Chapter 15 Lots of Rest for the Wicked
Lots of Rest for the Wicked
Brioni
Brioni had thought it all a dream—first a bad one and then a good one. A very good one. One where a man with big, strong arms carried her to bed and tucked her in and kissed her on her forehead.
But when she opened her eyes, that man was a demon instead.
And that was even better.
Ragnar’s broad back was turned to her, tail gently flicking back and forth as he stirred a pot hung inside the fireplace.
She liked that tail, liked the color of it and its strong, muscled shape, and the way it moved too, gently swaying back and forth and making her so, so sleepy.
Tails were funny, though, weren’t they? Kat had to sew up so many holes to make the demon’s clothing work for the humans.
But Brioni still liked Ragnar’s tail. She liked it the most, in fact. And she liked him…
Maybe it was minutes later or hours or days, but once Brioni blinked a few times, she recognized the loft from the day she met Ragnar, the warm wooden walls glowing under real candlelight, the crocheted blanket thrown over the saggy little couch, the tidy chaos of a chest of drawers stuffed full beside the door with daily necessities stacked atop it.
Perched on the bedside table was the papercraft of Moar she’d gifted him, and the real dog lay curled at her feet, warming her toes and her heart.
It could have been under much better circumstances, but it appeared Brioni had finally made it into Ragnar’s bed, and she wiggled happily into the down of the blankets.
The dog gave her away then, whimpering and pawing at her as she stirred, and Ragnar turned in alarm. “You’re awake,” he said breathlessly, eyes darting around the loft for a solution to a problem that didn’t exist.
She nodded, snuggling deeper then inhaling sharply.
She was on her side, but pain seared over her upper leg like a hot pan had been pressed to her skin.
Then, as if to add misery atop the misery, her deep breath brought the smell of whatever supposedly delicious thing was being cooked, and it made her stomach turn over.
Ragnar rushed to her side, hands out and eyes wide. “What hurts? Your stomach? Your leg? Something else?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly and grinned up at him because she just couldn’t be more of a bother than she already was, but it must have come off as a grimace because he tipped his horned head and narrowed his eyes to disbelieving slits.
“Okay, everything,” she admitted, a vision of blood glinting in the moonlight filling her head.
“We’ll start with your leg.” Ragnar pushed back the linens and lifted her shift. Now that should have been thrilling, but the clinical look he gave her body was far from the starved indecency she hoped to inspire with her bare legs.
The bandage covering her thigh was pasted on with some sort of plant-like goop, and he peeled it back slowly, the sting nothing in comparison to the pain she’d felt before.
She craned her neck to see the wound then cringed.
A pink line ran from her knee to her hip, bloodless and looking so old and healed that she was embarrassed by her reaction.
“More illofras and a new wrapping,” he said to himself and paced to his corner kitchen where a table was filled with tinctures and other supplies neatly organized into stacks.
He snatched what he needed and returned to her, hands surprisingly soft even with their callouses as they moved over her skin.
He rubbed in what she had to assume was illofras, its minty smell simultaneously soothing her stomach.
“Is that meant for veilhounds?”
He snorted, fingers moving in small circles along the wound. “Of course not. It’s for kewniqs.”
Snickering, she squeezed the pillow a little tighter against her cheek.
“Does it hurt?”
She shook her head and meant it, but she wanted to scoff—of course it didn’t hurt, he was touching her.
“You shouldn’t feel this in another day or two, but we’ll have Balran take a look when she comes. Are you hungry yet or—”
She shook her head much harder. “Might throw up, actually.”
“I have something to ease that for now, but I expect you’ll be starved tomorrow. What do you like best to eat?”
“Toasted cheese,” she mumbled as she pressed her face fully into the pillow, depressed at the thought of her favorite food making her want to barf.
Ragnar grunted in understanding and then slipped a hand between her knees to lift her leg.
Brioni’s head jolted back up, but all Ragnar did was wrap a new bandage around her thigh one-handed, propping her leg just enough to give himself space.
If he lifted it a little higher, his hand could drift all the way to her center, but he was so focused on the work she was sure he’d forgotten she even had a center, which was probably a good thing when she was defenseless and bedridden, but a girl could dream.
When he gently placed her leg back down and pulled her shift and the linen into place, she pouted. “No wonder the veilhounds like you so much—you’re an expert.”
“Well, I trained to be a healer when I was yellow,” he said as he stood.
Brioni’s mouth fell open as she watched him return to the hearth to stir the pot over the fire. Even her nausea at another whiff of a pork-like meat simmering in a sage-like broth didn’t deter her. “Like Balran?”
Ragnar gazed down at his meal then finally nodded. “Like Balran. Like Rand. Like Samarath and Javerax and Maltazan.” He swallowed. “And like my mother.”
Up on her elbow, Brioni blinked any bleariness left in her eyes away. She had a hundred questions, but she knew if she could wait quietly, she was more likely to get answers. Moar yawned from her feet and rolled onto his side.
“She served in the guard, so not quite like Balran at the infirmary. She was fast, strong, skilled, but it didn’t matter in the end.
Some magic gone amok at the Scholar’s Hall was released out into the Dreadmoor and corrupted two sarthisci.
Drove them mad and right to our border. Her squad didn’t stand a chance, but they stopped the monsters from breaching the city. ”
Brioni’s heart sank, but it understood Ragnar’s reactions to learning she’d been wandering the woods and the Scholar’s Hall a little better.
“I lost my color a year after she died.” He went to the table, brow furrowed as he shifted around the already orderly piles.
“My father blamed himself because he was blue. Demons mingle with other colors all the time, and we don’t know for certain why anyone goes gray and loses their magic, but angry demons will pin it on anything.
Not that it mattered much—he was never the same once she was gone either. And then he got sick.”
Brioni bit her cheek, her own mother dancing into her mind, happy and healthy until she wasn’t, until she couldn’t be.
“The city had a sickness. The healers were overwhelmed. I was fifteen, but if I’d still had my color…” He held his hands out in front of him and stared at his stony palms. “Maybe I could have saved him.”
Brioni’s willpower to sit and listen silently was only so strong, which is to say it was actually rather weak, and she swung her legs over the edge of the bed despite the pain.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to give you a hug,” she whined as she tried to stand and collapsed back into the bed.
Ragnar hurried over, probably intent on getting her to lay back down, but she was quicker for once, wrapping her arms around him and crushing her cheek to his hip as she squeezed.
“I’m so sorry, Ragnar, but you know it wasn’t your fault, right? Even if you’d had the magic. None of it was your fault. Please tell me you know.”
The demon stiffened under her awkward hug. “It…probably wasn’t my fault.”
She squeezed him harder and growled.
“I do understand that the sickness was not my fault.” He huffed out a laugh, and a hand touched the top of her head. “But this is why,” he said carefully. “Why I am…like this.”
She wasn’t sure if he meant gray or grumpy, but it didn’t matter, he didn’t need to explain. “I like you however you are.” From the foot of the bed, Moar whimpered in agreement.
Ragnar’s touch changed from a careful pat to something much warmer, fingers lacing into her curls.
His body descended in her hold until he knelt before her.
“I’m sorry I was so unkind to you, Brioni.
I was a fool for telling you to leave when you had done something so wonderful, but I was ashamed that I couldn’t bring the water rune into town myself to have it fixed.
It’s bad enough I’ve lost my magic, but facing the others…
” He shook his head, jaw working in silence as his eyes flicked down, but then they lifted to her again.
“You were right that I needed your help, but admitting that felt unfair to you, like it might make you think you have to keep helping when I don’t deserve it.
I should have been grateful for your gifts from the beginning.
For your help and for your friendship. I’ve never known anyone like you, anyone who makes me feel like you do, and I didn’t… ”
As his words trailed off, his face went soft and kissable again, and she cupped her hands under his jaw to smooth her thumbs over his gray skin. It still looked silver to her, especially when the candlelight flickered over his cheeks. “Well, that’s too bad.”
Black eyes went wide, and his mouth fell open.
“Because I don’t want to just be friends.”
Ragnar’s mouth twitched up into a grin, and his hands encircled her waist. Pain forgotten, Brioni’s lids floated down and her lips parted.
Finally, she thought as she leaned forward, I get to kiss him and show him just how much I like him and how well we go together and how perfect everything can be and—
Her stomach lurched, and she slapped a hand over her mouth before the vomit could come.