(Arin)
Pain was a sharp, clarifying thing. It cut through the fog of shock and adrenaline, leaving a single, burning point of focus: the gash on her arm, and the prince's hands on her skin.
His touch was a strange paradox. The fingers that probed the edges of her wound were impossibly gentle, yet the strength in his hands was a terrifying, absolute thing. She had felt that strength when he'd pinned her in the secret passage, a predator's grip she stood no chance of breaking. Now, that same strength was being used to tend to her, and the contradiction was a dizzying, unwelcome heat that spread through her chest.
"Hold still," he commanded, his voice a low, rough thing she had never heard before. He tore a strip of fabric from the hem of his own tunic, the sound a sharp rip in the sudden, echoing silence of the alley.
"I'm not one of your swooning court ladies, Your Highness," she bit out, though her voice trembled slightly. "I've had worse."
