Blood Heir (Blood Heir Trilogy #1)(71)

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The lamps burned low in Shama?ra’s parlor when Ana stepped inside. The Affinites and Yuri had spread blankets and pillows across the floor, and most were settling in or already asleep. The air smelled pleasantly of the stew and crispy rice Shama?ra had served for dinner. In the silence, Ana could hear the creak of the windows and door as the wind rose outside. She held her breath as she parted the heavy brocade curtains that partitioned the backroom from the rest of the house. Bookshelves leaned against all four walls, crammed with old, dusty tomes and parchments. In the middle of it all sat a single burgundy settee.



Ana’s heart leapt lightly when she caught sight of a familiar mop of sand-brown hair.

Ramson looked up from the settee. He paused, a rag hanging from his hands. His eyes met hers, and heat rushed to Ana’s cheeks when she realized that he had taken his shirt off and had been cleaning the blood from his body. A small bucket of water sat in front of him, swirling crimson. Ana’s breath hitched as she remembered that he’d been wounded by an arrow when he’d hauled May to safety from the arena.

For a moment, she wanted to turn back and crawl into the blankets Shama?ra had laid out for her. But something pushed her forward.

“Do you…” She gestured helplessly at his towel, at the blood still splattering his torso.

He was gazing at her, his face a blank slate, those cunning eyes forever assessing. His voice was quiet when he held out the towel and said, “All right.”

Ana carefully seated herself at the edge of the settee, within reaching distance yet as far from him as she could manage. Her hands fumbled with the sodden rag as she began to dab at the splatters of blood on his skin.

He smelled of sweat and iron-tanged blood, infused with a strange mixture of a nobleman’s kologne. As she’d suspected, Ramson was all taut cord and lean muscles: sinewy enough to be strong, yet slim enough to slip through his enemies’ fingers. White slashes crisscrossed his flesh—scars, perhaps from the past that he so resolutely hid from her. And his chest…she flinched as she looked at it—his chest bore a section of pale, marred flesh. A brand.



“Ana,” Ramson said, and her eyes snapped to his guiltily, the image of the brand still lingering in her vision. He was looking directly at her, his eyes almost a bright shade of gold in the lamplight. “I’m sorry about May.”

She tried to ignore the rising wind outside; tried not to think of whether May would be cold and alone.

“They stay with us,” Ramson said, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it. He tapped his chest. “In here. So long as we don’t forget them, or what they stand for.”

Ramson was right. Nothing would ever fill the despairing absence left by loss…but Ana would carry with her the promises she had made May. And in that way, May would live on.

Ramson’s hand closed around hers, and she almost jumped at the sudden touch. “Thank you,” he said, his voice husky. He slipped the rag from her fingers and rinsed it in the water.

He took her arm and, with a gentleness she would never have expected from him, began to dab at the wound near her shoulder from Nuryasha’s steel blade. She almost shivered, goose bumps rising where his fingers grasped her. For several moments, there was only the sound of water sloshing and the cool, circular trails of the towel where he wiped away the blood, droplets of liquid sliding down her skin and mingling with the traces of warmth that his fingers left.



Ana closed her eyes. She needed a distraction. Something—anything. Before she knew it, words tumbled out from her mouth—the first that she could think of. “Were you a guard or a soldier before you…before this?”

Ramson laughed. “Did Shama?ra teach you to see the past as well?”

“You fight like one,” she said. “I’ve seen trained men in combat; your moves are sharp and precise, just like theirs. You have calluses on your hands. And scars on your body. They’re not all from daggers—they’re long, broad cuts from swords.”

She hadn’t meant to say this much—she’d only meant to shake some sense into herself. But, sitting this close to him, the ghost of his touches still lingering on her skin, she felt her heart opening to him. The question of his past had begun gnawing at her quite some time ago, and though there was nothing in their Trade that required them to disclose anything to each other…she wanted to know.

He was looking at her with that same glint in his eyes, that quirk of his lips. “I’ll give you a clue,” he conceded. “I was neither a guard nor a soldier, so you’re wrong in that aspect. However, you’re right in that I was trained for combat.”

Ana frowned. He’d been a recruit of some form of organized combat group—perhaps he had never been deployed. Was he a deserter? Or had he dropped out from training to make a more lucrative living for himself? “How did you get here?”

Ramson tapped a finger to his chin. “Let’s see. If I remember correctly, we came to Novo Mynsk by horse, narrowly escaped death at the Playpen, had no choice but to follow your Redcloak friend—”

“Ramson.” His name was weary on her lips. She should have known better than to expect a straightforward answer from him.



His response surprised her. Ramson lowered his gaze, a mop of hair falling into his face. “I fell in with the wrong people.”