fight or climb or travel in space frequently or live on high-gravity worlds or bear children. I’m not worth—”
“Stop.” He didn’t yell, but Torrin’s voice was the keen edge of a knife, slashing my words into silence. “You will not complete that sentence. And as for your litany of lack, have I or anyone here asked you to do any of those things?”
I thought about it, and I felt my face heating. “No.”
“What qualities I have desired of you—to wit, your reading skills, your patience and empathy, your logic and consideration for others, your obedience and,” something in his face shifted, gentled, and he went on, “your disturbingly soothing voice when the whole rest of the world seems in chaos—you have offered unquestioningly and generously, to the benefit of us all. Are you unable or unwilling to do any of these things in the future?”
His words formed a funnel, a storm in my mind, and I tried to sort them out, but they moved too fast, were possibly too much. “No,” I whispered.
Torrin leaned forward. “Then, Bianca, please know you are enough. More than, in fact. You are enough for me, which is no small thing, and I respect you tremendously in a way that has little to do with your physical attributes.”
My expression must have looked tragic, because Torrin reached forward with his good hand and brushed my cheek. Touch, again. It was becoming a thing I anticipated, sometimes longed for. The pad of his finger was warm and dry and a little rough against my skin.
“That’s…” I didn’t know what I was going to say, possibly that he was kind or that I couldn’t quite believe or that I didn’t deserve all this attention and fuss, but Mattis chose this moment to rejoin the conversation.
“Well, it’s horse shit, is what it is,” he said, setting his half-consumed drink on a table. Then he turned to me, and I swear his eyes twinkled. “I find your physical attributes insanely desirable, and if Torrin doesn’t see that, he’s had his brain baked out on the battlefield.”
“I was keeping this on a respectful level,” sighed the leader of our people, leaning into that dangerous-sounding voice.
“Yeah, and I was lowering the level,” replied Mattis.
They stared at each other for a long, bleak moment, and I was reminded of the tension between Astor and Torrin the first day I was here, before the battle and injuries and, um, kisses. Oh dear, I really had inserted myself right into the center of these friendships, this brotherhood, and I’d done so completely innocently, with no intention to break anything. But what if that was exactly what I’d done? What if I’d caused this deep and life-long friendship between these men to fracture?
But then, I don’t know who cracked first, but suddenly they both burst out in laughter and were performing some complicated handshake-backslap thing. It was all very alien and male and, well, confusing. I waited until they were done.
“I’m flattered, really,” I said, hoping it was acceptable for me to add my opinion to this arrangement they were making on my behalf. “But it feels really awful to have this conversation without Astor and Nox.”
“Well, it would,” Mattis replied. “Didn’t Torrin just call you out for excessive empathy and consideration?”
“Excessive?” I repeated. Back where I was from, excessive often meant wrong.
“What he means is we could all stand to be a little more considerate of each other. You are right to say so.” Torrin stood. “Come, let us discuss our future with Nox and my brother.”
So yay, that he had listened to me. Eek, that his tone when he said “my brother” sounded a thousand kinds of ominous. And of course, when I recalled the night I’d spent with his brother, I wasn’t at all certain how we were going to explain it.
Chapter Ten
“Yeah, where is Astor anyway?” said Mattis. “When I brought him back from Barron Dink’s, he seemed shaken up, but then he went off somewhere and I couldn’t find him. I figured he needed some time alone, so I didn’t push, but when he’s like that it’s, you know, worrisome.”
They exchanged a look, but I interjected.
“I know where he is,” I said. I hadn’t known Astor long, but everything I knew about him pointed to one place. “He’s watching over Nox. Came and went, so to speak.”
They both stared at me, so I spoke again. “He’s a caregiver, a healer. That’s what he prefers to do to all other things. You’re