Chapter 1 #2
The words dropped into the night like a stone in a pool.
Theira's deeply expressive eyes flickered, knowing.
Unimaginable, that his life had somehow come to this.
But the empire he had given his life and body and soul to had betrayed him—betrayed them all. No one there could protect him or anyone else any longer.
Varius had spent almost his whole life at war, and now it was only an enemy he could turn to.
Theira held his gaze for a long moment and then said, "You'd better come in."
He didn't register what she'd said until the door swung further open, letting out not just the light and warmth from inside, but revealing a clean entryway lined with life—overgrown potted plants, a rack for coats, a pair of gardening boots nestled in their own tray.
A place where everything in her life fit, even if, like her own personality, it was always spilling out the seams.
He didn't fit. There wouldn't be a neat place for him where he wouldn't intrude on everything else.
This was her home. She'd gotten away, and now he was going to drag her back down with him.
Not that she had to let him.
When he didn't move, Theira finally asked, "Is there a problem?"
Varius was too tired, and possibly in shock, and couldn't put words together. Finally he blurted, "I'm bleeding."
"I see that," Theira said dryly, "and I also see no reason to patch you up out in the cold when I have a perfectly good house with all my materials inside."
She wanted to patch him up?
And did she sound defensive, or was he imagining it?
She continued, "Are you really going to show up at my doorstep and expect me to make myself uncomfortable for you?"
"No!" His denial was immediate, emphatic. Varius shook his head, and his gaze caught on the warm entryway behind her. "I just..."
The longing in his look, visibly overwhelmed, must have, embarrassingly, communicated itself without further words, because Theira just said, softly, "Oh." And then, dry once again: "After all these years, I promise I can clean up blood, Varius. There won't be any sign of stains."
The stains of his presence, of the war itself.
She understood. Of course she did. Her life had been as bloody as his, after all.
Still—"I'll clean it," he swore impulsively, his voice rough.
Her eyebrows lifted. "Well get in here then, and close the door behind you."
Varius took a deep breath, winced again at his fucking ribs and then himself because Theira's eyebrows abruptly drew down as she noticed.
He crossed the threshold.
And turned to lift his arm to close the door as she'd directed when it slammed shut behind him with worrying speed and force.
He was closed in her lair now.
His heart thumped.
Varius turned back to regard her cautiously.
Theira had already turned away and wasn't waiting on him.
"Don't puncture a lung on my account," she said coolly, "especially when I've already said I'd patch you up. I'm confident you don't need to add more injuries to my workload. This way."
As if in a dream, Varius followed her. The house was clean—somehow he'd always imagined she would be messy—and the walls were bare. But when they got to the kitchen, Varius stopped suddenly enough to make himself wince as he took it all in.
Plants bloomed on shelves around the room, and others crowded among all manner of bottles and jars. This space, too, was clean, but overflowing. This was a place where she spent time, let herself flow into the space around her.
And Varius was totally unprepared for how relieved he was to see it. The signs of life, of flourishing, and of her, in this cozy, overflowing kitchen.
"Varius." He shivered at the sound of his name in her rich voice and looked up; Theira pointed at a chair. "Sit down before you fall down."
The chair looked so soft and plush he was worried he wouldn't get out of it once he got in. Not what he would have expected in an Aurelian kitchen, but after all she'd been through, maybe she'd decided she deserved comfort wherever she could find it. Varius certainly wasn't going to gainsay that.
He wanted to protest he'd stain it with blood, but she wouldn't think well of him wasting her time with the same argument twice. She was a sorceress adept of the first tier; her cushions wouldn't stay blood-soaked unless she wanted them to.
He grunted as he settled himself carefully down, his breath hissing out when his armor settled on him. He almost sprang back up, but then Theira was there, kneeling before him.
His heart thumped again.
She frowned at his armor, then looked up at him through her lashes full of teasing challenge.
Varius could feel his blood pounding in his veins as, with a smirk, Theira raised one finger, holding his gaze, then drew it down in a careful line against his chest.
How he wished he could feel that finger.
His armor crumbled off him like she'd sliced through it at the nonexistent seams.
Varius knew his eyes would be darkening. It was probably for the best he was so exhausted she wouldn't be able to see visible evidence of his lust surging in response to her.
Still, he held himself unmoving, waiting for her. Not just because he'd put himself in her copious power out of desperation, but because he couldn't imagine what he could offer her, now or ever.
No, that wasn't true. He knew cursed well there was nothing.
But they'd been watching each other, teasing, challenging, for years across battlefields, and he'd never been sure if he was the only one who felt, who dreamed, of more.
Theira was probably just playing with him, and that was fair, all things considered.
But she had opened the door.
Varius looked like a ghost of himself.
Theira had always found him beautiful, like he'd emerged from the earth itself. Skin bronzed from the sun, deep brown hair, sturdy as a rock and just as unmovable. When you faced him across the battlefield, you knew he'd dig in and dig deep and it would require heroic force to move him.
Something had moved him today.
Varius had been looking more and more tired as the years went by. At some point she'd realized he was her reflection, and if she was going to save herself, it would have to be soon.
He'd apparently missed his cut-off date—or maybe that was why he was here.
Here, in her house.
He'd come to her, put himself where she could reach him, touch him, and he'd done it on purpose.
Theira had lived for years under the terrible scrutiny of the most powerful sorcerer in the world, so she didn't fidget as she made him a cup of tea and tried not to worry about what he thought of her house.
He was silent, which was probably because he was on his last legs and not because he was judging her. For escaping, or for managing to and living in a place that looked like this. What did she know of normal houses, growing up in the vicious training halls in the bowels under Castle Korossia?
Varius probably had a warm, earthy kitchen back at his hometown, not overflowing with sorcerous experiments, and with people who were soft and gentle and knew how to comfort and relax rather than command him into a chair and strip him.
Then again. He was here. If he had that kitchen to go to in the Aurelian Empire, it wasn't one with a sorceress who could protect herself—and him.
And he probably didn't have it, or he wouldn't have looked so godscursed tired all the time.
Grabbing a stack of towels, Theira crossed back to the table and set the mug down.
"Let's see what we've got," she said briskly to disguise how her thoughts clamored that she was finally, after so many imaginings, going to touch his body with her own two hands—the man was bleeding, for Gaia's sake.
She brought a towel to the first clear source of blood on his arm.
Varius' frankly unreasonable abs flexed as he braced against the touch on his open wound.
She glared at him until he blinked in apparent confusion as she wiped him off.
"Of course it won't hurt for me to clean off the blood," Theira said impatiently. "I'm a sorceress."
Though she could make it hurt if she wanted to, and maybe that was what really bothered her—that he might assume pain was all he could expect from her.
Varius' eyes were dark as he focused on her with thrilling intensity and he said gruffly, "I know."
She had enough control not to shiver.
Of all people, he knew.
And he was here, letting her use sorcery on him without comment, let alone protest, which spoke to either a deep level of trust in someone who'd nearly killed him more than once, or profound desperation.
Theira needed to know which.
For now, she hmmmed and turned back to her task of cleaning him enough to take stock of his wounds, and maybe also his muscles for future daydreaming.
Varius directed her to the root of his injuries more than once, and she kept her expression professional. She'd offered to patch him up and he was taking her at her word, and maybe that shouldn't mean so much, but it did.
No one ever took someone like her at face value.
She'd worked hard for that, in fact, and now she reaped what she'd sown.
Through it all, after that initial instinctual tightening, Varius held himself impossibly still.
The armor had protected his vital organs, but he definitely had some broken ribs from whatever he'd faced to get all the way here—and he'd come on foot, which meant he'd been running for hours like this.
Even without her movements adding to his pain, this had to be excruciating, but he was always so controlled.
Then again, maybe he was just repulsed by her and keeping it to himself until she'd fixed him.
Or maybe it was something else.
Theira stepped back. "Start drinking the tea. I'll get some salves."
She was already across the room before Varius asked, "What's in it?"
She almost sagged in relief. Thank Gaia, something other than blind obedience. He wasn't dead yet.
Just broken.
Without missing a beat, Theira answered, "Mind control potion."
A faint huff. She glanced back over her shoulder as Varius met her gaze and deliberately took a sip.