Chapter 10 #3
“You’re still burning,” he said, palm brushing my forehead. His touch felt like ice. “You need layers off or you’ll cook yourself from the inside.”
“We’re really leaning into the romance tonight,” I murmured.
“Shut up,” he said softly. “Please.”
The “please” did more damage than the admonishment.
I lifted my arms slightly in surrender. “Fine. Strip me, but I’m not gonna dance for you.”
His jaw flexed, but he didn’t rise to the bait.
He unfastened the buttons of my shirt, each flick of his fingers sending a cool draft across my feverish skin.
Once it was open, he slid it off my shoulders with careful hands, eyes tracking my face more than my body, scanning for any sign I might pass out.
I was down to my tank top and bra. He hesitated.
“How much do you want off?” he asked quietly.
Even half-delirious, I appreciated the question.
“This is enough,” I said. “For now.”
He nodded and shifted his attention to my pants. The waistband felt like a vice. He undid the button and eased the zipper down. My hips lifted with the motion, uncooperative muscles turned sluggish and clumsy. He worked the fabric down my legs, leaving me in underwear and the thin tank.
The cool air licked at my overheated skin. It helped. Not enough, but some.
He stepped away only long enough to cross to the small adjoining bathroom. I heard water run, then stop. A cabinet door opened, closed.
He returned with a damp cloth folded neatly in his hand.
“Don’t close your eyes,” he said.
“Why not?” I whispered.
“Because if you do, I’m not convinced you’ll open them again.”
Drama. That was my job.
I managed a half-smile. “You’re stealing my lines.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and pressed the cool cloth gently to my temple. The contrast between my skin and the water was so stark it sent a shiver skimming down my spine.
He moved the cloth slowly, brushing it across my forehead, then the other temple, then along the curve of my jaw. The contact was soothing in a way I hadn’t expected. Intimate, but not sexual. It was a kind of care I didn’t know what to do with.
My eyes fluttered closed on instinct.
“Cass,” he warned.
“I’m just resting them,” I murmured. “Not dying.”
“Those two things are usually related where you’re concerned.”
I exhaled, a sound that might have been a laugh. “You’re not funny.”
He shifted the cloth to the back of my neck, lifting my head carefully with his free hand. “You’re still hot,” he said.
“Flattering.”
“In the medical sense.”
“Bummer.”
My body gradually started to feel less like it was filled with lava and more like I’d been left too close to a fireplace. The core heat remained, but the worst of the burning began to recede. My thoughts untangled by degrees. The spin of the room slowed.
Con’s movements slowed with it. The harshness in him softened, leaving behind something more dangerous—unfiltered worry.
He wrung the cloth out once more in a small bowl he’d brought from the bathroom and returned it to my brow. His hand lingered there, resting lightly, thumb brushing along my hairline in a motion so gentle it nearly undid me.
I cracked one eye open.
He was watching me.
The anger that had burned in his gaze earlier was gone now, replaced by a fear so stark it made my chest hurt.
“You can stop glaring like I scared ten years off your life,” I muttered.
“Try a hundred,” he said quietly.
I studied him. The set of his mouth. The tension still pulled tight across his shoulders. The tremor in his fingers when he adjusted the cloth again.
“You’re more scared than mad,” I said.
“Yes.”
No hesitation. No protest.
Just that one word.
I swallowed. “I’ve been worse.”
“That’s not comforting,” he replied. “None of this should be normal for you.”
“This is my job, Con.”
“No,” he said, voice rough. “Your job is to protect the clan. Not to burn yourself out.”
“Semantics,” I whispered.
His hand tightened where it rested near my shoulder. “You scared me.”
“I noticed.”
He shook his head slightly. “Not like in battle. Not when you’re bleeding out in a fight and I know what to do. This… I don’t know how to help you with this.”
A genuine laugh slipped out of me, quiet but real. “Tragic for you.”
“Yes,” he said. “It is.”
He drew in a slow breath, then let it out, shoulders lowering a fraction.
“You’re cooling,” he said. “That’s good.”
“Does this mean I can go back to ignoring your excellent advice about overusing my magic?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed. “No.”
I sighed, closing my eyes again. This time he didn’t object. The heat had ebbed enough that my thoughts felt less fogged, my limbs less heavy. Exhaustion was settling in now—deep, bone-level fatigue that made the mattress feel like gravity itself.
The cloth shifted once more, now resting damp and soothing against my pulse point.
I felt him watching me still.
“Con,” I murmured, voice slurring around the edges of sleep. “You’re allowed to be mad and scared at the same time.”
“Good,” he said softly. “Because I am.”
“Tomorrow,” I said, “we can go back to fighting about everything. You can lecture. I’ll ignore you. Balance restored.”
“Tomorrow,” he agreed. “Tonight you’re going to sleep.”
“Stay?” I asked before I could stop myself.
The word slipped out unguarded, small and honest, stripped of bravado. It hung there in the half-dark, fragile and bright.
His silence lasted just long enough to make my stomach tighten.
Then the mattress dipped slightly as he shifted.
“I’ll stay,” he said quietly. “I’m not leaving you like this.”
I thought about arguing. About teasing. About making a joke to deflect how much that answer mattered.
Instead, I sighed, letting my body sink into the bed.
The last thing I felt before sleep finally dragged me under was the cool touch of the cloth on my brow…
…and Con’s steady presence at my side, fear softening into a watchful, unyielding kind of care I didn’t know how to name yet.
But I knew one thing—
Tomorrow, the world would expect me to be a weapon again.