"I want to ride with you"

Annalise >>>

"I should have said something better…" I muttered, walking back to my camp with slow, uncertain steps. "You're hurt," I had told him—pathetic, useless words when I should have said so much more. Of course, he was hurt. I'd seen it. Felt it. The way he looked at me, how his bloodied fingers had curled slightly when I flinched away.

I squeezed my eyes shut, inhaling sharply. My mind was a wreck—a battlefield of its own. One moment, I was worried about the growing the gap between us, the next, he was standing before me like a ghost of war, and every instinct in my body had screamed at me to keep my distance.

"How did it go, Your Grace?"

Hannah's voice cut through my thoughts, grounding me for a moment. She had been the one who urged me to talk to him in the first place, her wrinkled eyes now pinched with concern.

"Not so good," I muttered, exhaling sharply. "I panicked."