Bathroom! I look around expectantly and spot the magical outhouse that appears when I order it to. My fingers fumble with the lock, my thoughts too scattered by images of the Shadow Knight naked for me to focus on any one thing. I manage to open the door and sink against one wall, sighing, cursing, and willing myself to act like a grown woman instead of a horny teen.

When I've done my business and recovered my composure enough to face him once more, I emerge.

The outhouse disappears.

"Ready," I proclaim with more confidence than I feel. "Now what's the plan?" I avoid looking at him and go to my boots by the hearth.

"Jumping will likely render us dead. So we go up."

"Up?" Sitting on a stool, I wrestle one boot on then the next. There's no blood anywhere. While stiff, they fit. "You cleaned these, didn't you?"

"Aye."

A weird sensation is sliding through me, one I can't identify. This man I'm struggling to keep my distance from spent four days watching over me, cleaning me up, and caring for me, down to my boots. It's never happened before and not only because this is my first time getting thrown into another world. I've never really known anyone - except my mom - who would've done similar.

I don't want him to have redeeming qualities. I want him to be obsessed with war and physically attractive - but no more.

You have a reason to stay. The battle queen's words repeat in my mind.

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It can't be him. If that's remotely true, it'll be because I'm a good person who wants to save a world from dying, not because I'm starting to fall for a man I can never have.

Pure. Physical. Attraction. It can be nothing else. Being with him is getting under my skin, and his kindness while I was dead or healing stirs a powerful emotion I'm not ready to deal with.

"I will help you return to your home, if you face the curse," he says in the quiet.

I blink away my pensive silence and stand. "Can you even do that?"

"I may know a way."

Frowning at him, I scour his features. "You told me you didn't!"

"You will not leave now that you understand why you must stay. 'Twas not true before. I lied to keep you here."

"So assuming we can save the world, you'll send me home?"

"Aye."

My pulse quickens. I want to go home, but . . . Sneaking a look at him, I try to determine if he's interested in me staying. He's emotionless and I'm distressed to think I might like him more than he does me.




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