Chapter 16 Lia
Lia
“Uh, what’s on my face?” She surfaced from a deep sleep with her cheeks tingling.
The Berserker stood at the end of the bed, looking fatigued.
She herself felt much better. With bandaged hands, she gingerly patted her face and found a cool, slick layer.
“It’s a witch healing balm,” he said. “You received second-degree burns when you passed out in your meal.”
The visual! Mortification scalded hotter than the soup. “When you predicted a training accident, you didn’t mean lunch, did you?”
He drew his head back in consternation.
“What? If I can’t laugh at my own ridiculousness, what can I laugh at? Thank the gods, I have a sense of humor.” She’d survived Berserker training only to be hamstringed by stew.
His puzzled expression deepened. “I didn’t expect you to have one. I find you peculiar.”
“That’s better than repellent. I’m gaining ground.”
He seemed to find himself on uneven ground. He didn’t like her. Didn’t trust her. Yet he wasn’t gloating. Guilt? Conscience? In her world, that was rarer than a day-walking vampire.
He cleared his throat, steering for safer terrain. “The physic who attended you said the balm will keep you from scarring.”
Her gaze darted, unbidden, to his own scars.
Arctos tensed. “Yes, unlike me. Decades ago, we had no access to witchly potions.”
“You were a child then,” she said. “What happened to you?”
“Bear attack. I was four.” His simple answer simmered with currents. The straightening of his broad shoulders told her he’d reveal no more.
“Maybe you’ll tell me about it someday.”
Not likely, his expression said.
Because she had no future here? Or because she had no future with him? “Then how did you get the balm now?”
“Inkletter has a new contact that trades with rogues.”
“You felt betrayed by him and still reached out?”
“Don’t read too much into it,” Arctos said flatly. “My orders are to train you as long as you’re with us. If you’re bedridden, no one benefits.”
“You’re right. Very well, I’m ready for the afternoon session.”
“Afternoon?” He arched his brows. “You’ve been asleep for three days.”
“What?” No wonder her bones felt refitted, her muscles sore instead of screaming. Eager to redeem herself from the…stew incident, she shoved the cover down. “I suppose that’s one way to earn a reprieve.”
“You’re meant to rest longer.”
“Nonsense. I’m fine.” She swung her legs over the side and stood. His gaze dipped, and she realized she wore only a thin shift. A flush climbed her cheeks, heating the balm. “Did you change me?”
“Of course not.” The answer came sharp, offended. “I brought in a nurse and the physic to help you.”
Lia tilted her head. “Makes me wonder where you’ve been sleeping all this time since I’ve taken your bed.”
“Another room,” he bit out. “I don’t know what kind of males you’ve known, but I would never crawl into a bed with an unconscious woman who hates me.”
She believed him. Still, the idea that she’d been that vulnerable made her stomach clench, and her thoughts turned dark.
“You said if you found your mate, she would kill me. What if she’d come along over the past three days while I was defenseless?
Would she throttle me in my sleep? Would I ever have woken? ”
He looked astounded with the flights her mind had taken. “No Berserker would be such a coward.”
“You are the one who said she’d kill me!” Lia reminded him. “Seemed very certain about that.”
“She would challenge you to combat. Which you would lose. Handily.”
“Ouch.” And he isn’t wrong. Learning from a battle-hardened warrior made more and more sense. If survival was paramount, training might be her only means of achieving it.
Maybe once she was old enough to regenerate, she could escape this place and go on the run. That would give her the best chance of evading Co?tin forever. As it was now, he’d probably already learned her location.
“I only tell the truth.” Arctos scrubbed a big hand over his nape. “Your questions indicate a…different environment in Crypt Castle.”
“Most vampires there are depraved.” Her own brother was. Yet Arctos didn’t strike her so. Was he as opposite to Co?tin as he could be? The anti-Co?tin?
Arctos—ice-cold, growl-voiced, bearlike—regarded her in silence, earning his name. But beneath layers of frost, she sensed something steadier. Decent even. He might hate her, but he hadn’t harmed her when she was vulnerable.
And if he was decent, then that meant she’d brought unwanted strife to someone who didn’t deserve it. “I don’t hate you,” she said.
He blinked. “Pardon?”
“You said ‘an unconscious woman who hates me.’ But I don’t. I feel sorry for you.”
With a glower, he turned to go.
“Wait!” She took a step. Wrong words to a proud male! She was out of her element, had rarely interacted with people who should be proud. “I mean I feel awful that this has happened to you.” She’d never been good at apologies. Or timing.
After a beat, he turned back to face her.
“Think about it. We’ve both suffered the same injustice: our rulers decreed fates neither of us wanted. I know how galling this must be for you, and I’m sorry for my part in it.” I’m the creepy, wrong one.
“If my ruler wants something, then I do too,” he said, steel in his words. “It’s that simple.”
“One day you’ll have to tell me why you’re so loyal to Yrsa.”
He quietly said, “One day?”
She blew out a breath. “You’re still hinting I won’t be around? Just when I’d decided you might be decent…”
“You almost died from soup. I despair of your odds, leechling. In any case, I was talking about your leaving.”
“Am I leaving?”
“It’s inevitable. If you’re not working for your kind, you’ll still want to be among them. Or at least among others who don’t hate vampires as we do.”
“I do want to find the ones who’ve struck out from Bloodreach.
” Books had hinted at outlier vampires, the last of the warriors and scholars.
Maybe she could make a life with them. “If you help me learn how to defend myself, I’ll go the minute I can regenerate.
You’ll be free to be with your mate or anyone else who wants you. ” And Lia would be free to survive.
Her mind snagged on Nadje and on the castle Lia had left burning behind her. Was Nadje safe? Or had the price of help already come due?
“To where would you go?” Arctos asked.
“Umber. Land of outcasts.” If the shoe fits… She would cross into Craigdúr and keep south until witchly woods gave way to shifter farms.
He shook his head. “It’s just as dangerous there for a lone vampire as any other territory. Smiles and festivals during the day, slaughter by night. Some of the shifter breeds would eat you. Many demonkin would hunt you for sport. You must have read about these things in your research.”
She had, but she’d hoped things had evolved since those books had been written so long ago. “I’d stay disguised. If I don’t drink blood or fear sunlight, no one will suspect what I am.”
“You dream, girl. Besides, none of those concerns matter. Your new queen ordered you to remain and to train. Crossing her is treason. Mind your tongue.”
Lia drew herself up, meeting his frostbitten stare as she swallowed a dozen arguments. The fire popped, sparks leaping like the defiance she buried. For now. Forcing a wry smile, she said, “If treason’s off the menu, then why am I not running?”