Chapter 9 Doctor’s Hands
DOCTOR'S HANDS
SEBASTIAN
Pain woke me.
Not the sharp kind. The deep, grinding ache that meant I'd fucked myself up properly. My ribs felt like broken glass grinding together with every breath. My shoulder throbbed in time with my heartbeat. Something wet and sticky had dried on my temple.
I was on the floor beside my bed. Again.
Hadn't even made it onto the mattress before exhaustion dropped me like a stone. The bow lay across the duvet where I'd dropped it, still strung, still ready. Like a weapon left at an altar.
Rain tapped against the balcony glass. Dawn light filtered through in pale gray streams that made everything look washed out. Ghostly.
I tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. My ribs screamed. Something pulled in my shoulder, wet and wrong. I pressed my hand to it and it came away sticky with blood.
Still bleeding. Hours later. Still bleeding.
The room smelled like iron and rain and the ghost of gunpowder that probably only existed in my head. My clothes were stiff with dried blood. Mud crusted my boots. Glass from the cathedral window glittered in the carpet.
I forced myself upright, using the bed frame for leverage. Every movement felt like someone was driving knives between my ribs. My calf burned where the bullet had grazed muscle. My throat was bruised from where that bastard had tried to choke me out.
I stumbled to the bathroom, gripping the sink edge with white knuckles. My reflection stared back. Blood matted my hair where I'd been hit. Bruises bloomed across my jaw, my temple, my throat. Dried blood crusted my shoulder where the wound kept seeping.
The shower ran hot enough to hurt. I stood under it until the water ran clear, until the blood washed away and left just broken skin and bruises. The cut on my shoulder kept bleeding, sluggish but persistent. Deep enough to need stitches. Not deep enough to explain without questions.
I pressed a towel to it, breath hitching. Watched pink water pool at my feet.
A soft knock on the bathroom door made me freeze.
“Your Highness?” élodie's voice. Gentle. Worried. “Dr. D'Souza's asking for you. Routine check.”
Fuck.
I'd forgotten. Monthly wellness exam. Standard palace protocol. Completely unavoidable.
“Tell him I'll come down,” I called out, forcing my voice steady. “Give me twenty minutes.”
“Are you alright? You sound—”
“I'm fine. Just tired. Couldn't sleep.”
Silence. Long enough that I knew she didn't believe me. But she'd learned years ago not to push.
“Twenty minutes,” she said finally. “Don't make him wait.”
Her footsteps retreated down the corridor.
I looked at my reflection again. At the bruises I couldn't hide. The cut that kept bleeding. The exhaustion carved into every line of my face.
Viktor couldn't know. Couldn't see this. Couldn't find out what I'd been doing while he was pulling away.
I dried off carefully, every movement measured. Found clean bandages in the first aid kit I kept hidden in my bathroom. Packed the shoulder wound with gauze, taped it down tight enough to stop the bleeding. The pressure hurt. Good. I deserved it.
I pulled on a loose linen shirt. White. Long sleeves. Hid the bruises on my arms and the bandage on my shoulder. Combed my hair forward to cover the cut on my temple. Tilted my head to check the angle.
Almost convincing.
Almost human.
The mask slid into place piece by piece. Posture straightened. Expression smoothed. The prince returning, burying the killer beneath silk and practiced smiles.
I left my quarters, locking the door behind me. Apollo followed at my heels, pressing close like he knew I was hurting. I scratched behind his ears, grateful for something warm and uncomplicated.
We made it three corridors before he stopped, nose lifting, tail starting to wag.
“Really? Now?”
He looked at me with those amber eyes that said yes, absolutely now, because breakfast was the most important thing in the world and I was clearly being unreasonable.
“Fine. Go.”
He took off down the hall toward the kitchens, golden fur catching morning light. I watched him disappear around the corner, remembering the first time he'd discovered the kitchen staff would slip him treats. He'd been six months old. Now he had the entire staff wrapped around his paw.
My father especially.
I'd found them together once, early morning just like this. My father sitting on the floor in his study, still in his robe, Apollo's head in his lap while he scratched behind those perfect ears. They'd both looked peaceful. Content. Like for just a moment, the weight of the crown didn't exist.
My father needed that. Needed something that loved him without agenda. Without politics. Just pure, uncomplicated devotion.
I envied the dog sometimes.
The corridors were quiet this early. Morning light poured through tall windows, turning marble into gold. Palace staff moved through their routines. Guards stood at their posts. Everything normal. Everything fine.
Nobody looked at me and saw blood.
The medical wing was in the east section, all sterile white and the smell of antiseptic. I'd been coming here since I was a child. Knew every room. Every cabinet. Every place to hide when the world got too loud.
Dr. Amir D'Souza stood by the windows when I entered, reading something on his tablet. He looked up as the door closed, and I watched his expression shift. Professional concern bleeding through the calm.
“You're early,” he said. His voice was smooth. Low. The kind that could talk someone down from a ledge. “Or guilty.”
“Neither.” I perched on the exam table, trying not to favor my ribs. “Just restless.”
He set down the tablet and crossed to me, moving with that lean grace he had. Runner's build. Precise movements. Everything about Amir was controlled, measured, the kind of steady that made you feel safe even when everything was falling apart.
He circled me slowly, amber-brown eyes tracking details I was trying to hide. The way I held my side. The stiffness in my left shoulder. The careful way I turned my head.
“Restless men don't bleed through linen,” he said quietly, gesturing to my shoulder.
I looked down. A small red bloom had seeped through the fabric. Barely visible. But he'd seen it.
Of course he had.
“It's nothing.”
“Sebastian.” He said my name like a reprimand. Like he was tired of my lies. “Shirt. Now.”
I hesitated. Not because I was modest. Because taking off the shirt meant he'd see everything. The bruises. The cuts. The evidence of exactly how not fine I was.
But refusing would make it worse.
I unbuttoned slowly, each movement careful. Pulled the fabric off my shoulders and let it fall.
Amir exhaled through his nose. Not surprise. Resignation. Like he'd been expecting this and hating being right.
“What did you do this time?”
“Slipped in the gardens.”
He laughed once. Humorless. Sharp. “And the gardens fought back? Multiple times? With fists and blades?”
He moved closer, fingers gentle as they traced the edges of bruises blooming across my ribs. I flinched despite myself.
“Tender?”
“A bit.”
“Anything sharp? Stabbing pain when you breathe?”
“Just ache.”
“That's something at least.” His hands moved to the bandage on my shoulder. “This is fresh. You did this yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“Good packing. Clean edges.” He started peeling back the gauze, and I hissed when it pulled at clotting blood. “Sorry. This'll sting.”
The wound bloomed crimson beneath the gauze. Deeper than I'd thought. Angrier. The edges were clean but needed closing.
Amir was quiet for a long moment, studying it with that focused intensity he brought to everything. Then, “You can't keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Finding new ways to hurt yourself.” His fingers brushed the edges of the wound, testing for foreign material. “Every month, you're in here with something. Falls. Training accidents. Slipping in gardens that somehow fight back.”
“I'm clumsy.”
“You're a liar.” But his voice was gentle. Sad. “And I'm tired of patching you up without understanding why you need patching.”
He grabbed supplies from the cabinet. Antiseptic. Suture kit. Local anesthetic. Laid them out with practiced efficiency.
“This needs stitches,” he said. “I'll numb it first, but you'll feel the pressure.”
“I know the drill.”
He injected the anesthetic in small doses around the wound. I watched his face instead of his hands. The concentration there. The care. Like every stitch mattered. Like I mattered.
When had someone last looked at me like that?
“You keep bleeding to prove you're alive,” he murmured, threading the needle. “But there are better ways, you know.”
“Like what?”
“Like actually living.”
The first stitch pulled tight. I felt the pressure, the tug of thread through skin. Watched his fingers work with surgical precision.
“I am living.”
“You're surviving. There's a difference.” Another stitch. “Surviving is just not dying. Living is finding reasons not to want to.”
The next stitch tugged a line of heat across my skin. Amir’s eyes tracked every wince, every shallow breath. He worked quietly, letting the silence settle—no lecture, just the unspoken weight of concern.
The suture thread pulled again, neat and clean. His hands were steady, fingers long and sure, never fumbling, never rushed. “Almost done,” he murmured, voice a velvet anchor. “I want to check for any deeper damage. That means you need to strip down, Sebastian.”
The request wasn’t unusual—at least not in theory. In practice, my skin prickled at the thought. “Just to my shorts?”
Amber eyes flicked up, unreadable. “Yes. You took that bullet to the calf and there’s bruising up your thigh. Let’s be thorough, not proud.”
My fingers fumbled at the buttons, each movement making the cut on my shoulder tug and burn. Shirt and trousers pooled around my ankles, leaving me in dark briefs. Cool air licked at bruised skin, the chill prickling over the worst of the aches.