Bryce knew Hunt was making a concerted effort to keep his mouth shut when they finally returned to her apartment an hour later. She had to grip the doorway to keep upright.

His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. He didn’t mention that her limp had been so bad she’d barely been able to run the last ten blocks. Bryce knew the limp and pain would be worse by morning. Each step drew a cry to her throat that she swallowed down and down and down.

“All right?” he asked tightly, lifting his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. She had a too-brief glimpse of those ridiculous stomach muscles, gleaming with sweat. He’d stayed by her side the entire time—hadn’t complained or spoken. Had just kept pace.

Bryce made a point not to lean on the wall as she walked toward her bedroom.

“I’m fine,” she said breathlessly. “Just needed to run it out.”

He reached for her leg, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “That happen often?”

“No,” she lied.

Hunt just gave her a look.

She couldn’t stop her next limping step. “Sometimes,” she amended, wincing. “I’ll ice it. It’ll be fine by morning.” If she’d been full-blooded Fae, it would have healed in an hour or two. Then again, if she were full-blooded Fae, the injury wouldn’t have lingered like this.

His voice was hoarse as he asked, “You ever get it checked out?”

“Yep,” she lied again, and rubbed at her sweaty neck. Before he could call her on it, she said, “Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah.” Not quite an answer, but Hunt mercifully said nothing else as she limped down the hallway and shut the door to her room.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

39

Despite its entrance facing the bustle of the Old Square, Ruhn found the medwitch clinic blissfully quiet. The white-painted walls of the waiting room glowed with the sunshine leaking through the windows that looked onto the semipermanent traffic, and the trickle of a small quartz fountain atop the white marble counter blended pleasantly with the symphony playing through the ceiling’s speakers.

He’d been waiting for five minutes now, while the witch he’d come to see finished up with a patient, and had been perfectly content to bask in the tendrils of lavender-scented steam from the diffuser on the small table beside his chair. Even his shadows slumbered inside him.

Magazines and pamphlets had been spread across the white oak coffee table before him, the latter advertising everything from fertility treatments to scar therapy to arthritis relief.

A door down the narrow hallway beyond the counter opened, and a dark head of softly curling hair emerged, a musical voice saying, “Please do call if you have any further symptoms.” The door clicked shut, presumably to give the patient privacy.