“Are you in pain?” the Lord asked.
“No.” I gently prodded the skin as I rocked back on my haunches. The skin there was a little tender, but nothing extreme, which made no sense. I clearly remembered falling— no, being thrown aside and my head hitting something hard, then sudden, violent pain before the nothingness. I lifted my gaze to the Lord once more, recalling the warmth of his touch and the brush of something softer against my forehead.
“Contrary to what I led the dearly departed Muriel to believe, and unfortunately, you to also think, I didn’t allow him to continue to use you as a shield,” he said. “I stopped him, and you were caught in the middle of that.”
The memory of something hard crashing into us— a flash of a hand landing on Muriel’s arm— rose. “He . . . he threw me.”
“Actually, that was me,” the Lord corrected. “I was attempting to get you to a safe distance. I may have done so a bit too enthusiastically.” His chin dipped, and the moonlight hit one high, sweeping cheekbone. “My apologies.”
My heart hammered as I lowered my hand to hover a few inches above the plush grass. A bit too enthusiastically? I remembered that feeling of weightlessness— of flying. He’d thrown me aside as if I weighed nothing more than a small child, and there was nothing small about me. I swallowed hard as I started to look around us.
“Muriel is no more,” the Lord shared.
That I figured. “There was another who was here. A . . . a Bas?”
“That was Bastian— Lord Bastian. He’s left,” he said. “We’re alone, na’laa.”
There was a skip in my breath. “I should be hurt. I should be . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. That I should be dead. I sat back on my ass. Or fell on it, landing in a puddle of moonlight. “Did you . . . did you kiss me again?”
“Excuse me?”
“Heal me,” I clarified. “Did you heal me again?”
Across from me, the Lord uncrossed his ankles and drew one leg up. He lifted a shoulder. “I told you that na’laa means several things in my language.”
I blinked, pressing my hand into the grass. His unwillingness to answer my question didn’t pass by me. “I remember. You said it means ‘brave one.’ ”
“It does.” One arm dropped to rest on his bent knee. “It can also mean ‘stubborn one.’ ” There was a hint of a smile in his voice. “Which makes the nickname all the more fitting.”
My lips turned down at the corners. “And why would you think that?”
His fingers began to tap against the air. “Is that a serious question?”
“I’m not stubborn.”
“I beg to differ,” he said. “I clearly remember telling you to come to me. You didn’t. Then I told you not to move and you then ran.”
I stiffened, indignant. “I ran because I had just seen you put your hand into another’s chest and incinerate them.”
“But it was not your chest my hand went into, was it?” he countered.
“No, but— ”
“But you ran anyway,” he cut in. “Then when I told you to cease struggling since you would only harm yourself, you continued to do so.”
I couldn’t believe I had to explain any of this. “That’s because he was crushing my neck.”
“I wouldn’t have allowed that.”
“You had just said— ”
“That I didn’t care if he snapped your neck. I know what I said,” he interrupted. Again. “And I didn’t care about what he claimed, because I knew I would not allow that.”
“How was I supposed to know that?” I exclaimed.
“Well, you gave me aid last night. What would that make me if I allowed you to become hurt? Oh, I know. A bastard.”
My eyes narrowed.
“And because I’m a Deminyen,” he said, as if that meant anything. “And we are your protectors.” There was another pause. “Mostly.”
I squelched the laugh threatening to escape. Yes. Mostly. “Muriel was going to harm me. He was— ”
“Muriel was an idiot.”
Irritation loosened my tongue, but I caught myself, snapping my mouth shut. This was a Hyhborn lord I was speaking to and he wasn’t injured now.
His head tilted again. “You were going to say something?”
“No, I— ”
“Yes, you were.”
“Oh, my gods,” I snapped. “I was going to ask you to stop interrupting me; however, that would be impossible because you keep doing it, so I’m trying to be respectful.”