Page 27 of Blood of Wolves

She jerked a nod. “A mild one.” But when she tried to step away from him, her entire leg seized up, so painful it left her hissing and staggering, and Bjorn caught her again, his big hand cupped supportively around her ribs.

“Mild, eh?” Pressed together like this, his chuckle vibrated through her, a deep growl like thunder over the distant mountains.

Gods, she had to get away from him! Before she did something idiotic and irresponsible.

“It’ll pass,” she gritted out between her teeth.

“Not just standing here it won’t. You need a good soak. And some liniment. You overdid it today.”

“No, I’m–” The lie died in her throat when another attempted step resulted in even more of her weight resting in his arm. Damn it. She bit down hard on her lip. The exhaustion dragged at her more and more by the minute, bringing with it a headache that she knew would be throbbing hard enough to keep her from sleeping in a few hours. She wasn’t a girl like Tessa anymore; she couldn’t push her body this hard when she was out of practice and expect to sleep it off without consequence.

She eased her left foot back to the flags, fighting hard to keep the pain off her face. A fight she lost.

Bjorn let out an exasperated sigh. “Come on, then, and I’ll help you upstairs.”

She resisted the pressure of his arm – but only because he allowed her to; of this, she was aware. Just like she was aware, every time he touched her, casually, in passing, the bare brushes of fingertips against her clothed arms. For all his size and strength, he was impossibly sensitive to every reaction; his hold was always delicate, always one that she could pull away from, if she wanted.

She never really wanted to, but always felt like she should.

“You can’t,” she said. “I can’t limp through that hall full of people like an invalid.”

“Not sure you have much choice, love.”

Love. It danced across her nerves. Had he ever called her that before?

Old memories tumbled through her mind: soft-edged childhood scenes. A scraped knee and Bjorn’s big hands hoisting her up, his young, beardless face shining with repressed laughter.“You all right, Rev?”He’d called herlittle sister, too: brightly as a boy, and then with a wry twist when he’d hit that awkward teenage phase when his height shot up and his beard started to come in patchy. It had taken her a long time, until she was head over heels for Torstan, really, before she began to understand why that wry twist became more and more like a grimace.

He’d never called herlovebefore. Not until right this moment.

It hit her –struckher, not so much a touch but a slap. A good one.

She had two choices – well, she had more, but the binary option was the only one she could formulate in the moment, left dumb and winded by one small word. She could pretend it hadn’t meant anything, that it was no different than any other familiar endearment; or she could let it take hold of her.

It was a choice she didn’t get to make, in the end, because Bjorn sighed, leaned down, and picked her up in one fast scoop, as if she weighed nothing.

“Wait, what are you–!”

“Well,” he said, voice resigned as he started walking – through a side door of the vestibule, toward the guard rooms and storage closets – “if you’re too proud to let me help you, and you can’t walk on your own, then there’s only one thing to do.”

“What in the…put me down!” she insisted. She knew she was blushing, and hated that her voice was shrill and so totally unlike herself. She didn’t blush, and yelp, on principle, and she certainly didn’t get carried around.

(Save two weeks ago, when Erik had scooped her up, when she’d driven herself to dehydration, exhaustion, and sleep-deprivation at Rune’s bedside. If she was honest, she could admit that she’d not been taking the best care of herself lately, as today proved.)

“No,” Bjorn said, and a glance upward revealed that he was trying to suppress a smile, corners of his mouth twitching. He toted her toward the rear staircase, the narrow, twisting one only ever used by guardsmen as they migrated up and down to the walls.

“Bjorn,” she tried, levering some authority into her voice.

“Rev,” he said, amiable, unbothered.

She attempted to kick her feet, but her cramp had tightened up so badly it was more a wiggling of her toes, teeth gritted against the pain. “There’s a war on,” she said, as he reached the foot of the stairs and started up.

“There’s a war in the offing,” he said, and then, voice growing more serious: “which is why you ought to be more careful with yourself.”

She couldn’t fight off the shudder the words elicited.

If he felt it – and he had to – then he didn’t make mention of it; carried her dutifully and effortlessly up the twisting staircase until they emerged in the hallway that led to the royal apartments, her pulse running rabbit-quick the entire way. He had to feel that, too; he had to feel everything, including the way her thoughts were warring wildly back and forth between resistance and capitulation.

Capitulate to what?she asked herself. He hadn’t even proposed anything besides helping her up to her quarters.

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