Chapter 15
T he way Bronze saw it, he had, at best, another sixty seconds of patience left on his lit wick before that oak door to the receiving room lived out the rest of its life as wood pulp for toilet paper. And none of that double-ply shit. He wanted splinters.
Phrases like “let him fuck you” and “viper” echoed overloud in his already cramped mind. Funny thing about rage. No one ever talked about how thick and heavy the stuff actually was and how, once someone yanked on its rip cord, it inflated to such unimaginable limits that it forced every sensible thought to get the fuck out or get crushed beneath it.
Every single one of the king’s words that Bronze’s celestial senses picked up stoked the fire that had been carefully banked within him ever since he’d arrived in the keep. But as soon as he heard the horseshit about this Lord Raff keeping Clara in comfort, his composure snapped. He had no problem standing outside the door, playing the part of silent sentinel and getting the side-eye from the lycan guards while daddy and daughter duked it out. Who didn’t love a good stare-down? But for some reason, the idea of Clara not just engaging in contract negotiations but being an actual object of them made his sword hand twitchy.
A contract was an oath. He knew a bit more than most about that subject, but no fucking way would he stand by and listen to Clara being casually listed as a goddamn line item.
Bronze’s fury launched him at the door before the guards got it in their pea brains to look up from their navels. But instead of worn wood scratching against the inside of his forearms as he ripped the oak off its hinges, it was Clara’s soft form that brushed against his skin.
Soft and shaking.
“I . . . I think I need to sit down,” she mumbled against the wall of his chest, her tiny fists balling up his shirt. “Quickly.”
Well, fuck. No one had to tell him to do anything quickly. Ever. Especially not her, after hearing the battle of wills and tongues for which she’d just single-handedly led her own campaign.
Bronze tucked her into his side and hated how slight she felt, even if the warmth of her skin was still cool enough to knock his inferno of fury down by a couple of thousand degrees. Her shoulders were hunched so far forward, she was liable to topple over if he didn’t hold her upright.
“Lady,” one of the guards said, though the lycan kept one eye trained on the room still occupied by the king. A sharp crash resounded from behind the door, followed by the tinkling of glass on hardwood. Another impact, this one forceful and blunted. Furniture, Bronze suspected.
The guard’s worried eyes shifted between his allegiances. “Lady, do you need?—”
“She’s good,” Bronze cut the male off, picked a hallway, and propelled them away from whatever blast zone her father had left behind.
Because an asshole like that always left shit behind.
“Infirmary,” Clara whispered as her grip tightened on him. “Down the stairwell up ahead, then the last door on the right at the end of the hallway.”
“On it.”
Bronze ignored the heavy stares at his back as he guided them through the keep. He kept his eyes trained on the precision of his steps, not wanting to inadvertently trip her, but even traveling the short distance, his peripheral senses picked up on a whole lot of one of these things is not like the other .
As he made it to the bottom of the stairs and escorted them past the kitchen, he caught a glimpse of lycans in black slacks, some in matching black button-down chef’s coats and some in cotton aprons, toiling over pans above a stone hearth. The smoke from the fires vented up through the chimney above the stove, but even with the rudimentary ventilation, an abundance of smoke still filled the space, as if someone had forgotten to switch on the cooking range hoods. Through the smoke, he could just make out the tips of their knives, or at least, he thought he could. Were those black blades? Certainly not stainless steel or even patinated carbon steel. Nor were they the bone-white hue of the weapon worn by the first guard they encountered when they arrived at the keep.
“Here,” Clara said, pointing to the infirmary’s entrance. “Take the first room. I just need a few minutes.”
Bronze tucked them into a room that looked like a hospital’s private suite of sorts. While he closed the door behind them, Clara hobbled over to the bed and collapsed. She had yet to fully open her eyes and instead let her head settle between her legs while she breathed in the faintly sweet air in the room.
He hovered over her, unsure what to do or what to offer, because the only thing he had a mind to focus on was the calibrated arc he’d swing his halberd at to sever the king’s head at just the right spot so the male’s beard didn’t hang lower than the cumulative disappointments of his people.
“Matches are in the top drawer to your left,” she breathed.
Bronze stalled out where he stood. “Matches?”
“For the lights.”
Well, that certainly gave him pause. Though he gathered they were belowground, he couldn’t fathom why the wall sconces adorning the infirmary suite would be anything more than decorative. Generally speaking, fire of any kind was a big no-no in medical settings, much to the plight of many a smoker.
Wait . . .
Bronze finally dropped his pack and walked over to the door he’d just shut, scanning the walls along its perimeter. No light switch. He checked the wall space above the porcelain sink and below the cabinets. Again, no light switch, nor were there any overhead lights or tableside lamps. Then he looked at the sconces once more, inspecting them further. Inside the simple glass cages sat honest-to-God candles.
Fucking candles. In a medical suite.
That out-of-his-element feeling he’d had earlier crept up his spine in slow warning prowls. Worried he was missing a very large piece of the damn puzzle, he found the matches and quickly lit the lamps.
What the flames illuminated was not the picture he wanted to see.
The cot was not so unusual for a hospital, except if it featured none of the electronic aids or metallic handrails he expected. It was little more than a mattress with a hard plastic frame, small resin wheels, and the obligatory set of overwashed mass-produced sheets. The bedside armchair wasn’t anything altogether out of the ordinary either, with its uninspired wooden frame and ho-hum cushion in basic boring beige. There was no blood pressure monitor on the wall, however, nor any rolling IV pole. Without a window to let in any sunlight, flickering shadows danced fast and loose across a stone floor that looked about as hygienic as a borrowed bowling ball at a seven-year-old’s birthday party. No amount of bleach could touch the bacterial critters that stone could store.
The king’s physicians didn’t use linoleum for a medical suite? And mages forbid there was a patient with compromised breathing; how the hell would they maneuver oxygen tanks or respirators next to ye olde flickering fire hazards dotting the walls?
Bronze slowly spun in place, making damn sure he didn’t miss what his suspicion was telling him he’d never find. Impossible.
Even as he thought the word, the truth of his surroundings and what he’d seen ever since he got there solidified into sharp focus. There were no electrical outlets in the room, no hookups for respirators or oxygen, no monitors for vital signs. No ethernet cables or even so much as a damn night-light.
“You don’t use electricity,” he said softly, his words tinged with stunned disbelief.
But Clara must not have heard him, because when he turned to face her, she was just bringing her head up from between her knees and the flush in her cheeks was quickly fading to its more natural rose-kissed hue. “There, I think I’m better now. Oh, goodness, I still can’t believe I did that.”
Whatever realization his brain had landed on seconds ago, and whatever it was so eager to panic about, fled with the insignificance of a runaway thought.
Bronze was no stranger to hefty doses of hubris. Hell, there were times he gorged on the stuff like a recovering vegan attacking a cheese plate. But he’d never seen pride look so perfect as it had on Clara’s features. Her shaking had long since subsided, and her shoulders no longer sagged under the weight of someone else’s expectations. It was her eyes, however, that stunned him the most.
Clear, vibrant, and sparking with an excitement he’d yet to see from her before.
It was more than enough to make him forget about . . . whatever he’d been stressing over a moment ago.
“He’s wrong, you know,” Bronze said, closing the distance between them and taking a seat next to her on the bed, eager to finally rest his injured leg and see for himself that her father had truly done nothing more to Clara than talk to her.
No bruises or red marks on her skin. Good.
Clara gifted him a sad smile, no doubt realizing her feat of strength came at a high cost. “Wrong? About what?”
Her hand lay gripping the edge of the thin mattress, mere inches from his. Owing to no feeling other than instinct, he lifted her hand up and cradled it between his warm palms. The tips of her fingers were still cold, but despite her soft rush of breath, she didn’t pull them away and instead curled them closer into the center of his hands.
The simple touch extended all the way to his core, until his angel fire throbbed with warming recognition.
“I heard what he said to you, and I want you to know that there are worse things to be labeled than a viper. In fact, vipers notoriously get a bad rap, usually by the uninspired or uneducated. They’re low-hanging fruit for nasty metaphors, but in reality, they’re some of the most amazing creatures this realm has ever seen.”
She looked at him quizzically, and a corner of her lips lifted. “Vipers? Are we thinking of the same snakes?”
“Oh, most definitely. Let me tell you something about those beauties. Did you know that, for all the venom they carry, they still have the ability to choose whether to inject their victims?”
Her shoulders bobbed on a snort of disbelief.
“It’s true. They don’t always go for the kill, because they don’t always need to. However, when they’re cornered or feel threatened in any way, they administer an open-mouthed bite, and at the last second, they can make a conscious choice whether to rotate their fangs to avoid lasting damage to their prey. Their true power is being able to wound with a dry bite, but doing so without releasing a drop of venom.”
Her eye roll came right on cue, but he was ready for it. What he wasn’t ready for was her fingers loosening slightly within his grasp and then burrowing further in a way where they found snug homes between his. It wasn’t a tight handhold. Just a tentative linking, but one that he wasn’t so eager to break anytime soon.
“Not only do vipers choose whether to inject their venom, but they also decide how much to dispel.”
“Wouldn’t they always want to kill what threatens them?”
“The snake uses its cunning to take into account many different facets of the situation. Don’t forget, their eyes see more than others do. Their vertical oval-shaped pupils can widen or narrow fully, enabling them to take in more light than their prey would. To see what other creatures can’t. They can also give birth to live young, which, I imagine, affords them some additional perspective on the power they have and choose to wield.”
“You almost make them sound pleasing.”
Pleasing. Yes.
When had his heart ever beat a rhythm so light and happy against the cage of his ribs? Not since the heat of the Empyrean’s sun cycles had warmed his battle skin and he’d shared a laugh or two with another sort of brother.
Under another sort of sky. Under another sort of circumstances.
The remorse came just as it always did whenever he thought of Malik and the promise Bronze had sworn to uphold as he held his dying friend, but this time, it left just as swiftly as it had arrived, chased away by the hope illuminating Clara’s beauty.
And by the mages, she was beautiful. He could no longer pretend he wasn’t affected by it. The truth of it sat warm and secure between his battle-roughened palms and filled other parts of him with an insistent ache.
“I’ve already told you what I find pleasing, princess.”
There. Right there. That was the money shot. The way his heart bloomed when Clara’s shy smile pinned him to the spot was enough to make him want to craft new compliments in new languages just to see that adorable flush creep up her smooth cheeks whenever he said them.
He shook his head, in awe of all he held for once, and whispered, “You have no idea how much strength you carry in your choices. I’ve seen you choose to let three coyotes live, despite the injuries they caused. I’ve heard the love you have for your people and have seen it shine through in soft words with the loudest message. I’ve seen you square off against your king, only to rotate your fangs at the last moment. Trust me, princess, I could not think of any qualities that I’d want more in a monarch.” Then he lifted her clasped hand to his mouth and pressed his lips against her heated skin. “And I’ve never been prouder than to be chosen as your champion.”
The bright mist in her eyes wavered with threads of uncertainty. “You don’t owe me any of those words, you know. That wasn’t part of our arrangement.”
The barb surprised him, and that was perhaps why the sting threw him off course.
Ah. Their arrangement. Yes. She was right to remind him of it, but he was startled to find that he’d lost sight of his primary purpose so easily. The paving stones that guided their short journey had been cemented by his singular focus: get the other half of the relic and return home. Somewhere along the lines, however, the road had altered and swayed from its original course to one that favored frosted hair and shy smiles. Now, when he looked at the angle his boots were pointed toward, it was always decidedly in her direction.
And so far, territorial coyotes notwithstanding, he’d not stumbled over a single step. No, his stride had been surer than ever, emboldened with a purpose that had begun to tip the scales in a direction he hadn’t expected.
Perhaps there was a way to see Clara through this and bring the relic back to his brothers. Was the possibility of two homes so hard to imagine?
It is when there’s someone waiting for you to return. When you made a promise that has yet to be fulfilled.
His jaw tensed, the reminder of his guilt quickly souring his mood.“I’ve got enough debts to last until the stones of this stronghold turn to sand and are swept away by the sea. Believe me, my lady, I’ve learned better than to add a single more debt to the pile. It ain’t happening.”
Without meaning to—or maybe a little bit meaning to—he turned closer toward her, resting more of his thigh on the mattress between them so he could see her more fully. Mages, she truly was stunning, especially how her breasts lifted higher over the collar of her laced-up shirt the longer he held her hand. If he looked close enough, he bet he could make out the flutter of her pulse every time her lips parted on a nervous sigh.
Damn, this was not good. As anyone knew, details fucking mattered, and he sure as shit shouldn’t be homing in on the perfect parts of her that had absolutely zero bearing on whether he could find the?—
“Oh my God, you’re still bleeding! I completely forgot!”
Huh? Bleeding?
Clara ripped her hand from his and, faster than a seagull dive-bombing a french fry-holding beachgoer, had him flat on his back with his legs on the bed. Whatever air rushed out of him had somehow also managed to buffet Clara toward the cabinets on the far wall. When Bronze craned his neck to try and ascertain what she was searching for, he immediately wished he hadn’t. Clara turned toward him sporting a king bed’s worth of gauze, gauze rolls, and some half-filled bottles of dubiously colored liquid.
“Clara, I’m fine. Really. The bites have already started to heal.” But his words were directed to the hollow of her neck and the female’s distracting cleavage that landed him on his back in the first place as she leaned over, nearly smothering him.
Normally, it wouldn’t be a bad way to end an afternoon.
Too bad nothing about their day had been normal.
She yanked his shirt to the side to expose his shoulder wound before shaking her head and letting the fabric fall back to his collar. “How could I have been so careless? Stupid stupid ,” she muttered to herself. She pinched at the hem of his shirt. “Off. Take this off.”
Unfortunately, he fumbled too long with the edge that was half tucked in, and the delay cost him. In the absence of anything to care for, her idle eyes widened with shock, as if remembering a lit candle left too close to a curtain.
He knew that look. That was the look of a female realizing there was something far bigger and bloodier that demanded her attention. Something she missed . Something she was about to correct ASAP.
Shit.
“Oh, no you don’t,” he rushed out and stopped her from yanking his khakis down. One swift tug and she’d get an eyeful of far more than some leg lacerations.
Far, far more.
“Clara.” A painful growl rumbled beneath her name. It was enough of a warning to give her pause.
Thank the mages she’d only managed to lift his shirt free of his waistband. At the rate she was going, if she hadn’t paused with her hands where they were, he didn’t put it past her to get him full-ass trauma naked in less time it would take to douse the candles in the room.
And speaking of which . . .
“As much as I can appreciate your enthusiasm, what’s with all the— Mmph !”
She drew his shirt over his head, stealing his question as well as his few remaining protective barriers. “This is all my fault! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. I should have brought you here immediately and not have wasted time fighting with my father while you stood there, bleeding and brave as you were.”
“Clara, for the last time, I’m fine. I’m immortal, remember?” He tried to grab up her arms, but she was already kneeling over his shoulder, pressing him back into the mattress, with some foul-smelling salve in one hand and a fist full of gauze in the other.
“Oh, this one’s not too bad, actually. It looks like the skin’s already begun stitching closed. Fascinating,” she said, and he had to hold back a chuckle to keep from rocking his body any closer to her breasts, which swayed behind those laces that would take no more than a bite to sever. Maybe two.
Stay still, asshole. Stay absolutely perfectly sti ?—
“Who is Polina?” Clara’s voice took on a quiet resonance. “And why is her name tattooed over your heart?”