When Tybalt and Mariella were almost completely out of sight of the entrance—the cave seemed to extend quite deep down into the mountain—he set down the two bodies he was carrying and let out a loud sigh of relief.

  “You put yours there, too, and we’ll go back up to the entrance for me to treat your wound in the light.”

  “I figured you were just going to pour health elixir on it,” Mariella said. The alchemic substance could be consumed or applied externally to similar effect. “I was glad to think you had the presence of mind to bring some, since I didn’t… but does your class allow you to heal injuries too?”

  “I can manipulate bone, and there’s nothing in my skill description that says it has to be outside of a human body,” Tybalt replied.

  Wait, does he think that skill descriptions define the limits of what skills can do? Mariella wondered. Now that she knew Tybalt had a class of his own, the question of how much he understood about classes seemed suddenly important. No, it was important. It would define how much he was able to actually exploit his new powers.

  How much do non-mages know about the way classes work? She didn’t really know the answer.

  “The way you’re moving tells me you probably have a broken bone right now,” he continued. “Maybe just a little fracture. But that’s what’s limiting your mobility.”

  “I see,” she said. That did fit with her understanding of basic medicine, as well as with the quietly throbbing pain in her shoulder. They began walking back.

  “I already tried it on myself,” Tybalt said after a moment. “I fixed my messed up ribs after you patched me up.”

  “I guess I’m glad you practiced,” she said. “Though I’m sorry it meant you had to suffer.”

  She felt his arm wrap around her waist and pull her slightly closer. It slightly jerked her shoulder when he first touched her, but the pain faded in an instant. Then his mouth was just inches from her ear.

  “I’m going to take good care of you,” he practically whispered, words tickling her neck.

  She felt it was inappropriate. But she relaxed into the crook of his arm. Enjoyed the contact. Remembered when they had been climbing the cliffside together, and his arm had been the only thing between her and the open air. She told herself that even if it was overly forward of him to put his arm around her, it would be ruder to push him off. It wasn’t anything to do with the way her heart began to race at his touch.

  Mariella said nothing back and carefully avoided looking directly at him so as not to encourage anything further.

  They got halfway back to the entrance before she finally made herself stop and turn to face him.

  “Do you think this is good enough?” she asked. “If we stay here, the beastfolk will have a hard time seeing us if they come looking.”

  And it was dark enough that he might not be able to tell if he made her blush again.

  “I can try here, at least,” he said. “If we have to move up closer to the entrance, I’ll just tell you.”

  She nodded. “Turn your back for a minute. Um, please don’t peek.”

  Tybalt looked surprised for a moment, then said a little, “Ah,” nodded, and turned around.

  Mariella knelt down, drew her dagger from her belt, and stuck the sheathed weapon into her mouth. She needed something to bite down on, in case the arrowhead was barbed or something. The last thing she wanted was to alert enemies to their location if they had returned to the area already. She took a few breaths, and finally, she reached up with her good arm, took firm hold of the shaft, and yanked the arrow out of her shoulder. She managed to do it with just a little grunt and a sharp intake of breath.

  Not barbed. Thank you, beastfolk…

  She dropped the arrow and the dagger to her side. Then she unbuttoned and removed her gambeson, stripping down to her tiny, sheer silken undershirt. That would give Tybalt better access to the wound without having to make the arrow hole in her gambeson bigger.

  But the undershirt, as she recalled once she saw herself in it, was a little revealing. After a moment’s thought, she folded the gambeson in half and held it against her bosom with her good arm, blocking her breasts from view without obstructing access to her shoulder.

  That’s the best I can do as far as modesty, she thought. And if he tries anything, if he touches anywhere south of the wound, I break his hand.

  She hoped she would actually stick to that if push came to shove.

  “You can turn back now,” she said, her voice higher and more girlish than she meant it to be.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  His eyes widened slightly at the sight of her bare flesh. Even if her chest was hidden, he had never seen either her bare shoulders or the two inches of midriff and lower back that were exposed by a shirt that she was suddenly aware was probably too small. She could feel his gaze like wandering fingers over her skin.

  “Right, your shoulder,” he said, letting out a brief sigh and shaking his head.

  She nodded and lowered her eyes demurely.

  “Please and thank you,” she said very softly.

  He hesitated a moment.

  “This is going to hurt,” he said. “Maybe a lot. I really didn’t enjoy it myself.”

  She nodded and put the sheathed dagger back into her mouth.

  “Ready,” she said through her clenched teeth.

  Tybalt knelt down beside her and inspected the wound with what appeared to be carefully objective eyes. He didn’t seem distracted by her body at all anymore, which was simultaneously a relief and, for some reason, slightly irritating. She had expected to have to remind him to stay on task, at least once.

  Instead, he ran his eyes over the wound only, then pried it open with his fingers. She barely restrained herself from crying out as he probed the hole, poked her raw flesh, and looked around inside her shoulder.

  When he finally drew upon his mana, she knew it.

  As he touched her with his power, she felt a searing hot pain inside the bone, like it was boiling from the inside. Her breathing tensed, she clenched her eyes and teeth shut, and she had to fight to remain still and not screw up the healing process. Her own fire-related powers had never caused her discomfort like this. She was almost immune to pain from actual heat. So, this was a special kind of unpleasant.

  Mariella could tell that he was finally manipulating the shape of the bone when she experienced a feeling of wrongness mingling with the pain.

  She let out a quiet, pained moan, fingers clenching, teeth grinding. But she stayed still.

  How long does this take? The levels she had gained in her class had made her stronger than a normal classless man or woman, but that didn’t mean she had pain tolerance that much greater than that of an average person.

  And then there was nothing. Rather, the echo of the pain was still there, but it was almost a memory in an instant. In terms of actual physical sensation, there was just the prickle from a slightly open wound. Mariella felt that a bit of moisture had gathered in one eye—gods, she was tearing up an annoying amount today!—but otherwise, she was fine. Unexpectedly fine.

  Tybalt wasn’t done, though. He raised a finger, telling her to wait. He drew his other hand from his pocket. He held a vial of health elixir. With the slightly bloody hand that had been inside her wound, he uncorked the vial, and he drizzled a small amount onto the fingertips that were already bloody. Then he pressed his fingers against the arrow wound and lightly massaged it in.

  The massaging was, of course, completely unnecessary to the process.

  Mariella closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. She wasn’t sure what was more soothing, the healing or the physical touch. The combination felt very nice, a weirdly pleasant mix of mild pain, cool relief, and gentle pressure.

  She had to resist the temptation to ask if Baldwin had done the same to him when treating Tybalt’s injuries earlier. That teasing would have felt acceptable before Tybalt had made their dynamic so explicit. Now… things were different. Far more charged.

  She waited for Tybalt to pull his hand away before she said anything. To her surprise, his fingers didn’t seem to linger any longer than necessary. They drew back as her wound began to close.

  “That was quicker than I expected,” she said. She raised the arm on the freshly healed side experimentally. She could still feel a dull pain, but it functioned like there had never been a break. In fact, she thought it might be moving more flexibly than it had before, though it was hard to be certain. She didn’t feel like performing any exercises to test it. But perhaps in half an hour. “Nicely done.”

  If it turns out to be messed up, I’ll ask him to fix it later. Though he might very well take me asking for that in the wrong way… ‘Oh, you want another shoulder rub?’

  “Then practicing on myself was worth it,” Tybalt said.

  He started to move back, but Mariella impulsively reached out with her injured arm and grabbed his hand, pulling him closer to her again.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “Thank you,” she said. She licked her lips but resisted the urge to kiss him again. She had already muddied those waters enough. If she kept saying “no” but acting ambiguously, it could lead to a bad result. “I’ll—I’ll pay you back.”

  “I already know you’ve got my back, Mariella. That’s the most valuable thing I could ask for. This is me returning that favor.”

  She wasn’t quite satisfied with that. In her family, they did not believe in leaving a debt unpaid. But she thought the conversation should move on. They couldn’t afford to just stay in this cave. Then an idea struck her.

  “Before we moved on, I wanted to ask if anyone ever gave you any training in combat as a mage,” she said.

  “Since I was not a mage until very recently, the answer to that is no,” Tybalt replied.

  She cracked a smile. Then I do have a way of paying you back.

  “I can help you, then,” she said. “There are basic things you deserve to know.”

  Things your father probably should have taught you, she added in her mind. Or would have taught you if you had been a mage back then.

  “Let’s find a place a little further away,” she continued. “Out of earshot if the beastfolk come back. I’ll teach you what I know, at least. Though I’m not qualified to teach.”

  “Promise you’ll put your shirt back on first, right?” he asked, tilting his head. Mariella realized that her arm had relaxed slightly, so that her folded gambeson, pressed against her chest, no longer covered everything that she had been protecting from view. A bit of cleavage was on display. “Otherwise I don’t think I’m going to learn anything. At least not what you intended…”

  Mariella’s cheeks flushed so brightly that she imagined she glowed in the dark.