The roughened pad of his finger stroked beneath my chin while his gaze danced with mine. A moment before our lips touched, he moved his to my cheek and breathed me in instead. “I was gone too long,” he whispered quickly as though afraid of voicing it.

“You were gone for a few hours,” I pointed out, smiling slightly.

After I’d calmed down, he’d read a chapter aloud to me from the book I’d been reading while I’d remained in his lap. Then he’d drawn me a bath while explaining that he had been expected at the Keep some time ago.

Yet he’d lingered in the doorway.

I’d thought he’d merely wished to see me undress until I’d noted the rigidness to his lips and jaw. The curling of his fingers and the heavy height of his broad shoulders.

I’d then promised him I was fine. Judging by the way his eye had observed all of me, he hadn’t seemed to believe me. As if watching me and inwardly battling with all the questions I could feel gathering like a storm inside him had only made him feel worse, he’d torn away from the doorframe with a twisting of his features and vanished.

A grunt left him now, his fingers trailing down my throat and his lips to my ear.

Understanding dawned, and I clasped his waist to steady myself, but I couldn’t keep my exhale from breaking. “Have you ever missed someone before, wolf?” I knew before asking what the answer would be, but I selfishly still longed to hear it.

“No.” Greedily, I soaked up his admission with my next breath, my eyes closing. “Your slippers are by the door.” He left me to wash up in the bathing room, and I smiled even as apprehension settled like a layer of ice beneath my skin.

Not ten minutes later, we left the trees and headed down the slow-sloping hill toward the heart of the diamond-shaped city.

I was well aware that Scythe wished to distract and lighten my heart after my earlier episode, for we’d yet to venture out together. I’d not asked for different or taken offense, as I sensed he wasn’t hiding me for his own benefit but for mine.

I kept my hands clasped loosely before me, and he kept his at his sides unless gesturing to some of the stalls and shops while telling me what they supplied.

Many a vendor and passerby nodded in respect upon seeing him, but just as many ducked their heads out of what I assumed to be fear. Regardless, Scythe acknowledged no one.

Such arrogance bothered me. Upon glancing at him to say so, I found him looking only at me.

He quickly averted his attention to the street and steered me around a mound of horse dung.