Chapter 6 #3
“Broken,” she mutters. “Poorly set, but not catastrophic.”
“Good to know,” I rasp.
She glances up at me, unimpressed. “You’ve also got at least three cracked ribs, significant bruising across your chest, and a concussion, if the way your pupils are reacting means anything.” She pauses, then adds dryly, “Which it usually does.”
“Great.”
“Fantastic, actually. Could’ve been worse.”
She starts cataloguing everything out loud as she works, partly for her own notes and partly, I suspect, to keep me conscious.
“Deep tissue bruising along the spine. Cuts across the shoulders. Ligature marks around the wrists.” She frowns faintly. “And I’m guessing dehydration.”
“Not sure how long I was there,” I say quietly.
“Four days,” Varek answers, his voice snagging.
Her eyes flick up again. “That explains the tremors.”
Varek hasn’t moved since he set me down.
He stands close enough that his presence fills half the room, his broad frame looming beside the table like a wall.
Every so often his gaze flicks to Iris’s hands when she touches me, tracking the movements with that same intense focus he had in the courtyard.
He looks like he wants to intervene every thirty seconds.
Iris notices. “If you hover any closer,” she says without looking at him, “you’re going to block the light.”
Varek doesn’t move.
She sighs. “Fine. Be useless somewhere slightly to the left.”
He shifts half a step. Barely.
I close my eyes briefly, letting my head fall back against the thin pillow as she continues working. My mind drifts unwillingly back to the courtyard, to the Queen’s cold amusement, to the soldiers. To Aelith standing there with his hands bound, his expression carved from stone.
Dawson beside him, looking entirely too cheerful for a man standing in the middle of a royal hostage exchange.
And then the moment we walked away.
“The prince stayed behind,” I say quietly.
Iris pauses briefly but keeps working.
Varek answers after a moment. “Yes.”
“That was the deal?”
“Yes.”
I stare at the ceiling. The cracked paint above me swims slightly in my vision. “They’re still there.”
“Yes.”
I drop my gaze and catch the muscle that jumps in Varek’s jaw. I let out a slow breath.
The image of Aelith facing his mother in that courtyard sits uneasily in the back of my mind, but the alternative had been worse.
A lot worse.
Iris finishes fixing the temporary brace around my arm and begins cleaning the dried blood from a cut along my jaw.
For a while the only sound in the room is the clink of medical tools and the quiet rhythm of her instructions.
“Hold still.”
“I am holding still.”
“You moved.”
“That was breathing.”
Eventually the silence presses too hard against the inside of my skull. I turn my head slightly toward Varek. He’s still watching me with that same relentless focus he’s had since the moment he saw me in the courtyard.
Something inside me snaps. “What the fuck?” I say hoarsely.
Iris pauses mid-movement, and Varek’s eyes shift to mine.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” I continue, the words rough from exhaustion but strained by something deeper underneath. “Letting Aelith go.” I gesture weakly toward the door with my good hand. “For me.”
The bond stirs faintly between us as Varek absorbs the accusation.
Iris glances between us. “Should I—”
“Yes,” Varek says quietly.
She raises an eyebrow. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
She wipes her hands on a cloth and straightens. “Well. Try not to reopen anything important.” Then she steps out of the room, closing the door softly behind her.
The moment it shuts, the atmosphere shifts. The air between Varek and me crackles with something unspoken. For a few seconds, neither of us speaks.
The room still smells faintly of antiseptic and old metal, but beneath that I can catch Varek’s scent now that he’s standing so close.
Smoke and clean sweat and something darker, mineral and storm-like that I have never been able to name.
The same scent that’s lingered in the warehouse after he arrived there a month ago and had begun to feel dangerously familiar.
I push myself up slightly on the narrow medical table despite the protest from my ribs. “I repeat… what the fuck?” I rasp.
Varek’s eyes flick immediately to my chest, tracking the movement the way he has been since we arrived. “Do not—”
“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” I cut in.
The words come out harsher than I intend, but exhaustion and pain are stripping away any polite filters I might otherwise use.
“You let him go,” I continue, anger simmering under the surface. “The prince. You handed him back like it was nothing. For me. He could have made all the difference for the cause.”
Varek’s jaw sets. “That was the exchange.”
“That was insanity.”
The bond between us pulses faintly with something hot and conflicted.
“You traded the Queen’s own son for a mechanic who runs tunnels under a warehouse,” I go on, gesturing vaguely at myself with my good hand. “That’s not strategy, Varek. That’s reckless.”
He doesn’t respond immediately. Up close his expression has lost the controlled neutrality he wore in the courtyard. Something fiercer burns beneath the surface now.
“Do you believe I did not understand the risk?” he asks quietly.
I scoff weakly. “You handed over a royal ally.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re asking if I think you understand risk?”
His eyes flash. “Enough.”
The word hits hard. I fall silent mostly because the intensity in his voice catches me off-guard.
Varek steps closer to the table. Not touching. Never touching without permission. But close enough that the heat of his body bleeds into the air between us.
“I let you go once already,” he says. The words are low, measured, and carefully controlled.
But I can feel the raw emotion beneath them through the bond.
“Almost ten years ago,” he continues. “You told me you would not remain in Dathanor. You told me you would not be bound to me. You told me you needed distance.”
The memory hits like a punch to the ribs. I remember that conversation. God, I remember every word.
“You asked me to let you live your life in the city,” Varek says. His silver eyes hold mine. “And I did.”
Emotion flutters to life in my chest.
“I honoured your wishes,” he goes on. “Every day since.”
I swallow. “That doesn’t mean—”
“Every. Day.”
The force in his voice stops me.
Varek’s control cracks slightly then. “I stayed away,” he says, the words rougher now. “Even when the bond demanded otherwise. Even when every instinct in my body told me to return to you.”
The bond pulses again, echoing the intensity of his emotions.
“You asked for freedom,” he continues. “And I gave it to you.” His voice drops lower. “Do you know what that cost me?”
I don’t answer because the truth is, I’ve tried very hard not to think about that.
Varek exhales slowly. “When I left your warehouse the second time,” he says quietly, “it almost broke me.”
My breaths turn shallow.
“I believed it was what you wanted,” he continues. “So I honoured it.”
He pauses. Then his gaze turns intense.
“And then I learned you had been taken.” Something dangerous flickers through the bond again. “I lost my composure.”
That might be the understatement of the century.
I look away briefly. “You could have been captured. Killed,” I mutter.
Varek doesn’t hesitate. “If that is what was required.”
I stare at him again. “You’re the leader of a rebellion,” I say incredulously. “You don’t get to make decisions like that.”
His expression hardens. “If the decision concerns your life,” he says, “then I absolutely do.”
The words settle between us heavily.
“You were tortured,” he continues, voice rougher now. “You were beaten. You were used as bait.”
I shift uncomfortably on the table. “Occupational hazard.”
His eyes flare. “I will always respect your choices,” he says firmly. “If you ask for distance again, I will give it.”
The bond hums faintly with the weight of that promise.
“But if the choice is between your life and anyone else’s—” He steps closer. “And I mean anyone—” The air feels thinner now. “I will choose you every time.” His voice drops to something almost fierce. “Even if I must lay down my own life to do it.”
The room goes quiet.
My thoughts feel tangled and slow. Part of me wants to argue, to point out the dozens of strategic reasons why that logic makes no sense. But another part of me is too busy trying to process the raw sincerity pouring through the bond.
Ten years is a long time to hold onto anger. Long enough for resentment to become habit, and long enough for hate to feel comfortable.
But being here now, looking at him, feeling the steady certainty of his emotions bleeding through the bond… I realise something uncomfortable.
I don’t hate him anymore. Maybe I haven’t for a while.
My chest tightens again. “You’re an idiot,” I say quietly.
Varek’s brow furrows slightly. “That is not an argument.”
“It’s an observation.”
He studies me carefully. “And yet you do not appear angry.”
I huff weakly. “That’s because I’m too tired.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. For a moment the tension in the room eases slightly. Then the bond pulses again. This time it’s warm, expectant.
And suddenly the words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
“Kiss me.”
Varek freezes. “What?”
“You heard me.”
His gaze drops briefly to the bruising along my jaw. “You are injured.”
“Varek.”
“You should rest first.”
I glare at him. “Shut the fuck up and kiss me already.”
For a second, he just stares. Then something in his expression shifts. He steps forward slowly, cautiously. He lifts one large hand towards my face but stops just short of touching, giving me time to pull away if I want.
I don’t.
His fingers slide gently against my jaw. The contact sends a warm pulse through the bond. Then he leans down.
The kiss starts slow. Careful. His lips brush mine lightly at first, testing the pressure, mindful of the injuries along my mouth. But the moment the contact deepens, the bond surges to life between us.
Heat spreads through my chest… in relief, in recognition. And with something that feels suspiciously like contentment.
I curl my good hand around the front of his armour, pulling him closer.
Varek exhales softly against my mouth, and the kiss deepens even further. It’s still controlled, still careful, but there is unmistakable hunger beneath the restraint.
Ten years of distance. Ten years of unresolved tension. Ten years of stubborn denial. All of it hums beneath the surface of this single kiss.
His thumb strokes lightly along the edge of my jaw. The tenderness in the gesture nearly undoes me.
Eventually we both pull back. Mostly because my lungs decide they need oxygen again. My head feels pleasantly light. Probably a combination of pain, exhaustion, and the emotional chaos of the past few hours.
Varek stays close. His forehead rests lightly against mine for a moment.
My body suddenly remembers how tired it is. The adrenaline that kept me upright earlier is fading fast.
Varek notices immediately. “You need sleep.”
“No argument there.”
He hesitates slightly. “Do you wish to remain here,” he asks quietly, “or return to Dathanor proper?”
The answer comes easily. “To Dathanor,” I mumble. My eyelids feel heavy now. “Just… somewhere that smells of you.”
The bond flares softly with something warm and surprised. Varek doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he slides one arm carefully beneath my shoulders and the other under my knees, lifting me again.
I’m vaguely aware of voices outside the room. Of Iris saying something about broken bones and stubborn patients. Of someone else laughing quietly. But everything feels distant.
The last thing I really notice is Varek’s scent surrounding me as he carries me deeper into the rebel compound. Then there is a mattress beneath me and fabric that smells like him.
It’s warm and safe. Then the darkness of sleep finally claims me.