Chapter 4

When I came to again, the wounds had been seen to, both hands wrapped tight.

Adrian had come at some point. He was sitting at the head of the bed, watching me in silence.

"How are you? Anything still hurting?"

He asked it gently, then got up, brought a bowl of medicine from the table, and blew on it to cool it before holding it to my mouth.

The whole scene was almost exactly like the days after I'd lost my memory, when he'd nursed me so carefully.

A pity none of it could be taken back.

I turned my head from the bowl and gave a thin, scornful smile. "Drop the act. What's the point?"

"This place is full of your people. Camilla came. Don't tell me you didn't know."

"Well? You feel better, seeing me like this?"

Adrian lowered his eyes. "Camilla meant well by you. She's the Don's daughter, and she came in person to teach you manners. That's her bending down a long way."

"Oh. So now I'm supposed to be grateful to her?"

The mockery in my voice pulled his brows tight, and his fingers went white around the bowl.

He sighed, started to speak, stopped. "Fine. I know nothing I say lands right now. But in a few days, Camilla and I are going out to the country chapel to fulfill a vow."

"She says she's short a hand to wait on her. We're all going to be under one roof soon, so you may as well come along, learn what she likes, make it easier to look after the two of us down the line."

"The princess asked. I could hardly say no. And she's not wrong. I let you run too loose before. A few days at her side learning the rules will do you good, save you embarrassing yourself later."

Embarrassing myself. What in the world could be more of a joke than what I already was.

"Relax. You're not fully healed, and Camilla promised me she won't push you too hard."

When I didn't answer for a while, Adrian added, patient, "Besides, I'll be there. I won't let anything happen to you."

I said nothing, which he took as a yes.

He must not have expected me to fold so easily, because his mood lifted and he had a pile of expensive tonics sent over to build me back up.

What he didn't know was that I'd folded for one reason only. To get out.

The trip to the chapel was a rare opening. The only question was whether, in the state I was in, I could actually slip the leash and get clear of Marlowe ground.

The day came quickly. I stood by the car and watched Adrian and Camilla standing shoulder to shoulder.

Camilla's cheeks were flushed, and the woman who hadn't blinked while torturing me was all girlish softness now.

Her old servant came over and jabbed a finger at me, vicious. "What are you staring at. Get over here and be the step for the lady to climb in on."

Adrian stepped forward like he wanted to say something. I'd already knelt down, and Camilla used my back to step up into the car.

His outstretched hand hung in the air. I'd learned to behave, to bend, to make myself small, and he should have been pleased. Somehow it sat in his chest like something lodged there.

"Thank you, dear."

"There's no room for everyone in the car, though, so you'll just have to walk behind," Camilla said, careless.

Adrian turned to look at me, worry in his eyes, but Camilla gave him no chance to speak. She hooked her arm through his, chattering away, and pulled him into the car.

From the city to the chapel was miles of mountain road under a sun fierce enough to blind. I limped along behind the convoy, all but spent, running on nothing but will.

Once, this would have been nothing. I'd been through worse and uglier in plenty of wars.

But now my hands were ruined and I couldn't manage even the simplest counter. My strength was a shadow of what it had been, and every step landed like a blade.

I don't know how long I'd walked when a commotion broke out up ahead. A gang of road bandits burst from the brush along the shoulder and forced the convoy to a hard stop.

Gunfire went up all at once, rounds shaving past my ear. I dropped and rolled on reflex, and the shot meant for me went wide.

Someone came at me. I grabbed a gun off the ground, whose I couldn't say, and kept slipping the attacks on pure instinct. But they had numbers, and in the end I couldn't hold. They closed the ring around me.

Adrian saw it and started toward me without thinking. He'd made it halfway when Camilla's scream came from the car behind him.

I watched his feet stall. He stared at me across the distance, something torn and pained crossing his face, for all of a breath.

The next moment he spun and ran for Camilla, no second look.

I watched the man who'd once sworn to protect me put himself between Camilla and the world, a woman already ringed by bodyguards.

If the situation hadn't been what it was, I might have laughed. Every time I thought Adrian had hit the bottom of what he could do, he found a way to show me all over again just how much of a fool I'd been.

Meanwhile the bandits had driven me to the cliff's edge. I looked around, then back at the sheer drop behind me.

Right before they rushed in with their blades, I set my teeth and threw myself off the cliff.

"No! Vera!"

Adrian tore toward me, eyes wild, dropped the bandits in a few strokes, and threw himself at the edge, reaching for me with no thought for his own safety. It was no use.

For the first time his voice broke with that kind of terror, screaming my name raw, like the sound alone could pull me back.

I fell fast, the wind howling past me. The last thing I saw was Adrian's face, twisted with regret.

Three years of gunfire and steel, a body full of scars, and whatever I'd owed him, I'd paid it back long ago. From here on there was nothing between us.

Next time we met, one of us wouldn't walk away.