When Penelope pulled back to meet his gaze, Crow smiled softly. “I’m a man of my word,” he assured her before leaning in to meet her lips in a kiss. It started out tender, but quickly grew more passionate as they pressed into each other. He trailed his hand up her shoulders to the back of her neck, losing himself in the feeling of her lips moving against his. With the knight so close to him, he grew distracted from both the worries they had been facing as well as what was happening around him. So, when she suddenly pulled away, he stared at her confusedly until he caught the sound of footsteps outside the tent.

Immediately, he tensed and dragged his hand across his mouth to hide the fact that they had been kissing mere seconds before. In the next moment, the thief’s heartbeat quickened as Layth stepped into the room. Even though he knew he needed to keep his temper in check, he couldn’t help but narrow his eyes at the knight, unable to hide his hatred for the other man. Out of every noble in this godsforsaken camp, Layth was the last person he wanted to see.

Crow curled his hands into fists at his sides as Penelope tried to keep her brother at bay with a delaying question. Of course, it didn’t work, and he gritted his teeth as the hotheaded knight called her a traitor. He didn’t care what Layth said or did to him, but it struck a nerve hearing him accuse his sister of being something she wasn’t. She may have been working with him since she joined the battlefront, but he had done nothing but help the Brerratic battalion with the information she’d shared with him—well, aside from the few knights he had killed who had hurt the villagers, but even then, he hadn’t been trying to influence the results of the battle. Regardless of their affiliation, she was just as loyal to her comrades as ever before, and it frustrated him to see her brother ignore that.

He glanced at Penelope as she warned Layth not to kill him and then back at the other knight when he replied with a sneer. “Are you sure about that?” the thief smirked at him arrogantly, forgetting to hold his tongue as his annoyance with the knight outweighed his sense of reason. “You couldn’t get any answers out of me before, and the only thing that’s changed since then is that I’m chained to a bed instead of a tree.”

“Insolent wretch,” Layth snarled. “I’ll make you beg for death.”

“Funny,” Crow said dryly. “You said that last time too, yet here I am, not begging.”

“Gods, you’re infuriating,” Layth snapped, reaching for the hilt of his sword. “You [i]will[/i] answer my questions, or I’ll give you something else to heal from.”