Harbor (On the Wind #3)

24. Tybalt

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

TYBALT

N aked.

Naked.

It didn’t take long for me to recognize the same firm ass I’d been appreciating for weeks, or Orestes’s broad shoulders. Nobody I’d ever met took up so much space, especially naked .

And in Urial, unexpected nakedness was so uncommon that for a moment, everyone was too shocked to be effective.

I was flat on my back on the ground. The assailant cut his glance between me and Orestes, figuring which of us he needed to take first.

Rightfully, he went with the enormous naked?—

There’d been an eagle. A huge eagle.

My mind was racing, only picking up parts of what was happening and processing them one at a time, out of order.

The eagle... Orestes... that didn’t make enough sense for me to—nope. Tucking that away for later.

Perhaps a time when Orestes wasn’t naked and grappling with an armed man. They’d started to fight, and Orestes, while at an obvious disadvantage, was more skilled than I realized.

Each step he took, defensive or offensive, was sure and firm, but he struggled to get the upper hand. The assassin was quick, and moved his knife where he needed it in a dance so fast I could hardly keep track.

Then he lunged, stabbing out.

Orestes made a punched-out sound and tilted his hips, almost like he was leaning into the attack and managing it, rather than trying to escape. But that was insane. The man had a knife . The worst thing in the world Orestes could do was lean into it.

Nevertheless, he did. The blade disappeared in his body, and a sound like a trapped screech got caught in my throat because— no . No, no, no. He couldn’t... I wasn’t going to lose him while he protected me. That was unacceptable. A waste. I?—

Shouldn’t have worried, because while I was trying to figure out what happened, Orestes had grabbed the man’s head, hands pressing in on the sides, powerful biceps flexing until?—

Snap . The sound echoed in the stillness of the world, and my attacker fell in a lump of black cloth on the ground.

My world unfroze, and I shoved off the ground to catch Orestes. His breath shook, but he was grinning, some feeling of victory running through him that I’d never known.

“Oh gods,” I muttered, staring down at his naked chest, at the knife sticking out of his side.

I grabbed the hilt, and Orestes caught my arm.

“Don’t take it out,” Orestes said through his teeth. “Not till we’re somewhere I can take care of it.”

I blinked. Seriously? There was a knife sticking out of him and he didn’t want me to get it out.

My mind took another panicked inhale to catch up with my desperate need to see him all right.

Of course he didn’t want me to take the blade out of him. That’d let his blood flow freely and—I just wasn’t thinking. I needed to hold it together. Get us somewhere safe. Make sure he didn’t die doing something as stupid as saving my ass.

“Right,” I said.

One thing at a time—Orestes needed something covering him against the cold. I shrugged out of my fur coat.

He flinched back. “What are you doing?”

“You’re naked.” I stood on my toes to wrap it around his back.

“I’ll be fine,” he insisted as I fell back on my heels.

I pulled the coat close around him, fitting it as best I could, though it had been tailored to me and there was no way to get it to cover him sufficiently. “You’re naked .”

Orestes’s strength must’ve been failing him, because he was quite pale when he gave up the fight and nodded.

I hadn’t taken my hands off him since our assailant had fallen, but Biscuit was standing some ways away. There was no chance I could carry Orestes anywhere on my own, and we didn’t have time for me to craft a makeshift sled before the cold took us both, so I needed her, and we all needed shelter.

I squeezed the tops of his arms through the fur of my coat. It wasn’t large enough for him, and split across his chest. For the first time ever, I didn’t have the luxury of admiring it. “Will you be all right to stand for just a minute?”

The way Orestes smiled at me then, soft and indulgent, it was like I was a child asking if the sun would rise. “Of course.”

I nodded. “Just a minute,” I promised again.

At the sound of my whistle, Biscuit turned my way and stepped closer, but with the man on the ground and the chaos of the last few minutes, she stomped anxiously into the snow and huffed.

“It’s all right, girl.” I held out my hand to her, and she pressed her nose into my palm when I got close. When she let me take her reins again, I brought her back to Orestes, though she danced away from the assailant’s body before I found somewhere she was comfortable to stand.

“Do you think you can mount the saddle?” I asked. Best to get his feet out of the snow. We wouldn’t have to move so fast if he was above it.

Orestes looked up at Biscuit and, if anything, only looked queasier. He shook his head.

“All right.” I sucked in my cheeks. There was nothing about this that I didn’t hate, but what choice was there? I maneuvered Biscuit around to Orestes’s good side. “Put your arm over the seat, there, and hold the pommel with your other hand. Is that painful?”

Orestes grimaced at the first slight twist of his waist, but after swallowing his discomfort down, he shook his head. “I’ll manage.”

“Good.” I went around Biscuit’s other side and laid my arm across his, stretching far enough to squeeze his shoulder. I didn’t know if it was a comfort, but I hoped it was. My other hand, I closed atop his on the pommel. If his strength failed him, I’d brace him against the saddle until he recovered it.

“We’re going to move,” I said, holding his eye across the huge horse’s back. “Slow and steady, yeah? We’ve got to keep moving, but there’s an old hunting lodge just a quarter mile back.” We could make it, I thought, before frostbite took Orestes’s toes. “Soon as we get there, I’ll light the fire and set you before it. How’s that sound?”

Orestes snorted. “Necessary.”

“Indeed. Ready?”

Once I had his confirmation, I slipped Biscuit’s reins over our hands to keep our direction if needed, clicked my tongue, and we were off.