A hired healer saves the notorious captain of the continent's most powerful mercenary company, binding their lives in the process. Hunted across the desert by a traitor in their ranks, she must decide how many more times she can save him before their forbidden bond becomes permanent.
To pay for my sick sibling's medicine, I signed a three-month contract with the Ashen Hand, the most powerful mercenary company on the continent.
My patient was Captain Kylen Rave, the only living mage who could wield fire, water, and wind, and a notorious flirt who never kept a lover for long. My job was simple: bring him back alive from the western desert.
By the end of our first day, he was bleeding in my lap.
Kylen had used all three elements at once to save his people from an attack. The wound in his side was only the beginning. Black Glass, a forbidden poison, was hardening the three magic cores inside him and killing him from within.
"You could at least look at your patient's face."
I held out my hand to a man who was still smiling as he died.
"Deep healing will pull the damage into me. If I leave the bond intact, pain and raw emotion will pass between us. Every deep healing after this one will make the bond harder to break."
"So it's dangerous from the first touch."
"Are you frightened?"
"I'm wondering how many times you'll be able to put your hands on me."
I took his hand. Pale green light joined our wrists, and pain tore through my side. Burning magic, fear sharp enough to taste like iron, and a hollow ache beneath his ribs struck me all at once.
Kylen's smile vanished.
"How much did you feel?"
"Pain. Fear. Nothing that explains why you keep smiling."
My sibling's dry cough and the creditor's seal on the apothecary door flashed through my mind. Fear tightened my chest. Kylen flinched when its echo crossed the bond, but he had not seen the memory behind it.
"I can sever the bond before sunrise," I said. "But the poison and the wound will return to you."
"And if you don't?"
"The bond stays. Another deep healing will make it stronger."
A warning bell rang outside the tent. A second answered from the eastern watch, then stopped.
Kylen pushed himself upright and listened.
"That isn't a raider's signal," he said. "It means someone opened the gate from inside the perimeter."
His fingers closed around mine, the new bond beating between our palms.
"Whoever betrayed our position is still inside the camp."
He looked toward the tent flap, but he did not let go.
