Chapter 25

I might have stretched the truth a bit when I’d told Vienne my back wounds were fine. The fact was they irritated the hell out of me. The skin that had knitted back together stretched and burned every time I overextended my arms, like lifting them to remove my tunic.

Wincing, I discarded the shirt and spent another minute rotating my shoulders to get the scar tissue used to movement.

The first day I’d returned to the back bailey for training, I’d torn one cut open and it had started bleeding like a son of a bitch, so I’d mostly been yelling instructions since then. But I was getting tired of that. I needed action, combat, especially after I’d just watched my one true love depart to her room for the evening with her husband.

Convincing myself they were only tucking Anniston into her crib together before Soren went off to his own room far, far away from Vienne’s, I collapsed onto my back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling, feeling empty, only to wince when the mattress’s contact w