Free Evermine: Daughters of Askara, Book 2 by Hailey Edwards

his wings one at a time as delicate fingers inspected every leathered inch. He pushed up when her hands deserted him, but she shoved him down as if he were a child. He’d forgotten how strong she was. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he surrendered to her whims.
    The same gentle hands returned, stroking every inch of his back, working over every muscle, pausing to pick debris from his cuts. “You know you’ll get infected if you let something like this go untreated.” She jabbed a nail deep in his shoulder blade, and he grunted. “Those mines are a case of wing rot waiting to happen. Don’t you have a healer?”
    “We have two in training,” he defended, “but they were needed elsewhere.”
    “Good grief. They were needed here .” She stabbed his hip for emphasis. “Don’t move.”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it.” The lounge smelled of Emma. He buried his face in the pillow, and a stray hair tickled his nose. Sleep weighted his limbs, and his eyes closed for a moment.
    “This is going to burn.” A second later, she slathered icy ointment across his back.
    He shivered. Let it burn. This was one pain too delicious to block. Emma’s hands on him, nursing him like she had a thousand times when his protection of Maddie earned him lashes from her father’s whip. Archer had been so consumed with desire for Maddie, he assumed Harper shared the same twisted lust and punished him for her affection. He hadn’t suspected Harper craved only one female, or that Archer’s halfling daughter was the one true light in Harper’s life.
    His eyes closed again, and this time he left them shut. If someone had told him he would long for the days of their enslavement, he would have called that person a fool.
    Yet here he lay, wishing for a simpler time when his body was a tool to be used, his thoughts dictated by cruel circumstance, but his heart was free. And it had belonged to Emma.
    Five years made no difference to him. This year apart made even less. Ten or a hundred more wouldn’t change the sick ache in his bones craving her long-ago touch. He couldn’t love her openly then, either. But she knew she was his. Just as he knew he would always be hers.
     
    Harper groaned beneath my fingers. I spent more time inspecting his cuts than I had checking the fine print on Isabeau’s earlier contract annulment. Mint ointment stung my fingers, cold against the heat of his skin. His muscles were fuller than I remembered. The last time I’d seen him, he was all gristle and bone, half starved and should have been half crazed to match.
    I stopped making slow circles across his shoulders. His body exuded vitality. Watching the steady rise and fall of his back, I distracted myself from the crimson skin twitching invitation to either side of him. Unwilling to sever contact just yet, I smeared more goo on his spine and worked my way upwards. Thick ridges bumped under my palm, whip marks I could name and date. Father had lashed them into Harper’s once-supple skin until his scars begot scars.
    I’d wanted to flay my father, spit and roast him. Leave his eyes and tender organs for the sharp-beaked birds. The things he’d done to Maddie…to Harper. Father deserved to live through the sensation of being eaten alive by winged beasts, squawked over like the delicacy he would have been. Instead, Harper ended his life with one downward thrust. Skull met tile and crumpled.
    I was glad, in a way, because his reckless chivalry saved me from killing my only parent.
    Every time I saw Maddie twitch flightless nubs left where Father plucked her infant wings at birth, I tasted unquenchable bloodlust. Her father had been Eliya’s prized sthudai , and she’d been born with her Evanti father’s wings. Archer had crippled my little sister in a jealous rage, and if I’d had a few more years on me, I would have killed him then, sparing us his wrath.
    “It’s time for him to come inside.” Dillon’s voice dragged me from my