51. Bonus Chapter
Bonus Chapter
RIVEN
Losing fae immortality apparently meant slower healing.
I had discovered this and processed it the way I always did. Quietly, and with no one to tell about it.
I escaped the infirmary the first day. Then I was ordered back by Caelan.
The healers had kept me three days longer than I liked. The arm worked. Not fully. But functional enough that I left. They objected. I ignored them.
I was nearly to the door when Healer Syndra caught me.
“Captain.”
She crossed the infirmary faster than the situation required. She was young for a healer. Dark-haired, olive skin, petite frame. She had spent the last three days finding reasons to personally check on me. I had noted this without comment and without encouraging it.
“You're leaving,” she said in observation, poorly hiding the disappointment on her face.
“Yes.”
“Right.” She smoothed the front of her apron. “Well. If you have any stiffness in the next few days, you should come back and I can—“ A pause. “I'm here every day. All day. Very available. For healing purposes.”
I looked at her.
She looked past my left shoulder.
For fuck’s sake.
“Anything else?” I asked. Because she was still standing between me and the door that I needed out of.
“What? Oh, yes.” She reached into her apron pocket.
“For miss Sera. Nerve tonic. She's due for a dosage adjustment and I can't get away today.” She produced a small dark bottle and held it out.
Her fingers brushed mine when I took it, and she became very interested in her apron pocket.
“The previous dose was two drops morning and evening. The new dose is three drops morning only.”
“Three drops,” I repeated. “Morning.”
“Yes.” She nodded. And nodded again. “I forgot to write it down, so you'll need to tell her.” She smiled. “You probably remember everything. Someone in your position.” She gestured at me. “You must have a very disciplined mind.”
I really don't.
I put the bottle in my pocket.
“Thank you,” I said, and turned for the door.
“If the arm stiffens—“
“It won't.”
I heard her exhale behind me as the door closed.
The cottage was unlocked.
I had fixed the latch twice when I found her the place. She had thanked me by leaving the door open. She trusted herself to handle whatever came through it. Probably could. Still frustrating.
I let myself in.
The cottage smelled of something she'd attempted to cook.
If she offers it, I’m leaving.
Books were on the table she hadn't read yet. Likely from Brie. Educational, I’m sure.
The cracked terracotta pot of veyras on the windowsill. Her cloak on the hook by the door.
Caelan had installed that. Crossed the borders and installed it himself without making her aware of it.
I looked at it and then looked away.
I found the coffee on the shelf, made it, and sat at the kitchen table and waited.
A blue dress with thin straps was draped over the sofa.
I thought about the other dress. The gold one.
The masquerade had been my responsibility. I stood at the far wall, watched the entrance and every person who came through it, catalogued them by threat level, and moved on. It was work. It required nothing beyond attention and the ability to remain at a post for four hours.
I had been at my post when she walked in.
Gold dress, mask pushed slightly up at the corner. The dress dipped low down her back and hugged every curve until the silk flowed to the ground.
She had looked up at the white trees cascading from the ceiling. Stared at them like she had forgotten for a moment what she was doing.
I watched her move through the room after that. I should have been watching the entrance.
Her unguarded expression was gone, and she had put something professional in its place. Eyes going to exits, to the dais, to who occupied the center versus the edges.
What are you here for?
I had not identified her as a threat. I had identified her as interesting, which was worse.
She had trembled once from the draft when the doors opened for late arrivals. Subtle, but I noticed. She probably didn't know anyone had seen it.
My hand had signaled my men before I'd finished the thought. “Close the doors.”
“But sir, there are still guests arriving. They—“
I looked at him once.
Then the doors closed.
The guests can complain to Caelan. I don’t care.
I had not looked away from her until a guard touched my elbow and told me quietly that a ward had tripped on the east corridor. An assassin, probably. I had left immediately and had not thought about the woman in the gold dress again.
Then she was there in Caelan’s study and I had moved in with the guards.
And I had thought, her.
I put her into the cell and thought nothing about it further. It was my job and I had done my job.
The cottage door opened and pulled me back from my thoughts.
Sera came through the door wearing a dark, sleeveless dress made for warm weather.
She stopped when she saw me at the table.
“They let you out?”
“Yes. This morning.”
She looked at the coffee. “Did you make enough for two?”
“No.”
She made a face and crossed to the shelf. I set the tonic on the table.
“From Healer Syndra. Your dose changed.” I nodded at the bottle. “Three drops in water, morning only.”
Sera turned and looked at the bottle. “Three drops.” She picked it up. “Got it.”
She went back to making coffee. I looked at the window and tried not to look at the strand of hair that had gone rogue on her face.
Then she sat across from me and tried to open the tonic one-handed. The bandage was loose on her right hand. She didn't even notice it. It was practically unraveled.
Maddening woman.
She noticed me looking and looked down at it. Then she tried to fix it and tie it with one hand.
That was not going to work.
Tried a different angle.
Stop. This is painful to look at.
She wasn't going to ask for help.
“Let me,” I said.
She glanced up.
I knew this pause. I had watched her run this calculation before. Whether help was worth acknowledging that she needed it.
She put her wrist in my hand.
I unwound the bandage and started from the beginning. I knew the correct wrap. My fingers kept brushing her wrist.
Focus on the fucking wrap.
I smoothed the final edge of the bandage, secured it, and let go of her wrist.
She tested the wrap with a careful flex of her fingers.
I looked at the veyras on the windowsill and applied myself to thinking about other things.
Which unfortunately led me to think about Caelan.
I thought about the time in the dining room.
Caelan lingering after everyone else had left.
Sera staying deliberately. Me sitting in my chair with coffee that had gone cold, stirring it past any reasonable purpose.
I had known exactly what they were trying to do.
I had sat there anyway. I had kept sitting.
I had not left until the moment closed on its own.
I knew what I was doing.
Told myself it was professional conduct.
What I had been doing was not loyalty. Not professionalism. It was a man who wanted something he was not going to take, making sure no one else took it either, and hating himself quietly for both things at once.
They were no longer together. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t Caelan’s. She still was.
Caelan was the closest thing I had to a reason for most of what I did. That was not a thing I was going to compromise.
I had more discipline than this. I was going to exercise it.
Starting immediately.
I glanced at her. She popped a spoon of honey into her mouth and sucked. My cock throbbed once.
Fuck.
“How's the arm?” she asked.
“Functional.” I moved to stand behind the chair and gripped the wood of it.
She looked at me with the face she used for things she wasn't sure she believed. “They kept you three days.”
“The healers are thorough.”
She let it go. She was good at that. Knowing when not to push.
One of many things.
“I'm glad you're alright,” she said.
She flexed the rewrapped hand again and looked at it. Her face betrayed her as sadness touched it. It was gone the moment she realized it existed.
The nerve damage was real. The tonic was helping. She did the exercises every morning without being told to because she was Sera and she did not accept limitations she could train against.
I knew she did the exercises every morning in front of her cottage.
Because you watched her do it, in the trees like a—
“Three drops,” I said. “Morning.”
“Gods,” she laughed. “You said that twice now. Go away, Riven.”
I left.
Then I stood outside the door for a moment longer than necessary.
I thought about a woman in a gold dress looking up at white trees with something real on her face before she remembered to compose it.
Then I went back to work.