“They’re probably looking for our bodies.” She carefully sat up, scanning the area for threats. Not seeing anyone, she stood and stretched.

“We need to return to the City of Radella by a different route.” Dexter sat, leaning against the boulder.

“I figured.”

“And we’ll have to walk.”

“How far is it?”

“Thirty miles.”

That wasn’t too bad. “We can’t go anywhere until we remove that arrowhead.”

He examined his arm. “It’s up high in the muscle. No major damage.”

Reid knelt at his side. “Take your shirt off so I can see what I’m dealing with.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I’m perfectly capable of removing the arrow.”

“Really? I thought you were right handed.”

“I am.”

“And you can use your left hand to remove an arrow from your right arm?”

“Sure.”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on. Let’s find some water to rinse the blood off.”

“Okay.” Dexter stood. “But we need to travel south, then to the east. I don’t want to deviate from that and end up lost.”

Reid agreed, and they set out. They trekked through the forest, neither talking in case the assassins were nearby.

“Is that the sound of water?” Reid whispered.

“It is. I have a vague idea of where we are.”

After a quarter of a mile, they came to a ten-foot-wide river, the water moving rapidly over rocks. “It doesn’t look very deep,” she said.

“It’s pretty shallow here. In other sections, you can’t even see the bottom.”

It was deep enough to clean Dexter’s wound. “Go ahead and remove your shirt,” Reid said as she squatted on the riverbank, thinking about what she needed to do. She hated this sort of thing. Back home, whenever her father or one of her sisters fell ill, Kamden always tended to them. Never Reid. “If you can’t, I’ll just rip your sleeve off.”

Not only did she not have the necessary tools to start a fire, but also starting one when they didn’t know the location of the assassins was probably a bad idea. In that case, heating the tip of her dagger and placing it on Dexter’s wound to cauterize it wasn’t an option.

Pulling out a dagger, she stuck it in the water to clean it.

Dexter removed his shirt, then tossed it on the ground.

Throughout Reid’s life, she’d seen plenty of men naked. When she’d sparred, most of her opponents had been shirtless. Even when she traveled with Ellington’s soldiers, she’d seen hundreds of men strip. They’d always assumed she was a he, so it never mattered. But this was different. Dexter knew she was a woman. Somehow, seeing his bare chest felt intimate. And Reid didn’t like intimate.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, sitting on the ground beside her.