Chapter 15 Lots of Rest for the Wicked #2
“Oh, gods, I forgot,” Ragnar murmured, slipping an arm under her legs and swinging her back into the bed so she could sit up against the headboard. “Balran warned me not to get distracted.”
Moar climbed up beside her and laid his head in her lap. The softness of his fur helped alleviate some of the somersaults in her stomach but none of the ache in her heart at the missed kiss.
“It’s the antidote,” Ragnar explained as he went to the table of medicinal goods.
“Demons experience these symptoms too, but not as intensely, so it reasons that our remedies should also work. Here.” He brought her a small green bottle with a label that read Perennial Bloom Apothecary in swooping letters styled to look like purple vines.
“Aww, so pretty. Is this from Ki—” And then she got a whiff as he uncorked it.
“One of Kizros’s concoctions, yes. Good for sour stomachs, congestion, and tail fatigue. Drink it.”
She shook her head, pushing back into the pillow as he moved it closer to her face. “I don’t have a tail.”
“Maybe this will grow you one.” He sat on the bed’s edge and lifted her hand to wrap it around the bottle. “But you do have a stomach.”
“And it already feels gross,” she moaned taking another sniff and remembering every time she retched into a bucket in the infirmary. “What’s in this?”
“I try not to ask.” He urged the bottom of the glass up so it tilted closer to her lips. When she pushed it away, he clicked his tongue. “You will be taking this, Brioni.”
She shook her head hard as her guts rumbled angrily.
“There’s nothing inside you to come up,” he said, and she felt his hand press to her belly.
Even with the linen between them, his touch was a warm lull against the roiling that wanted to surge upward.
“I cannot imagine dry heaving will be very enjoyable. This will help, I promise. I wouldn’t give you anything you don’t really need. Please, trust me.”
Brioni swallowed against the burning in her throat.
She did trust Ragnar, and she was already weak with sleepiness sneaking back in anyway.
The tonic would fix things one way or another, she just hoped it wouldn’t end with her doubled over the edge of the bed ruining the floorboards.
She shut her eyes tight, plugged her nose, and drank.
It was bitter and spicy, probably what licking the side of Kaly’s face would be like, but she sucked down half the bottle and then pushed it away, dramatically taking a huge gulp of air.
“That’s all I can do! No more! It’s awful! ”
Ragnar chuckled, recorking the horrid potion and setting it on the side table. “That’s more than I expected a human would be able to take.” He slipped a hand under her chin to hold her shaking head still and smoothed a thumb over her cheek. “You did a very good job for me, Bri.”
Brioni wasn’t the praying type, but she called on every god then to heal her immediately so she could pounce on the massive demon who was stroking her face and telling her she was good.
“I could probably swallow more if you want me to.” She licked her lips and knitted her brows, but apparently she hadn’t been good enough to have the desire flaring between her legs sated because Ragnar only gave her a smirk before leaving her to sink down into the bed linens alone.
At least they were Ragnar’s bed linens.
Brioni tugged them up to her nose, took a deep breath of demon man, and sighed.
Fresh hay and campfire didn’t turn her stomach over at all.
Or maybe that nasty tonic was already working, not that she would give Ragnar or Kizros the credit with the taste still offending the back of her throat.
She wiggled her toes and took stock of the huge bed—enough room for herself, Moar at the foot, and Ragnar’s massive body beside her—and then studied his home again.
The slanted ceiling hosted two windows above the bed that let in the moonshine, but otherwise it was all dark wood and dancing candlelight.
The kitchen was tucked into the far corner and the hearth was built into the middle of the back wall, warming the entire space as it cooked.
There was a door in the corner where she assumed the toilet was hidden, but a massive basin with a rune-marked faucet sat right out in the open.
A vision flashed in her mind of Ragnar lounging naked inside the tub, and that had her snickering into the linen.
If she was going to be bedridden, this was definitely the place to do it.
And bedridden she was. Ragnar insisted on carrying her everywhere, sadly without tossing her over any shoulders, but being cradled carefully in his arms was almost as good.
If she tried to do anything on her own, she would be snatched and placed back into bed with chastising if sweetly tinged words.
So of course she kept trying. The only detriment seemed to be to Moar, perpetually confused by Ragnar’s barked out orders to sit and stay when the dog was already doing just that at the foot of the bed.
No one had ever doted on Brioni before, and perhaps it was a little unfair to keep asking for things, and maybe it was a lot unfair to keep challenging Ragnar when he made her take medicine or stay put, but she had over twenty years to make up for, and it was finally clear that he really did like her.
Because no one, especially not a demon who didn’t seem to like anybody, would put up with her like this.
Brioni wasn’t ready to go back to work, though, even Balran said so when she checked in the next day.
Her wounds were healing and her legs worked, but Brioni’s stomach dithered between ravenous and nauseous, her body shivered one moment and sweated buckets the next, and she fell asleep at the most inopportune times including once with a half-completed papercraft on her pillow that she ruined with drool.
Ragnar slept too, but on the floor, which was the only insistence he made that she truly hated and didn’t just pretend to be annoyed by.
So in the night, her hand would find its way over the edge of the bed to play with his hair or stroke his shoulder.
He acted as though he was asleep, but she knew he wasn’t, not entirely, because he always turned into her touch.
During the day, he would go downstairs to the barn and take care of things but return every few hours to check on her.
She always had at least one small request, even if it was just fluffing the pillows, and he did it all with profound concentration, care, and a sneaky smile he tried to hide.
One afternoon, she woke to the smell of something glorious, hunger making such a triumphant return that she begged for whatever was sizzling on the hearth in a voice that was whiny by accident rather than put on.
Ragnar grinned widely and presented her with a plate of crispy-looking, golden flakes.
She picked up one and wiggled it, and it remained stiff.
“Toasted cheese,” Ragnar said with a kind of pride he’d never expressed before, all of his pointed teeth on display and his tail flicking nervously behind him.
Brioni bit her lip and giggled. There was no bread beneath and no gooeyness to the cheese, but when she popped one into her mouth, it was crispy, salty, and exactly what she needed. “Even better than how they make it in Ankerick.”
Kat and Alamar came to visit once too. The demon postmaster looked on the verge of tears as she fussed over the state of the loft—perfectly clean, except that she found a cup of cold tea and declared the whole room a disaster—and Kat handed over a sackful of yivie tarts before pulling Brioni into a hug that surprised both women.
That was perhaps one of the worst things, if only because it came with guilt.
Brioni resolved to heal much more quickly after that, waiting until Ragnar went downstairs to work and getting herself out of bed to stretch her limbs and tidy whatever she could find.
Ragnar caught her once because Brioni had been humming a bit too loudly to hear him on the stairs as she scrubbed a pan in the kitchen. He snatched her up from behind and hustled her back to bed despite her protests.
“You know you aren’t supposed to be up,” he chided, tucking her in. “If I find you doing chores again, I’ll tie you to the bedposts.”
She gasped and gripped his neck before he could pull away. “Promise?”
“No,” he answered too quickly, though his eyes traced down to her chest. “At least not until you feel better.”
“I do feel better,” she chirped, scratching at the back of his neck and watching his eyelids sink at her touch.
He took a deep breath, one of resolve that she’d seen too many times over the past few days whenever she gave him a too-sultry smile or protested his rules.
Ragnar lifted his hands to either side of her neck, squinting as he discerned something healer-ish, probably.
“You’re lying. Another tick against you in the bad behavior book. ”
“You’re keeping track?” Brioni’s heart jolted at the thought of how thick such a tome would be.
“You’ll find out,” he mumbled as he slipped out of her needy fingers and grabbed another blanket to pile atop her like it might be easier if there were more layers between them.
Brioni felt herself flush, this time not from the antidote or even the extra linens. “I don’t believe you. You’re too gentle, even when I don’t want you to be.”
Ragnar tried to hide his grin, but it came anyway. “This isn’t about what you want. It’s about what you need,” he said, striding back to the door. “For now.”