Chapter 3 #2
“There’s only one bed,” I said, the words sharp even through the exhaustion.
The sound of wood hitting wood punctuated the silence as he dropped an armful of dry logs by the fire before kneeling to stack them with practiced ease.
“I’m taking the couch,” he said.
I glanced toward the small couch, too short and narrow for his broad frame. A flicker of irritation sparked inside me. Why was he so stubborn? Clearly, I should take the couch.
As if hearing my thoughts, Nala hopped onto the couch and curled up. She let out a long, exaggerated sigh.
I narrowed my eyes at my conniving familiar. We didn’t speak into each other’s minds, but it certainly felt like she read mine sometimes.
As if to prove my point, Nala lifted her head and yawned at me.
Ace paused, his gaze flicking to my familiar. He pressed his lips together but didn’t say anything.
“Looks like your spot is taken.” I shifted the blankets in my arms, my throat dry, my limbs aching, my body longing to flop face-first into the bed. “We can share.”
Ace paused his wood stacking but didn’t turn to face me. “I think that’s a bad idea.”
“I think it’s a worse idea for one of us to lay down on that poor excuse of a couch and not get any sleep at all.” I swallowed, forcing myself to climb onto the edge of the bed, the thin mattress dipping under my weight.
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he stood stiffly and left the cabin again, presumably to get more wood. While he worked on that, I attempted to make the loft bed more comfortable with additional sheets.
It didn’t take long for Ace to stack a healthy pile of logs and get the hearth roaring. When he finished, he called up from the bottom of the ladder. “Mouse?”
“Yeah?”
“We should clean and bandage your wound.”
That sounded like a terrible idea. “It’s fine.”
“It was still bleeding when we arrived.”
I pulled the sheet over the thin mattress and glanced down in my arm. The poison may not have affected me like the last time I came into contact with it, but my wound wasn’t healing as quickly as similar injuries from the past.
“It will be fine,” I amended.
“As much as I like to fight with you over every little thing, could we not do this? You have a wound that needs tending. I have wounds that need tending, and I’m too phaaning exhausted to squabble.”
Well, now I felt like an asshole.
I was an asshole.
I had forgotten about Ace’s burns.
No. That wasn’t true. I didn’t forget about them so much as forgot they needed tending. He had a way of carrying himself as if he could take on the world. His confidence was both infectious and irritating. But he wasn’t a bonded immortal like me. He wasn’t as invincible as he seemed.
I turned toward the ladder. “Coming.”
To Ace’s credit, he knew better than to wait at the bottom of the ladder with a smug expression on his face. By the time I made it down to the ground floor, he had cushions and a med kit laid out by the fireplace. He stood in the flickering light looking as exhausted as I felt.
“Looks like you were better at stocking medical supplies than food,” I said. “Do you want to go first?”
He hesitated, shoulders tense, his dark brown gaze shadowed from the dim light of the fireplace. With a sigh sounding more like a surrender than an agreement, he nodded.
I waved at his torso, and he reached for the hem of his shirt.
The fabric, torn and stained with soot and blood, clung to his skin in places where dried sweat had turned it stiff.
I opened my mouth to say something. Did I want to stop him?
Did I want a moment to prepare myself? The words tangled in my throat as he peeled the shirt away.
The firelight flickered, catching along the curve of his back as he turned and my breath caught. Beneath the soot and grime, lean muscle moved like coiled wire under his olive skin. But it wasn’t the strength of him that made my chest tighten, it was the damage.
Raw, blistered burns marred his back where the fire had kissed him too long, and angry red streaks cut across his shoulder blades where wood had splintered into him. Arrows had nicked his sides, leaving shallow wounds now crusted over with dry blood.
He sustained these injuries for me.
For me and Nala.
Something tightened around my chest, squeezing all the air from my lungs.
“You need to work on your bedside manner,” he said.
I’d slap him for that but there was nowhere to slap without causing pain. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need to,” he muttered.
The silence thickened between us. Outside, the wind whispered through the trees, a soft moan through the branches.
“I grabbed some water.” Ace stretched out his arm and pointed at the bowl with a washcloth soaking inside. “It’ll need to be cleaned,” he added, like I didn’t see the state of his back.
“I’m not an idiot,” I said.
“Never said you were,” he said. “Did it ever cross your mind that I might be nervous about you tending to my wounds?”
“Scared?” I reached out and gripped the washcloth with both hands to wring out the water.
“No,” he said. “I’ve decided to trust you.”
“Out of the two of us, I haven’t given you any reason not to trust me.”
Ace grunted, like he didn’t agree with my statement but chose to let it go. Which was total bullshit, because I hadn’t lied about anything.
Well…
Nothing that should make him doubt how I’d tend his wounds, anyway.
I reached for the cloth and dipped it in the water. Stepping closer, I pressed the wet cloth to his skin gently. I squeezed the cloth so the water would run down his back and flush out the wounds.
“I just know this is going to hurt like a—” Instead of finishing his sentence, Ace hissed and then cursed. He didn’t pull away.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
He shook his head, jaw clenched. “Don’t apologize.”
I dabbed at the burns, carefully working around the worst of them. The scent of charred wood still clung to his skin. My hand trembled once, but I forced it steady.
“You ran into a burning building for me,” I said quietly.
“For Nala,” he corrected, but there was no real edge in his voice.
I looked up at him, the side of his face half-lit by firelight, his lashes casting faint shadows on his cheek. “That was brave.”
“So was staying outside to fight off the hunters,” he said, turning just enough for our gazes to meet. “We can both do brave things for the people we care about.”
Something pulled in my chest then, low and slow and impossible to ignore. I didn’t look away, and neither did he.
The fire crackled. The wind whispered outside again.
Tearing my gaze away, I worked methodically, cleaning the burnt fabric and dirt from the burns and cuts as best I could. He’d received these injuries saving Nala. If only I could take away the pain for him, too.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For letting you live out your dream as a torturer?”
“For saving Nala,” I said.
He tensed under my ministrations for a moment, breathing steadily but otherwise remaining still as if he expected me to say or do something else.
When I continued to tend to his burns, he relaxed. “You’re welcome.”
The fire crackled low in the hearth, its light flickering over the worn wooden walls of the cabin like a heartbeat.
Ace stood close, too close. Bare-chested, raw and open, a fresh bandage wrapped around his shoulder where I’d cleaned a deep cut. The scent of singed cedar clung to him.
“I think that’s the last of it,” I said. My fingers trembled slightly as I finished tying off the bandage. “You’re lucky you didn’t pass out in that fire.”
“I’m too stubborn to die,” he said, voice low and rough like gravel.
I snorted. “I believe that.”
“Your turn,” he said.
I stiffened. “I can do it myself.”
“Em.”
When he used my name instead of calling me Mouse, it did something to me—something I wasn’t ready or willing to name.
I swallowed the sting of pride and sat down on the cushions.
I peeled off my shirt and flung it to the side so Ace could see the arrow wound on my upper arm better.
The effects of the poison had already faded, burned away by the phaanon magic in my blood, but the skin was torn, angry, and slow to knit.
Ace didn’t join me right away. Instead, he found a fresh shirt to pull on, retrieved a new cloth, and changed out the water I’d used to clean his wounds. While I waited, I basked in the heat from the fireplace and tried not to let my eyelids close for too long.
Soon enough, Ace knelt beside me and placed a fresh basin of water beside us. His hands were gentler than I expected.
“I saw the arrow hit you,” he said quietly, voice tight. “I thought the poison—”
His touch lingered longer than necessary, and I should have pulled away. I should have told him not to look at me like that, like I mattered. But phaan, I didn’t want him to stop.
“You’re healing fast,” he said, trying for clinical, failing miserably.
I forced a smile. “Perks of being the cursed immortal.”
“Not cursed,” he said, and for a moment, just a breath, I believed him.
But I was cursed. I would outlive everyone I knew and cared for while keeping my phaanon ancestry secret.
Ace dressed the wound carefully, fingers brushing bare skin as he tied the bandage. I didn’t breathe until he stood and offered his hand. I pulled my shirt back on and then placed my hand in his.
He led me to the ladder, and I climbed into the loft ahead of him.
My whole body ached with weariness, the kind that made every limb feel twice as heavy.
But when I lay on the lumpy mattress and pulled the scratchy blankets over me, a chill crept in.
My body was too tired to warm itself. Shock had finally set in.
I curled inward and clenched my teeth.
Ace moved beside me. He slid under the covers, warm and solid. He didn’t ask. He just reached out, pulled me close, and folded me into the length of his body like I belonged there. Like I always had.
His arms wrapped around me, one over my waist, the other beneath my neck, and I let myself melt into him. The steady rise and fall of his chest against my back, the strength in his arms, and the soft press of his chin into my hair forced the shivering cold away.
I wanted to lay awake and enjoy the comfort and warmth Ace offered. I wanted to imagine more happening—of turning around in his arms, of clothes being peeled away, and a hot mouth and wicked tongue exploring my skin. I wanted to feel more. Have more.
Instead, I fell asleep in the safety of his embrace.