Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"Ivar."
The moment he heard her voice, the rest of the world ceased to exist.
The roar of the warehouse fire, the frantic shouts of his men, and even the concussive shock of the second explosion that rocked the dock. It all faded into a dull, distant hum.
Her voice cut through the chaos like a jagged blade finding the gap in a knight’s plate. Ivar didn’t think. His body moved on an instinct older than his name, his feet eating the distance toward the passage before his mind had even mapped the direction.
The alley was a narrow throat of stone, choked with low-clinging smoke that tasted of oil and ash. He plunged in without slowing.
He saw the first man’s back, and that was all he needed.
Ivar didn't stop to challenge him. He didn’t announce his presence.
The bastard was reaching for Matilda with both arms, and Ivar took him from behind with his left hand, using his right just once. It was a single, savage motion, economical and final. The man’s neck snapped with a sound like a dry branch, and he went down without a whimper.
Ivar was already stepping over the settling body before it hit the cobbles.
The second man spun around, his eyes wide behind a rough mask. He had time to raise an arm in a pathetic defensive reflex, and that was all.
Ivar caught the wrist, redirected the momentum with a bone-deep jar, and drove the man into the stone wall with enough force to crack the mask. The man dropped like a stone, alive but drawing short, wet pulls of air.
He’ll live long enough tae bleed fer answers later.
"Ivar." Her voice was a ragged tremor.
He turned.
She was pressed against the soot-stained wall, her hair a wild, dark tangle. She held a small belt knife he’d given her with both hands, the blade steady even as her chest heaved. A shallow cut across her forearm wept red, the blood stark and hot against her pale skin.
He crossed to her in two strides. He didn't ask permission. He took her face his hands, his palms rough and soot-streaked against her skin. He checked her with ruthless efficiency.
"Are ye hurt?"
"Nay." Her chin was steady, but her jaw was locked tight against the trembling she refused to show.
"The arm. It's bleedin'."
"It's naethin'."
"Let me see."
"Ivar, I'm fine."
"Let. Me. See."
The command was low, vibrating with a possessive heat.
She held out her arm, and he turned it in the flickering orange light of the distant fires, assessing the depth of the cut.
It was shallow. She was right, it was a scratch, but the sight of her blood made a primal knot in his gut tighten.
He released her, and the tension that had been pulled to a snapping point since the warehouse had exploded eased by a single, narrow fraction.
She was looking at him, her hazel eyes blown wide, holding herself together by sheer will.
"Callum," she whispered, the name a curse between them. "His men. They said his name."
"I ken." He kept his voice a flat, iron calm. "We need to move. Now."
He caught her hand, his fingers lacing through hers, and started forward. That was when a third man lunged from the roiling smoke at the passage entrance, low and fast, his blade extended with murderous intent.
Ivar pivoted on reflex, twisting to shield her, but he took the angle wrong. He felt the steel slide in below his right ribs. A cold, specific pressure that his body registered with a sickening jolt before the pain even arrived.
He didn't falter.
He brought his elbow down on the attacker's forearm and felt the radius snap. The man’s grip on the hilt didn't release, so Ivar used the momentum against him, wrenching the angle until the man was forced to the ground. He hit the stone with a dull thud and did not rise again.
Torvald materialized through the grey haze, his claymore drawn and red. He took in the carnage in a single, sweeping glance.
"Ivar." Torvald’s voice went flat.
Ivar became aware, in a distant and clinical way, that his right hand was pressed against his side and that his palm was slick and wet.
A deep, bone-seeping cold began to spread from his ribs.
That was the trick of the blade. The bite didn't register until the blood started to run, and then the reality arrived with a deafening roar.
He looked at Matilda.
She was already staring at his side. Her face had shattered. The "held-together" mask was gone, replaced by a raw, naked terror she wasn't managing at all.
"It’s nae bad." he started, his voice a gravelly rasp. “I promise.”
"Dinnae," she snapped, her voice a whip. "Dinnae ye dare say that."
He opened his mouth to argue, but the world suddenly tilted.
His left knee buckled before he could command it to hold. The passage wall caught his shoulder, and Torvald was there an instant later, a massive arm braced across Ivar’s chest before he could hit the cobbles.
"Right," Torvald muttered, his voice grim. "We're movin'."
The last thing Ivar registered clearly was Matilda's hand, surprisingly small but iron-firm, wrapped around his wrist. Her voice was the last anchor in the rising tide of dark, quiet, and steady, calling his name.
It was the only thing that stayed with him as the edges of the world began to bleed into black.
She’s nae going tae like this, he thought with the last scrap of his consciousness.
The darkness claimed him before he could act on his promise.
The healer's room was tucked into the cold stone belly of the keep, smelling of iron, dried yarrow, and the looming scent of blood.
Torvald carried Ivar inside with two of his best men, and he would not let Matilda take an ounce of the weight, no matter the fierce, low-voiced commands she leveled at him.
Matilda followed at his shoulder, her jaw set, her silence louder than any protest.
The healer was a wiry man named Oswin, with forearms like gnarled oak branches and the brisk, impersonal manner of a man who had seen too much death to waste breath on sentiment. He took one look at Ivar laid out on the heavy oaken table, then looked at Matilda and pointed at the door.
"Out."
"Nay."
"Lady Matilda."
"I said nay." She moved past him to the table, her voice low and dangerous. She didn't raise it, she didn't have to. She looked at the wound, at the dark, spreading stain across Ivar’s tunic, and turned toward the supply shelves. "Where is yer linen?"
Oswin stared at her and for a heartbeat he didn’t answer.
"Yer linen," she repeated, her tone a sharp edge. "And the needle. And the spirits. Where?"
The pause stretched, heavy and still, as Oswin watched her face. He was a sensible man. He must have seen the heat in her eyes and realized he was standing in the path of a storm, for he didn't argue. He simply gestured to the shelf on the left wall and stepped back, clearing her way.
She pulled Ivar’s tunic up, her fingers trembling only once before they stilled. She pressed a clean cloth against the jagged mouth of the wound and leaned her weight behind both hands. She refused to look at his face. If she saw the unnatural stillness of his features, her hands would fail her.
The important thing, her anchor, was that he was breathing. She felt the heavy, rhythmic thrum of it against her palms. It was what she needed to calm down even if just a fraction.
Oswin worked with grim, silent speed. She kept the field clear for him.
Wiping, pressing, and holding the other side of the wound as he threaded the needle.
When the first stitch pierced the skin, Ivar’s muscle jumped beneath her hands.
She pressed harder, her body a shield, keeping him anchored to the earth.
He was still unconscious. For that, she offered a silent, desperate prayer of thanks.
Torvald remained in the doorway, a silent sentinel. He didn't speak. He simply watched with the eyes of a man who understood his own helplessness. Matilda appreciated that more than she could put into words.
Oswin placed the final stitch, knotted the thread with a sharp, precise tug, and sat back.
The quiet that followed was a different kind of silence. It wasn't the frantic, focused hush of the work, but the hollow, aching quiet of waiting for a verdict.
He took a cloth and wiped his hands. He did it slowly, his fingers tracing the stained fabric, and she understood the delay; he was hunting for the right words to tell her how much of Ivar was left.
"The blade was clean," he said.
She didn't look at the healer. She kept her eyes fixed on Ivar's face, on the hard, pale line of his jaw and the way his lashes lay dark against his skin. "What daes that mean?"
"Nay rust. Nay grime carried in by the steel." Oswin set the cloth down on the wooden bench. "The wound itself is nae the primary danger. It missed the vitals, by less than I'd like, but it missed them."
He paused, his gaze moving to the heavy bandaging at Ivar's shoulder. "The bleeding has stopped. If he wakes in the next hour, that’s a good sign."
"And if he daesnae?"
Oswin looked at her steadily. She felt him measuring her, recalibrating his answer based on the stillness of her posture and the lack of a tremor in her hands. He was deciding how plainly she wanted the truth.
She kept her face plain, a mask of cold Highland resolve.
"Then we wait longer," he said. "And we watch fer fever. That’s the enemy now, Lady Matilda.
Nae the wound. The wound I can manage with a needle and poultice.
The fever," He exhaled a long, weary breath through his nose. "The fever daes what it likes. If it comes, it’ll come taenight, in the dark hours. That’s when the tides turn. "
She said nothing for a moment, the weight of the night pressing against the stone walls of the infirmary.
"What dae I dae?" she said. "When it comes."