Eli
The ropes fall and my arms go dead.
Pins and needles riot down to my wrists. Ronan catches me before my knees hit the ground and the world does that awful slow-tilt thing.
Outside, Redmaw howls.
Inside, Ronan is very close and the pain ebbs everywhere he touches me.
“Can you stand?” he asks, voice a grindstone.
“Not gracefully,” I rasp.
His mouth twitches like a broken attempt at a smile. “Grace is optional.”
Ronan slides my arm over his shoulder and hauls me up like I weigh nothing. Pain sizzles through my ribs and I bite it down so I don’t embarrass myself by crying out.
“Knife,” he says, and tucks steel into my palm. The hilt is warm from his body. “If they touch you, you open them.”
The bond thrums, weak but present under the chemical damp they painted on me. It hurts in
