Doing it anyway.
“I’ll show you something sharp.”
“Every word that comes out of your mouth is sharp, Moonbeam.” He one-handedly unbuckles one of his saddlebags and tosses it over his other shoulder. “I’m half dead already, bleeding out at your feet. Can’t you see?”
I scoff.
Please.
Kicking up his leg, he eases down Rygun’s ropes, my hood flopping so far over my head I can’t see anything but Kaan’s brown tunic stretched over his tensing back muscles. He leaps the last few feet to the ground, then he’s stalking away from the sound of Rygun’s deep, resonating breaths, his booted footsteps softened by something I’m unable to see because of this Creators-damn cloak.
He moves down some steps, dumps the bag, and flips me off his shoulder. My feet land on the ground, though I have barely a moment to gather myself before the cloak is unpinned from around my throat and whipped away.
“What are you—”
He grips me around the waist, lifts me, and tosses me through the air.
For two tight moments, I picture myself plummeting down a crevice and straight into the den of a velvet trogg, about to be bound in slimy tendrils of excretion pulled from the gaping wounds in its palms. For two tight moments, until I dunk into a body of cool, crisp water.
I scramble, kicking and thrashing, certain I’m about to be consumed by some waterborne creature that no doubt likes the taste of fae flesh, until I stretch my legs down and plant them on a … pebbled ground.
Oh.
Shoving up, I push my head above the water and gasp for breath, just in time to see a bar of soap spearing at my head. I dodge it, then scramble to scoop it out of the water and throw it back the way it came—the bar thudding against Kaan’s chest, leaving a soapy smear on his tunic.
“You smell bad. Soap fixes that,” he says, picking it up and tossing it back at me.
Splashing me in the face.
I snatch it, pelting it at his crotch. “You need it more than I do!”
“I’ve got my own fucking soap,” he growls, catching it just before it can make obliterating contact with his cock.
Oh.
Failing to muster any more words to wield, I poke my tongue out at him instead. He returns the gesture, and the corner of my mouth threatens to lift.
The King just stuck his tongue out at me.
Muttering beneath his breath, he tosses the soap again and spins, kicks off his boots, then uses one arm to reach down and pull his tunic up over his head.
My heart skips a beat, mouth popping open.
The scars on his arms extend across every visible inch of his broad, muscular back, covered in so many small sable dots of ink that it appears almost entirely blacked out. And upon the dusky expanse … a constellation of white stars and beautiful bouldered moons. Almost two dozen of them—both near and far. Most the size of an eye, though a few are the size of my fist.
But they’re not just any moons.
My breath hitches as I take in the small wonky one I love so much, sketched so exquisitely I can make out its misshapen wing.
Something inside me stills as the backs of my eyes prickle, certain I’m staring out my window back at home, looking upon the glorious sight.
One I never thought I’d see again.
I almost reach out and touch it. Almost trace the dips and peaks of its visible wing, the delicate swoop of its long neck, and the silken tendrils that hang off its jowls and around the back of its head.
I’m so caught up in the trance that it takes me too long to notice the other moons upon the darkened expanse—ones I also recognize. Ones that crowd my favorite little moon in real life, like Kaan sat beneath that patch of sky while somebody mimicked the view with an inked etching stick.
Almost perfectly.
There’s one moon that’s out of place. The biggest—a silver moon I’ve never seen before, perched just beneath his right shoulder blade beside my little wonky one.
I frown.
That one doesn’t exist. Not anymore.
That’s the one that fell.
“Not to shock you into strangling me with your hair,” he says dryly, injecting the perfectly viable thought into my head, “but as you so dutifully pointed out, I need to bathe.” He tips his head. “Feel free to evacuate the west side of the plunge pool so I can use the waterfall to rinse myself to your standards.”
“You’ll be at it a while,” I say, scooping up my soap and edging to the right, nipping another glance at the little moon on his back. “Hope you have refreshments in those saddlebags. You’re gonna need them.”