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protected.”
    Tyber opened his mouth to argue, but
Jessalyne raised a hand to cut him off. “Then don’t help. I’ll do
it on my own. I need to know why the elf has my father’s
animal.”
    Setting his jaw, Tyber grudgingly
agreed. “Territt, Willem, go with Lady Jessalyne. Help her with
this...creature. Confiscate his weapons, then stand watch outside
her cottage. Corah may go to help with the antidote.”
    Jessalyne led the big gray while
Corah walked next to her with Petal. The guards stayed on either
side of the warhorse. Despite Corah’s attempts to disguise her
glances, Jessalyne noticed the girl’s attention to the dark
elf.
    “Just take a good look and be done
with it, will you? I doubt he’ll notice you staring in his current
condition.”
    Corah shook her head, but her gaze
danced over the elf. “I’ve never seen anything...anyone...any elf,
whatever he is, like him.” She smiled at Jessalyne. “I dare say you
have either.”
    Jessalyne returned the smile. “I
haven’t. That’s a sure thing.” Life in the grove had shown her very
little.
    She directed the guards to carry her
newest patient into the room so recently occupied by Orit. The boy
hadn’t taken up quite so much of the bed.
    After asking twice, Jessalyne got
Corah into the kitchen to boil water. She then asked the guards to
take the animals to the old stable. One task remained, one she’d
have to do herself.
    The guards had taken his leather
breastplate but left his cloak. It lay over the stool where they’d
thrown it. She picked the length of fabric up to hang it. The
fragrance of horse, leather, and something darker filled her nose.
The spicy scent was unlike anything she’d smelled. She shook her
head, forced herself to focus. She dashed the cloak over a peg to
get it out of her hands.
    He lay on his back, legs sprawled
out, feet hanging off the sides of the bed. She unlaced the first
of his knee-high boots and pulled it off. A slim blade clattered to
the floor. The guards’ search hadn’t been very thorough. Tyber
would be angry if he knew. She turned the blade in her hands,
recognizing the design. The dagger was a Feyre, elven steel, twin
to the blade the elven council had given to Tyber. Perforations
honeycombed the blade like metal lace, making it as light as a
wasp’s nest, but elven magic made it nigh unbreakable. She set the
dagger atop the stool to give to the guards.
    After his other boot, she untied the
laces at the neck of his tunic. The worn grey linen clung to his
hot, damp skin, outlining the contours of his chest in soft relief.
Her fingers brushed the sooty vee of skin beneath the laces. She
inhaled. The feel of skin beneath her fingers was rare. Her belly
tightened. She would have to touch more of him to get the shirt
off.
    Loosening the wrist ties, she took
his hands in hers one by one and eased his arms through the
sleeves. His broad palms were calloused, his thick fingers rough.
What would that hand feel like against her skin? She pressed her
palm to his, comparing the size. Her hand looked like a
child’s.
    Unable to lift him, she see-sawed
the bunched fabric between him and the bed until she had it at his
shoulders. Avoiding contact was impossible. Her fingers grazed his
chest and her breath caught in her throat. His skin was so smooth,
the muscle beneath so hard and hot – like river stones warmed in
the afternoon sun. She laid his tunic over the footboard. The
patched fabric was torn in two places and needed
washing.
    His sweat-glossed skin shone like
tarnished silver against the ivory bedclothes. Thick black locks
splayed out around his muscled shoulders. What color eyes hid
beneath those velvet-fringed lids? Glancing at the blade she’d
found on him, she studied him more carefully. No scars that she
could see. Nothing marked him but the runes on his curious
ears.
    He was as different in his coloring
from the cervidae as she was. His strong jaw and straight nose gave
him the countenance of man used to