He was bleeding? Luke felt himself frown at her statement and was inclined to question why the farmer was looking at him the way she did if she only stopped a while to listen. Instead, she had tried to crawl into the space between their seats to fetch an emergency kit and returned with a white box from which she picked a white cylindrical bottle. He let her do as she please although he wanted her to know that he was fine. She might not be, though, because Rhiane looked sick and confused. Her right hand trembled while her left arm was a deadweight hanging from her shoulder. If there was anybody who needed patching up, it was his fiancee and not himself. Then again, the woman did not have any regard for her physical well-being, always putting him and other people’s interest before herself. He wondered if she even noticed that her arm was not working properly. Some days ago, he watched her on the brink of death because of poison then eat a mountain of desserts after just a few hours. Perhaps she would just laugh at him if he pointed out that she was the one who needed medical attention, it was just a broken arm and some bruises after all. 

But then, the prince followed her gaze only to discover that she was correct. He was indeed bleeding. A wicked looking shard of glass impaled itself into the flesh of his thigh. For the first time, the warm and wet feeling dribbling down his leg made sense. “It’s fine.” He touched the torn fabric of his pants and his finger came back damp with his blood. 

The heir’s lifestyle, his restrictions, and his strict security detail had something to do with several attempted assassinations. Although none had succeeded so far, there were a few that almost did. To say that he was used to it was a lie. He would never get used to the pain, to the sight of torn flesh and muscle, and to the experience of being mortally wounded. But it was not something he boasted about, nor did he feel the need for it to be known by the general public, because every time an attempt was done to take his life, a portion of his freedom was taken away by the queen. 

The sound of her broken apology that pulled the crown prince away from his thoughts. Instinctively, or maybe because of curiosity, he sought her face. Luke could have thought of a hundred different ways to tell Rhiane off for her lack of regard for her own safety and how it affected the people around her if it was not for the look on her face. Besides, where was the fun in arguing with a person who had already yielded that it was her fault? “It’s fine,” he repeated. “It looks bad, but really it doesn’t hurt.” For all his honesty and bluntness, he would not admit that it was as bad as it looked, that his chest hurt every time he tried to take in deep breaths, and that his head felt like hell. Maybe he did not want to upset her more, or maybe he did not want to deal with an upset woman. Besides, they were equally at fault.

He unbuckled his seatbelt and twisted his body slightly so he was facing her. The small movement brought a sharp pain on his left side that he unconsciously brought his right hand to his midsection as if the touch could support what he suspected were cracked ribs. His shoulder leaned heavily against the backrest as he pulled himself on the seat. The free hand reached for her soft cheek, gently wiping the tears that had traced a line from her eyes to her chin. “And I never wanted to hurt an innocent animal,” he smiled at her, but the sobbing didn’t falter. 

The box was left open at her lap and the antiseptic spray remained grasped by her hand. Luke picked a familiar box out of the first aid kit. “This one will work better than the sutures. It will glue the tissue together and it hurts less. Then you will have to allow me to check what might be wrong with your arm,” he told her in an attempt to take her mind off the guilt that was apparently bothering her. Knowing how headstrong Rhiane was, he thought that if he introduced a task for her to perform then she might forget what she was crying about in the first place. But the tears did not stop. She continued to avoid his eyes and was content to watch the tears fall. 

Luke wanted to believe that he held no room for softness in his heart, but watching how his proud and ever so stubborn Rhiane yield to fear pulled something in his heart. The prince sighed, but not without wincing. “This is as much as my fault as it is yours. Come here.” Biting back the pain on his chest and the protest from his thigh, he leaned forward to pull the farmer closer to him. The hand that had wiped the tears from her face went around her, stroking her back as she sobbed on his shoulder. He understood trauma. He understood how fear could break a soul. Above all, he understood that he was partially responsible for what happened, and that his action had yet again placed her in as much danger as he placed himself. Luke remained still as long as she needed him to be. His hand continued to stroke her back to console her, whispering to her over and over that it was not her fault entirely. That they were both going to be alright and she need not be afraid.

But then, the SUV should have had deployed one or more of its safety features. The minimum safety requirements of any vehicle were that it should have an airbag, collision detection, and emergency break system which should have prevented the incident altogether. To think that a vehicle that passed none of the mandated features was assigned to the future king was suspicious in itself. He was reminded of the plot that he and his team discovered before they left the capital – one that involved making Rhiane into a martyr for the rebellion. “The break,” he said softly. “Why did you not step on the break?”