He looked back down at her chest, careful not to snag the edges of the flayed skin as he worked. “You, however, will not have that problem.”

She scrunched her lips, shrugging. “What’s one more scar? I’m sure I’ll have even more if I take her up on her offer to train.”

He flicked his gaze up to the thin, white line above her collar, grinding his molars together when his eyes threatened to move higher. To her ears.

“You have enough scars,” he growled, tone dark.

“So do you.”

“They’re not the same.”

She reached up, running the tips of her fingers over his cheekbone before moving lower, the light scrape of her calluses sending gooseflesh down his arms. She trailed them along the edge of his jaw, over his chin, and then up to his opposite brow.

Tracing his scars.

“Will you tell me about them? Were they bad fights?”

He huffed, gently removing her hand, even though he didn’t want to, so he could lean back over her chest and finish taking care of her. “No, most of these were during normal training. I was younger than most when I started and had a bit of a temper. I messed up often.”

“That sounds about right,” she said, giving him a sleepy smile. His heart beat hard against his ribs at the sight, soaking it up and tucking it away with every other one she’d given him.

“Were you also too young to know how to heal them, or did you do the unthinkable and not clean them first?” she teased.

His fingers froze for only a blink of a second, but she noticed, her eyes growing clearer as she focused in on him.

“Neither.”

Her smile fell, and he immediately wanted to kick himself in the jaw. “Jaren?”

He sighed, refusing to make eye contact. If he did, she’d see straight through him, right to the center where he shoved every single broken piece of himself from the world. The pieces he hated.

“The first years without you were the worst years of my life, Veralie. I’d failed you as my mate and as my best friend, but I’d also failed our people.

“So, I threw myself into my training, caring about nothing else, and vowing to never again be as weak as I was the night you d—the night I lost you.”

He dipped the cloth back into the water, wringing it out one last time before continuing. “But every injury I got, every fight I lost, only reminded me of that failure. I left each one to heal on its own as a reminder.”

“So…even as a child, you were dramatic, then?”

His head whipped up, stomach roiling at the thought of her making fun of his naked truth, but she wore a sad smile, her silver eyes fierce and swirling as they finally met his.

Wrapping her small hand around his, she pried the damp cloth from his fingers and dropped it into the basin on the side table. Then she pulled on his arm, gaze firm as if to say, get over here.