Chapter 26
“He’s definitely concussed, alright.” Robin stood up from where he’d been pulling Fox’s eyelids back to examine his pupil reflexes.
Rowan didn’t like the way Fox’s responding frown looked a little dazed.
He was sure this wasn’t the first time Fox had had a concussion in his life—he was always charging headfirst into danger, both figuratively and literally—but the lump that was forming on his forehead looked extremely painful.
“What should we do?” Rowan asked. His frustration and anger at how the fight had gone had barely cooled. His chest still felt tight. A frayed bowstring ready to snap.
It was Henri who had gotten the story out of Robin.
He had been working on the injured who had already made it to the infirmary when David came and dragged him out, saying something about escaping.
Robin had resisted, and when David stepped onto the plank, Robin had tried to pull him back.
He’d slipped, and the plank had dislodged.
Rowan didn’t blame Robin for any of it. He couldn’t be held responsible for his brother’s actions. But Rowan could feel the tension between them now.
Robin glanced around at the few other patients in the infirmary.
They hadn’t lost anyone, in large part due to Robin’s skill, but there were still several crew members injured beyond a simple stitch-up.
“I have to get back to my patients. Can you take him for the night, Captain? He needs to be monitored. You shouldn’t let him sleep for at least the next four hours.
Then wake him and check him every two hours after that.
” Robin’s voice was tight, clinical. Fox made a distressed noise, and Robin reached over to squeeze his shoulder reassuringly.
“Get some cold water from the cistern and keep a compress on that lump. The swelling should go down in a few days.”
“Would be a shame to ruin this masterpiece,” Fox mumbled, gesturing to his face in a swirling motion.
“Aye,” Rowan agreed. “Let’s get you out of here, hm? Get some cold on that forehead.”
After a moment, Fox lifted his arms like a toddler wanting up. Robin and Rowan both moved to get a shoulder under his arm and help him to his feet. Once there, he swayed a bit, and Robin released him into Rowan’s sturdy hold.
“Thanks.” Rowan looked up at Robin, and was met with a tight smile. “And I’m…sorry about what happened with David. I shouldn’t have threatened him like that, no matter what happened.”
Robin nodded, almost resigned. “I understand, Captain. I’ll keep a better eye on him.”
“That’s not…He’s still your brother,” Rowan said weakly. That fact was probably the only thing that had saved David’s life in that moment.
Robin nodded again. One of the patients on a cot groaned. “Let me know if you need anything, Captain.”
Rowan knew a dismissal when he heard one. He’d lost some of Robin’s trust today, and he knew he would have to earn it back. But not tonight. Tonight he had to take care of Fox.
They left Robin to it, making their slow way back to Rowan’s room with Fox tucked close to his side.
Once they got there, he remembered he wasn’t supposed to let Fox fall asleep, but he tucked him sitting up in bed anyway and quickly fetched a bucket of cold water and a cloth.
Finding Fox in exactly the same spot he’d left him when he returned.
Fox sighed when the cold, damp cloth pressed into his skin.
“How are you feeling?” Rowan asked. Fox was being awfully quiet, and that worried Rowan most of all.
“Like I got kicked by a horse,” Fox answered, leaning back against the headboard and closing his eyes.
“Hey, hey, none of that. Robin said you have to stay awake.” Rowan pulled him back up to sitting.
“Tired though. You punched me in the k’ney,” Fox whined.
“I’ll entertain you. Should we play cards? Shall I enthrall you with tales of my daring adventures?” Rowan asked, trying to keep his tone light and not let his anxiety over Fox’s condition show.
“I was there for most of them, but sure, enthrall me,” Fox laughed, then winced and repositioned the cloth against his head.
Rowan settled against the headboard beside him and launched straight into a story about the time, at the age of ten, Logan had convinced half the crew of the M.W.S.
Wolf he’d seen a mermaid wearing a tricorn hat.
The kicker was, Logan had been fully convinced of it himself.
Rowan had Fox grinning tiredly by the second sentence, and giggling by the end.
So he told another, and another, until it was well into the night and Fox finally asked for a break.
“My head hurts,” he whined.
“I know, you can rest in a bit. Doctor’s orders.”
Fox grimaced. “How much longer?”
“An hour at least.”
“Ugh, fine. Tell me about you and the Demon, then. What’s going on?”
Rowan hadn’t expected this, and he was half tempted to spill Logan’s juicy secret just to distract Fox, but quickly dismissed that idea.
“It’s nothing.”
“Yeah, sure. I’m concussed, not stupid. He had blood on his shirt when he walked off the Siren.”
“That’s…”
“Alright, I’m going to sleep.”
“Fox,” Rowan said warningly.
“I’m just worried,” Fox mumbled.
First Logan, now Fox. Henri had been hinting around his availability to talk as well. Served Rowan right for having such good friends, he supposed.
“I’m…not sure where we stand actually,” Rowan finally confided. Fox lay his head on Rowan’s shoulder. “We had a huge fight. And I gave him the ring back.”
Fox shifted to get more comfortable. “I thought you just took it off. Why would you give it back to him? That’s basically like saying ‘we’re done’ right?”
“I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just mad.” Rowan felt stupid for it now. Even weeks later, he still found himself touching his ring finger with his thumb, feeling the spot where the ring was missing.
“Maybe you’re the one who’s concussed, Captain. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Yeah, well, he shouldn’t have tried to ship me back to Illusion like he owns me,” Rowan grumbled.
Fox yawned. “Look, I get not liking being told what to do. We’re pirates; all of us have those sorts of hang ups. But yours seem especially intense.”
“You try being owned by the navy from the age of nine.”
Fox glanced up at him, lips in a tight line. “Point taken.”
“I wasn’t expecting an apology, but I wasn’t expecting him to be so cold,” Rowan sighed.
“And you’re both too stubborn to fix it.”
“I’m still fucking mad.”
Fox nodded sagely. “And the blood on his shirt? The scrapes on your face?”
“Taking our anger out, I guess.”
“He didn’t hurt you?”
“We hurt each other. It was nothing serious,” Rowan grumbled.
Fox took his hand and squeezed, seeming to understand. “You still love him though?”
“Yeah, but I’m starting to think he doesn’t feel the same.”
“He wouldn’t have followed us all the way to Kadling Kay if he didn’t.”
“You sure about that?”
Fox rolled his eyes and lost himself to another yawn. “I’m sure that you wouldn’t fall for someone who didn’t care about you, Captain.”
But that was where Fox was wrong. Rowan had fallen for a man who couldn’t love at all.
He’d thought he was the exception, but maybe he was just a temporary aberration.
An overwhelming urge to tell Fox the truth of Yves’s nature overtook him then.
Fox was good with people, good with love.
He’d been the one to help Rowan realize he was in love. Maybe he could help with this.
“It’s not that simple, Fox. I mean, Yves is—”
A soft snore interrupted him, and Rowan glanced down to find Fox asleep, snuggled into his side.
Just as well; Rowan didn’t think he’d have believed him anyway.
It was close enough to the time Robin had said Fox could sleep, so Rowan grabbed a book from the bedside table and cracked it open.
Before long, Fox had his head in Rowan’s lap and arms wrapped around his thigh.
Rowan flipped listlessly through the pages, not really absorbing the words. Should he apologize to Yves when they saw each other again? Or wait for an apology that might never come? Rowan could no more fight his nature than Yves could.
Rowan buried his hand in Fox’s soft hair, listening carefully to his steady breaths.
Rowan had no choice but to stay the course and deal with the fallout with Yves afterward.
That was, if Yves still wanted him. If this thing with Shaw was going to come between him and Yves, he might as well make it worth all the trouble.
And trouble it would be. Before Baird had burst in on them, Rowan had found an official looking letter that referenced a rendezvous, and not just between Baird and Shaw.
But he hadn’t been able to read fast enough to find out the details.
He could very well be sailing them into a massive trap.