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Jude did her best to plan for how the rest of the day was going to go. She was glad for the lesson that would happen today despite it being in her least favorite location. The walk to the tower by the palace was calm. The cool breeze blowing through the trees and catching in her loose hair. Filling the world around her with the scent of pine and the call of gulls in the air. She was happy for the lesson and the excuse it gave her not to return home.
Still, she would need to plan for what to do.
More importantly, how to face the people she knew she would have to face.
Cardan and his group of vile friends. The only good one in the bunch seemed to be Locke. He was the only of them that seemed to care when either her or Taryn were in danger. If they were being attacked by the rest of the group.
She’d woken up in his bed earlier. She’d been laying beside him. She’d kissed him throughout the entire party. Chased around through his garden and laughing with the grass and dirt staining her dress. She had laughed and enjoyed herself and it had been good.
Still, when Jude thought about the night she thought about scorched black eyes that followed her like a hunter followed prey. She thought of long fingers and gold dust and bottle beyond bottle of wine.
She shook her head as she walked. Trying to figure out what to do with herself and the thoughts that were lingering in her mind. She should be happy with Locke. He was good to her and he was kind to Taryn. He was much better than the others she had encountered and been forced to deal with and still she kept thinking more about her enemy than the one she spent the night kissing.
Cardan meant nothing to her. He was nothing to her. He was nothing but a spoiled Prince who was arrogant beyond belief. He was senseless of anything good. She hated him. She hated every part of him. So much that he was like an infection to her thoughts. His dark hair and his pointed ears. The way he carried himself and the snark of his voice. His eyes and his long fingers and his—
A groan sounded from somewhere to her left. Freezing her in place the moment she heard it and making the hair on her arms stand up on edge. She waited for anything else to follow. For this to be a trap or for it to be people engaged in a more intimate moment.
A short wheeze was all she heard. The groan that followed it sounded pained.
“Hello?”
She should keep walking. She was late enough as it was for her lesson. It was one thing to not come home, it was another for her to miss her lessons. She would be questioned for it for certain. Interrogated may be the better word for it if she were being honest. Taryn would have questions. She wasn’t even sure she would know the best way to answer her.
If her twin would be able to see it on her face that something more had happened. If she would know that she had nearly crossed a line neither of them had crossed before. If she would know that she—
There was a gasp. Small and weak and then sharp coughs. Something grinding in the chest of the one doing it. Before she could think better of it, she was stepping closer to the sound.
“Is someone there?”
It certainly sounded like a person. Not an animal or a creature. Still, if it was someone who didn’t want to be found they had the chance to say so now.
All she heard was broken wheezing in reply.
Jude should just walk. She should leave so that she isn’t more late than she already is. She is going to miss her lesson. She—
The coughs turned into chokes. Gasping and gagging and then she was moving to look. If someone was hurt or needed help then she would prove that she wasn’t yet a monster. She might have said that she would be worse than her enemies but this wasn’t the way she meant. She wanted to be a knight. She would become a knight. With time. After Dain became King. She would get to serve and protect and bring real justice.
The edge of a boot caught her attention by the trunk of a tree.
“Hey, are you—”
She froze the moment she rounded the corner. Staring at dark hair and bruised pale skin. Smeared in gold and wine that looked like blood on his lips.
“No.”
Coal black eyes met hers in a glare. A smile tugged over his mouth but before any words could come out, Cardan was doubling forward again and coughing. An arm braced on the ground to hold himself up and another around his chest. His lungs were giving the same grating and wheezing that she’d tracked here.
“Come to kill me, mortal?”
She should leave.
“Finish what was left?”
She should really leave.
“What are you waiting for?”
His lungs were grinding. More red sprayed from his mouth as he talked. He was slouching to the ground.
She turned to leave.
“Jude?”
She heard what sounded like fear in his voice. Actual, genuine, fear.
She sighed. Her back still turned to him before she was rounding on her heel and storming back to his side.
“Sit up.”
“What?”
“Sit up.”
When he still didn’t move she gripped him by the arms and pulled him. Hearing the groan he tried to muffle and letting him lean back against a tree. She’d started to carry bandages around after Cardan and his group of hatred began to increase their attacks on her and her sister. She should leave him here to die just for that. She shouldn’t be doing any of this. She should be walking away and getting to class and laughing at the miserable news of the youngest Prince of Elfhame.
“What are you doing?”
Her hands were over his chest. Exploring over his ribs and feeling the way they bent and caved. How they folded beneath her pressure and the pain he was trying to keep from his face.
She should be relishing in this. She should be enjoying seeing him so weak and vulnerable. To finally have their places reversed. She should be bragging it to him. Pointing out how weak he was against a lowly human.
And then she thought about what she’d seen in Hollow Hall. The scars that had painted down his back. How he had argued with his brother and how he had defended his virtue of not being a killer. How humans were held above him then. How he had expected to be hurt. How he was used to calling that love.
“Saving you. Take off your shirt.”
His ribs were broken. He was out of breath and from the blood she could wager a guess that one of his ribs had punctured something inside. He could handle that much himself. She wasn’t a healer. But she could at least bandage his chest to keep his ribs still enough for him to make it to one.
She looked back to his face to see dark eyes staring at her. Gold rim that was catching on the light through the trees. Hair that was hanging down in front of his face.
He was beautiful.
It made her hate him more.
“That eager to see my body. You need only ask.”
“I thought you hated me.”
“I have always been more interested in the violent acts of passion.”
She wondered if that was because it was all he’d ever known.
Jude shook the thought out of her head as he worked his top off. He wasn’t nervous about it but she could see how he kept his back against the tree and out of sight. He didn’t know she knew. He was guarding himself.
She didn’t push. She didn’t ask. She didn’t need him to know and she didn’t want to broach it with him. She had seen what she did and she would deal with it. She wrapped the bandage around him silently. Listening in as his lungs ground and wheezed. As he held himself stiff as a board as she worked.
“What even happened to you?”
The last time she saw him he’d been at the garden party drinking to his heart’s content. Making himself drunk and tasting powders and surrounded by bodies. He was nothing like the wounded mess she was seeing now in front of her.
“Does it matter?”
She supposed it didn’t. She supposed that he could just avoid the topic all together and that would be that. That they would be finished with what they were discussing and work the rest of this time in silence. She would leave him alone. That would be that.
“Humor me.”
“Why should I?”
She didn’t have an answer for him. Not a real one, anyway.
“Because I’m the one keeping you from dying right now.”
He scoffed at her but there was still something she didn’t understand that flickered through his eyes.
“I was attacked, obviously.”
“By?”
“Valerian.”
She paused.Thinking over what he just confessed and knowing that it was nothing but the truth. Cardan couldn’t lie.
“I thought you were friends?”
She was curious. If there was a fight. Nicasia said that he liked to ruin things. Maybe he had ruined something of Valerian’s. Maybe he had taken his revenge. Cardan tried to laugh. It turned into a near whimper instead.
“You have more of those than me. You are human, and you are more loved than a Prince of Faerie. I hate you for it.”
He was too hurt for this conversation.
“You’re delirious.”
“And still I am honest.”
She was nearly finished. She could see his eyes beginning to close. She was bracing his ribs but she couldn’t fix what was already punctured inside of him. He needed help. He needed a healer. He had to be awake to walk to one.
“Don’t think this means anything.”
She pulled tight onto the last of the bandage. Tugging it hard against his chest and jolting him back awake. His eyes blinking around the area like a cat that was woken from a nap. She needed to leave. She needed to get out of here before he was aware enough to attack her.
“As much as you hate mortals, I follow the courtesy Madoc taught me.”
She didn’t want him to get any ideas from this. Her helping him was nothing. She didn’t save him because it was him. She saved him because she is a better person than he is. Because he is cruel and evil and she hates him.
“We’re enemies.”
They would always be enemies.
Despite the seed of worry she had when she saw him frowning. Despite how he held himself and tipped his head back against the tree. She kicked against his leg. Waking him up again.
“Go get yourself help. Hollow Hall isn’t far. It’s that way.”
She nodded her head to the side. She gave him the direction for his home.
“Jude?...”
He sounded lost. She bit back her concern. Giving him a glare and pushing all of her hate for him to the front of her mind. This meant nothing. This would always mean nothing.
He looked sad. He looked hurt. He looked upset.
She hated him.
“There’s no pride in beating something broken.”
And she left.