Chapter 13
It was dark when I woke back up. The pale moonlight coming in through the window cast a silvery glow over Lochlan, who must’ve dragged his rocking chair in to sit beside me.
As much as I wanted to distrust him, I couldn’t help but be grateful.
He didn’t need to cover for me, and he certainly hadn’t needed to watch over me while I slept.
I shifted and gasped aloud as the wound in my side sent a nasty throb.
I ground my teeth and inhaled slowly, trying to breathe through the aching sting that sent pulses of shooting pain through my body.
My fingers crept to the site of the injury and found that the skin had been stitched together with some sort of silk thread.
“Gil?” Lochlan’s low voice came through the darkness. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” I choked out.
“You keep saying that, but I don’t think it’s true.” Lochlan lit a candle and came over. There were dark circles under his eyes and his hair flopped over his eyes so I wondered how he could even see out. “I need to take a look. I gave you some sutures while you were out. The cut was pretty deep.”
“Don’t look.” I tried to scoot away from him, but my body wouldn’t respond to my commands.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said gently. “And I’m only going to look at the injury, nothing else. I just need to check for any sign of infection.”
“No,” I repeated. “I’ll do it myself.” Even though my chest was still bound, I just couldn’t bring myself to have Lochlan look at me. It felt much too invasive and like a violation of the little privacy I had left.
“If you insist,” Lochlan said. He set the candle on an upturned bucket near the bed and turned his back. “Watch for redness, swelling, pus, anything like that. Check for soreness and tenderness.”
The candle didn’t give enough light for a thorough inspection, but my quick check told me that I was indeed developing an infection.
Angry red swelling ran along the six-inch gash and there were still droplets of blood oozing out.
I stared at it while Roderick’s deep snores came from the next room over.
“Well?” Lochlan prompted, keeping his back to me.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, quickly covering back up. I’d gotten through plenty of scrapes in the past; this was just a little worse than normal.
Lochlan turned around. “I don’t believe you. Something like that needs to be cleaned at least twice a day.”
I jutted out my jaw defiantly. “I’ll manage. I always have.”
“Clearly. Weren’t you on a pirate ship before this? How was it that none of them realized—”
I let out a grunt to cut him off. Peter rarely slept as it was. I’d occasionally spotted him dozing off in the hammock outside, but beyond that, he always seemed to be busy, even at night. Who knew if he was listening at the door?
Lochlan came a little closer to crouch at the side of the bed. “Did none of them realize?”
I lifted one shoulder. “I’m an excellent liar when I want to be.”
“Not as great as you suppose. I know you’re lying about your healing.” He turned back around. “I really do need to clean that.”
An intense shivering overtook me.
“Fine, you can look but talk to me while you do it.” I carefully pulled up my shirt the slightest amount so Lochlan could dab a stinging solution against the gash.
“What shall I talk about?”
“Tell me about…tell me about your work with Roderick. How long have you known him?”
“A very long time. Don’t hold your breath. Breathe normally or this will hurt worse.”
I obeyed, slowly inhaling and exhaling while trying to focus on anything other than my side. “Why are you dealing in drugs if you’re a healer?”
“I have my reasons. How does this feel?”
Lochlan’s warm hand pressed against my side and even more panic exploded in the pit of my stomach.
All this time, Lochlan had treated me like some obnoxious younger brother, and now I was a useless, injured woman.
If only Peter was the one who had found out and had medical training.
Peter was protective of his friends, and I didn’t even have a shred of attraction toward him.
Of course it had to be the one good-looking man I knew, who thought of me as an annoying little brother. After seeing me like this, he’d never see me as anything other than a burden to take care of.
“It feels fine,” I said, trying desperately to sound calm instead of terrified.
“Pick a different word to describe it.”
“Painful.”
“That’s better. How about now?” He adjusted the pressure he had on my side.
If I hadn’t been in excruciating pain, I might’ve liked exploring the fluttering feelings in my chest at his touch, but there couldn’t be a worse time to have my first major crush.
His being so close and hovering over me in the dark felt far more personal and intimate than what I was prepared for.
“It feels—” I broke off. I couldn’t say fine, but if I said great, he might think that I thought it was great to have him touching me, which sounded even worse now that he knew I was a woman, but I also couldn’t say that it felt dreadful, because he did need accurate medical information. I finally settled on, “It’s improving.”
“We’ll keep checking on it,” he told me. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’d like my dignity back, please.”
Lochlan’s face broke into a wide smile as he leaned back so his hands finally left my side. “You never lost it.”
I stared balefully at him. “My clothing tore in front of someone. If you ripped a hole in your pants in front of a woman, you might feel like your dignity was compromised.” The words were out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying, and heat flooded my face.
Here I was, seconds after a man had had his hands on me in the dark, and I was talking about him ripping his pants in public.
Now he was going to think I was imagining that.
If this injury didn’t kill me, my embarrassment would.
Why was it that being attracted to someone immediately made my brain shut off and stupid things sprang out of my mouth? Where was the cool, calculating Gil who was confident and reassured and never got personal with anyone?
“If my pants tore in public, I’d sit down until I could knit myself a new pair,” he said with a grin. “Fortunately, I don’t care too much about my dignity anymore.”
I didn’t trust myself to unlock my jaw to answer. His hair had flopped back over his eyes and I couldn’t help liking the way he looked at me, even if I felt ridiculous admitting it to myself.
“You still haven’t told me why you ended up disguising yourself as a boy and coming to get a job at one of the worst places in all of Berkway.”
I tensed up. “Peter and I are friends.”
“Does he know?”
“No.”
“Do you plan to tell him?”
“No. And you better not either.”
Lochlan fell silent and kept watching me so I felt like he could see right through me. “You didn’t tell me about your past,” I challenged. “So I have no need to tell you mine.”
“I’d be willing to trade stories,” Lochlan said.
My interest was piqued. If Lochlan had been working with Roderick for all of his adult life, he would undoubtedly have information about my family.
“I’m open to that arrangement,” I told him carefully. All I had to do was lie about the questions he asked me, then extract information from him. But could I trust him to tell me the truth? Or would he simply lie to me exactly the way I planned to lie to him?
“Get healed up a bit first, then we can start in on life stories,” Lochlan said, leaning back into the rocking chair. “Though I have a feeling mine will be dull compared to yours.”
“Probably so,” I said with a slight smile. My body relaxed back into the many pillows and blankets around me, and I allowed myself to sink back into slumber.
If I had been a better patient and actually listened to Lochlan, I would’ve stayed put to recover.
But when Roderick told Lochlan that he needed his help the next evening and they left, I couldn’t stay still.
I got to my feet and hobbled out of the bedroom.
Peter was sitting at the table, staring hard into the contents of a cup.
“How are you feeling?” he asked when he heard me enter. “Lochlan said you got hurt yesterday.”
“I’ve been better. I fell and cut myself on the way home, and Lochlan said it’s becoming infected.”
Peter looked up from the cup. “What did he give you for it?”
“He’s been cleaning it with vinegar, but it still hurts like the devil.”
Peter drummed his fingers on the table and went back to studying the cup. “I might have something that can help with that,” he said. There was a quiet intensity to his voice that both interested and frightened me at the same time.
“What?”
Without another word, he handed the cup over to me. I examined it and saw that the milk inside had a shimmering, golden glitter.
“Did you mix in pixie dust?” I asked curiously, swirling it around in a circle. “You weren’t planning to drink this, were you?”
“Pixie dust does more than make people fly,” Peter said in that same low voice. “Drink it.”
I eyed it skeptically. “What does it do?”
“Wards off disease and infection. It isn’t as useful as pixie blood would be for your wound, but it’ll help. Try it.”
“Isn’t it a drug?”
“Not at all.” Peter took the cup back and looked in at the mesmerizing swirls of gold.
“It’s medicine. One of the greatest medicines ever discovered.
I’m sure you think that Roderick and I are doing illegal drug deals, but we’re helping people.
” He locked eyes with me and slowly handed the cup back. “I want to help you, Gil.”