65. Chapter 65
Chapter 65
B ack in his room in the castle, I’m watching Cain try to make his way to the bed on his own, despite the horrid state of his wound.
“Let me try to heal you,” I plead for the millionth time since he drove everyone else away with his stupid snarling.
“No,” he grinds out.
I clench my jaw. I’m struggling to process what’s just happened, both the bit with him contracting the virus and the bit with doing it for me .
He seems to be getting delirious, because as he’s stumbling to the bed, he’s mumbling some incoherent stuff about destiny, weakness, smiles… Nothing I can make any sense of, but seeing him like this is only making me softer for him.
I come to block his way, making him stumble back and throw daggers at me. But I don’t care. “You will let me try,” I order.
“No,” he mumbles forcefully, “I’m not letting you touch me.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Seriously?” I drawl. “That’s what you want written on your tombstone then? ‘He was prepared to die so she wouldn’t touch him.’ You’re right, sounds really good, mature and everything.”
“How about, he wasn’t prepared to owe his life to anyone, let alone the biggest pain in the ass this world has ever seen?” he snaps.
I roll my eyes. But this makes me remember how transactional he is about his relationships with people. “Alright,” I keep coaxing, “in exchange for me doing this for you, you’ll owe me a favor.”
Now this gives him pause. “Fine,” he concedes, his body swaying a little in an effort to stay upright.
Quickly, so as not to give him a chance to change his mind, I grab a chair and I make him sit down and hug the backrest. “Take your shirt off,” I order.
He does as he’s told, and just looking at the wound makes me wince, but I don’t want to be wasting any more time. He lets me get close, craning his neck to try to watch me closely as I do.
I place my palms so they’re hovering above his shoulder and start work on healing him. While I do, I come to realize this will take more than one session, potentially many.
It takes me a while, but eventually I wrap up the first session, stopping the bleeding, sealing the wound and taking as much of the poison out as I can in one go.
He doesn’t seem to be in pain any longer.
I should stop now.
But, baffled by the fact that he’d put himself in so much danger to stop me from getting infected and seeing how tense he is, I fail to stop myself.
“Thank you for saving me,” I murmur, both to express my gratitude and distract him from what I’m about to do.
He freezes a little, then mumbles something I don’t understand.
Slowly, gently, I place my hands on his shoulder, pretending to still be working.
He flinches, but he immediately relaxes. And when I increase the pressure and start slowly massaging him, he doesn’t protest.
Gods, he’s all knots. It’s a wonder he’s not snapping with all the built-up tension. I shift my hands so I’m running my thumbs up his nape and he lets out a low, dragged-out groan that sets my blood on fire, because it’s the first sound of pleasure I’ve ever heard him make.
But the very next second, I notice him freeze again.
Then there’s the iron-clad grip of his hand on mine. And then, before I know it, too quickly for me to process it, he’s out of his chair and I’m stumbling back, looking up at him as he throws daggers at me.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I open my mouth to apologize, but he doesn’t wait for an answer.
“You’re forbidden from doing any more healing on me,” he spits out as he starts turning around.
I come to block his way. “You’re not being serious, you’ll need quite a lot of rounds of—”
“No.” His tone is pure ice.
And he does seem so serious, but I’m not buying it any longer. “You know what I think? I think you’re very subtle and clever, but you are drawn to me. That was the reason you wanted to go for that run, wasn’t it?”
He throws me an incredulous look. “That was me manipulating you,” he explains as if to a child.
“And today, you saved my life,” I point out, not planning on giving up.
He grits his teeth. “I only saved you so I could bring you to my father to kill.”
His resistance is making me want to pull my hair out, but I quickly collect myself. I take a step forward and he takes one back. I smile. “Alright, but you are attracted to me, and that doesn’t mean anything in and of itself, but it could given how hard you’re trying to hide it.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” he drawls in a dangerous, warning voice. “There’s nothing you could do that would make me lay a single finger on you ever again.”
I back him up to the wall, my smile only growing. I catch his eyes drop to my mouth for the briefest moment. “I didn’t hear no,” I purr at him. “So this is what I think. I think you enjoyed kissing me the day before yesterday, I think you enjoyed that little glimpse of my mouth you just got, and I think you’re finding yourself imagining it wrapped around your co—”
It’s a sudden, loud sound that cuts me off, my eyes only registering the act after the fact — his fist connecting with the wall behind him and breaking through it. He pulls it out, his chest falling up and down. “ Stop. Talking ,” he punctuates through gritted teeth.
But I only manage to blink at him before he comes to tower over me, in the blink of an eye back to being so completely cold and sneering. “And why are you still here, hm? I have training to do and you’ve already taken up too much of my time.”