happening underneath.

Wick sniffed the air. Rain, cold… and sadness. Not much. Just enough to smell it under the storm, soft and heavy.

“There was a retired hunting dog,” she continued. “He lived at the inn. Old, deaf thing. Could barely walk, but the owners kept it around anyway.”

“You went back in to save it,” Wick prompted.

Briar laughed bitterly. “I did! Got that scar for my troubles.”

Thunder crashed outside the cave. Wick tightened his wings, pressing harder into Briar’s back, right against the healed burn.

Briar’s lack of speech was enough. But Wick asked anyway.

“Did you save it?”

“No,” Briar replied after a moment. “It was a good lesson. Save yourself, don’t look back.”

The sadness swelled between them, thick in Wick’s nostrils. It was edged with a dozen other emotions Wick couldn’t identify,everything mixing into an incomprehensible blur. But none of them were particularly pleasant.

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