Gently, she pushed away. “I can’t do that. I need to be there, I need to know.” She looked up at him, eyes dark. “I’ve seen combat, my l—Isaac. I know what can happen.” She pulled his dagger from its sheath and lifted it to her hair, cutting off a curl at the nape of her neck. “I don’t have a ribbon to give you, to wear around your arm, as noble ladies do. All I have is myself.”
“I don’t want you to see me hurt…I don’t want you to see the bloodshed…I don’t want you to see me hurt another man. I don’t like it, Summer, but I will do it, for my protection, and yours,” he stated pointedly before stilling, recalling with a pained grimace that she’d already witnessed him removing Sir Kit’s thumb. Watching her then, he reached out to cup her jaw, tracing his fingers along her jawline. “Which is all I ever want…just promise me that if you have to watch, that if I survive, you’ll be there to hold me afterwards? I don’t care how it looks to the others.”
She turned her head to kiss his palm. “Shhh,” she murmured. “You are a fighter, a King’s knight. I won’t think less of you for being what you are.” She put the lock of hair into his hand, curling his fingers around it. “I know your strength. You will defeat this other knight. I believe in you.”