Chapter 49
T he first time she cried out, I thought it was only the pain.
My head snapped up from my work, my gaze roaming over her injuries in a motion that was already becoming familiar. Every few minutes, I did the same, assessing her for signs of any complications.
Edvin had already been back to check on her once, and all had been well. There was no reason to be so concerned.
Still, I leapt to my feet when she cried out again.
“No,” she murmured. “Davin. No.”
“Lemmikki,” I tried to rouse her quietly.
“Stop. Please stop.” A sob racked through her petite frame. “It was just a mistake.”
I wasn’t prone to empathy, but I couldn’t pretend it didn’t tug at something inside of me, seeing the brash princess writhing in pain and stewing in guilt over storms-damned vodka.
“Lemmikki, wake up. You’re dreaming.” I placed a gentle hand on her wrist, trying to wrest her back from whatever demons had her in their grasp.
Didn’t I know that feeling well?
Her skin was warm, too warm. Then I registered her racing pulse beneath my fingertips, how her breaths hitched and were uneven, and the thin sheen of sweat on her brow.
Was she overheated or was it just the night terror? She gasped for air, and I tightened my grip on her wrist to rouse her.
“Breathe, Lemmikki.”
She inhaled on command, but a shiver wracked through her, clacking her teeth together. My heartbeat stalled in my chest as I put together what I should have noticed before.
Warm skin. No, hot. Hot skin. Sheen of sweat. Delirium.
I moved my hand from her wrist, going to check her forehead, then the back of her neck. Both were on fire.
I forced myself to take a breath. My cousin was just outside the door, having come back after a short break. Edvin was close. She was going to be fine.
“ Der’mo . Taras!” I yelled. “Send for the healer!”
I didn’t wait for his response. Instead, I set a kettle to boil and grabbed some fresh cloths to wipe some of the dampness from her head.
“Lemmikki,” I said, a plea and a demand in one simple word.
She turned toward my voice, but her eyes didn’t open. Instead, her brows were knitted together as she fought for another breath.
I had been an infant when my mother died, but I knew the story. A fever that overtook her out of nowhere. Shallow, hitched breathing until it stopped completely.
Had she been spirited like Rowan? So very alive until she wasn’t?
“I’m sorry, Da’.” Rowan whispered, barely discernible between her chattering teeth.
No. Someone as stubborn as my lemmikki would not be brought down by an aalio like Samu.
“Fight, Lemmikki. You’re the storms-damned cursed Princess of Lochlann, the scourge of every duke in Socair. You’re stronger than this.” She had spat in the face of the entire Summit, had raised her sword against men twice her size, and won. She would not go down like this.
She wheezed in a breath, the unearthly sound echoing in the room.
Taras burst in, Master Edvin and one of his assistants trailing at his heels. I reluctantly moved back to allow the healer space to assess her.
“How long has she been this way?” he asked, listening to her heart, his fingers pressed against first her wrists, then her neck.
“Not long,” I answered, trying to think back to when her sleep grew more fitful. “Half an hour, maybe.”
The healer shook his head, concern creasing his brow.
“She’s getting worse,” he said.
I just barely bit back a comment about how grateful I was for his years of training so he could point out the incredibly obvious. He raised his eyebrows like he knew exactly what I hadn’t said.
“Rapidly,” he tacked on. “She needs body heat to break the fever.”
He nodded to the assistant who had followed him in, a man of medium build whose name I didn’t know, who I sure as hell didn’t trust, and who I had exactly no intention of allowing to crawl into bed with her when she was injured.
Or ever.
“No,” I commanded. “I’ll do it.”
Edvin raised his eyebrows again, this time widening his eyes in surprise.
“She will need the warmth for hours, my lord. I am sure you are busy.”
“If there’s nothing else,” I bit out, glancing toward the door.
My message was clear. If you can’t do anything else, leave.
Taras shot me a warning look, but I didn’t care. Edvin could be an aalio but the man had discretion. I had learned that from my own wounds over the years.
“I’ll give her a tonic and be back to check on her this evening.”
He had a harder time getting the herbs down this time, but he managed with the help of his assistant while I divested myself of my shirt. I was already climbing into the bed when they left the room.
Taras closed the door behind them, staying on the wrong side of it.
“You may as well help since you clearly have something to say,” I muttered, throwing back the covers to lay right next to my feral princess.
With a grunt, he came to assist in easing Rowan closer to me. We eased her first to her side, then rolled her until she was lying directly on top of me.
She trembled and shivered, murmuring a few more nonsensical things. I pulled apart the laces of her shirt as far as I could, pressing her skin against mine and wrapping my arms carefully around the uninjured parts of her.
Heat surrounded me, enveloped me, along with the potent scent of fever.
Der’mo.
I sighed, wrapping one hand around her head and the other at the base of her lower back. She burrowed into me, her round thighs hugging mine, while her arms slid behind my back, like she couldn’t quite get close enough. Couldn’t get warm enough.
Taras eyed us with concern. For her? For something else?
Briefly, I imagined what this looked like through his eyes, and just as quickly, I dismissed those thoughts. Right now, all that mattered was not inciting a war by letting the princess die.
“Mairi will try again, now that she knows this matters to you.” This , he said. Not her .
This tentative arrangement to forestall a war? Or this princess? It was a distinction I didn’t want to delve into just now.
“I don’t plan on giving her the opportunity,” I assured him.
He pursed his lips. “How long can you stay in these rooms?”
A question I had already considered.
It wasn’t uncommon for me to be out for one reason or another, so the estate and my father both wouldn’t question my absence initially. And beyond that…my father had said I had earned my captive. It stood to reason that I had earned some time with her as well. It wasn’t unheard of for a man to take a…respite with his secret lady-friend. A few well placed comments should divert his suspicion.
Rowan would be furious, of course, but at least she would be alive. Long enough to get her out of here, anyway.
“As long as it takes,” I said shortly. “In any case, I’m sure Iiro will jump at the chance to have her back.”
My fingers twitched reflexively, tightening their hold on her waist and I tried to cover the movement by adjusting her position slightly.
Taras narrowed his eyes. “You would risk her marrying Korhonan?”
He didn’t sound angry, precisely, more curious.
I started to shrug, but stopped when the motion jostled Rowan and she groaned in protest. “At least then we have a chance at directing Lochlann’s ire to Elk. If she’s dead on our soil, we have none at all.”
Taras blinked. “Yet you took her from the Summit.”
“When I thought I could gamble and win,” I said, and it was true. It had been a gamble. A calculated risk.
“And now?” His question hung in the air between us.
I looked from the princess to my cousin, weariness creeping into my bones.
“And now I know this is a losing game. The only question is how much we’ll sacrifice before it’s over.”
Left unspoken was that somewhere along the way, I had realized that she was the one sacrifice I was no longer willing to make.