“Are you saying –?”
He must have read the horror on my face for he answered swiftly and gently, “Yes.”
“Tor, no.”
“It’s the right thing to do.”
“We’ll find a vet.”
“Pardon?”
“A vet, a veterinarian. A doctor for animals.”
“I know what a vet is, love, what I was trying to ask without saying it is, are you mad?”
I stepped back. “I’m not mad! Maybe something can be done.”
“Something can be done and if you would go with Salem to the road, I could do it and put this creature out of its misery.”
“Chirp” came from Aggie which unfortunately meant “chirp”. Therefore, no clue what Aggie thought of this conversation and his impending euthanasia at the hands of a hot prince warrior.
“Tor –” I whispered.
“Sweets, go.”
I shook my head. “We can get him water. Food. Maybe he’ll perk up.”
“Sweets… go.”
I stepped into him and put my hand back on his chest. Leaning in and up, I begged again, “Please.”
His eyes moved over my face before he said quietly, “I give in, we do this bird no favors.”
Oh my God. Was he going to relent?
“We can nurse him back to health. Get him some seed, water, then to a vet the first chance we get,” I suggested.
His jaw clenched.
My hand slid up his chest to curl my fingers around his neck. “Tor, please, he’s Aggie. The first being I saw in this world was Rosa, the second, Aggie. I don’t have a sister at home and I had Rosa for about ten minutes before she was gone. Aggie was swept away in the wind when the vickrants came. They both can’t be gone. I couldn’t bear it. It may sound crazy but he’s important to me. I can’t do anything to help Rosa but maybe I can do something to help Aggie. Help me help him. Please.”
Okay, truth be told, I was laying it on a bit thick but the reason this bird had been stuck up in a tree for days was because I had inadvertently started a curse that struck up a wind that caught this little creature in it so it was all my fault his wing was mangled (kind of).
Tor held my eyes then he lifted his hand and cupped my jaw.
Then he murmured, “Go get the waterskin. Let’s get this bird hydrated.”
He relented!
Goodie!
I smiled brightly at him, lifted up on my toes, pushed in (careful not to further crush Aggie) at the same time my hand slid to the back of his neck and pulled down. He bent and I touched my mouth to his.
I pulled back an inch and looked in his beautiful eyes.
“Thank you, honey,” I whispered, watched his eyes light but I had things to do so I didn’t dawdle.
I let him go and raced to Salem to get the waterskin thinking as I did it that maybe Prince Noctorno Hawthorne wasn’t all that bad.