CHAPTER 17
“There is a reason why the Bound do not take mates.”
When she spoke those words, I wanted to deny her. I thought only of Tianna and her long hair, dark eyes, and flawless ebony skin. I would perform the handfasting ceremony with her in an instant if she would have me.
“You cannot have two bindings and fulfill them both, Small One. You are already bound to me.”
Tears mottled my vision. Again, I wanted to deny her, but I would not. Never. It was a truth that broke me, but I needed to bear it all the same.
—Recounting from the private diary of Jerris, Dragonbound
SERAE
Late Summer, Maymon 1036
There was no hot spring for me that evening and no training for me the following day. Luckily, it only took one day of rest for the swelling to reduce, allowing me to walk again.
“The mighty Serae, brought down by a table.” Lex had laughed.
A day clear of Wep hadn’t hurt either. Whatever happened over the past day acted like a reset for him.
I wish I could say the same for me. I wanted to be nowhere near him, and yet, I couldn’t get his hypnotic taste and scent out of my head.
Wep, however, was back to leading the session with minimal surliness.
The focus for the day was hand-to-hand, specifically breaking holds and redirecting momentum.
“This is the great equalizer,” he explained. “You can take down a man bigger than Ivank with the right momentum and leverage. Serae, up front.”
I groaned.
He crossed his arms over his chest, left over right. “That ankle recovered?”
“Mostly.”
“Perfect, that’s the best time to train. Up front.”
He led me through the motions, adjusting my angles and showing me when to brace, when to shift, and how to take control.
Shifting focus and staying out of the way was my life back in Inra.
Within three tries, I had Wep flat on his back—well, he would’ve been if he didn’t recover from every single thing with the grace of a feline.
“Good. Ivank, up front. Attack when ready. Serae, focus.”
I bounced from foot to foot. “I’m ready.”
“Twitchy little thing, isn’t she?” Someone behind me laughed. It was sharp and unpleasant, and even if I hadn’t recognized the voice, I would’ve figured it out by the darkening of Wep’s face.
“Go.”
Ivank lunged. Quick on my toes, I followed the motions to perfection. I barely felt the difference in weight, even though Ivank was at least half a head taller than Wep and twice as broad.
“Very good.” Wep’s mouth was threatening a smile.
“Oh, come on,” Ell announced from the door. “Give her a real challenge.”
“Get out of my class.”
“Give me a go, and I’ll leave.”
“How about you just leave now?”
Helene cleared her throat. “It might help to have someone outside the ranng try.”
Wep’s head snapped to her, but his eyes softened. I couldn’t blame him. It was impossible to be cross with Helene. She was the most disarming person in existence. He looked to me, and I shrugged. He relented with a grunt.
Ell moved through the center of the group toward the front. “Excellent,” he said, shooing Ivank with a wave. “Ready, beautiful?”
I rolled my eyes.
He attacked, but I was ready. I gripped his arm, rolled into his space, twisted, and sent him to the floor. I turned back to Wep, eager to collect his smile, when something collided with my ankle—that ankle—taking it out from under me. The breath was knocked from my lungs as my back hit the mat.
“What the hell!” Raif shouted.
“It was one move, ass-wipe,” Lex added.
Shouting echoed through the room, rattling my ears as my ranng flew to my defense, but Ell was already standing over me with that devilish smile on his lips. He extended a hand. “All in good fun,” he said only to me.
Wep knocked his hand away, then everything happened at once. Wep shoved his brother off balance, jabbed him straight in the crook of his shoulder, kicked out his opposite knee, and socked him full-force in the stomach.
Ell dropped like a sack.
“Get out of my space,” he growled, standing over Ell like he’d love nothing more than to deliver a few extra kicks.
“I like this one.”
“Not now.”
Ell wheezed. “Fuck…you couldn’t have…pulled that last one?” He rasped between uneven breaths.
“I did. Get. Out. Before I do something you’ll regret.”
“I approve. He is worthy of you.”
“Except the one on the floor is my betrothed.”
“Pity. Bring him to me, and I’ll eat him.”
“You’d eat a man you already blessed?”
The snarling in my mind sounded an awful lot like confirmation.
I sat up. Ell stood, arched a brow at Wep, and muttered something too low to hear. Wep’s eyes darkened as he watched his brother retreat from the room. The door thumped shut.
“I’ll go for the healer,” Raif offered.
“I’ll go with,” added Helene, and the two of them took off.
“A little space,” Wep growled.
Ivank, Lispen, and Lex moved to the other end of the room. They made an excellent show of pretending to practice, but I could feel all three straining their ears to hear us.
Wep crouched before me. “May I?”
I nodded.
He took my calf in his hand and unlaced my boot.
“It’s not that bad. It barely hurts at—Fuck!”
He had pried the boot off and was cradling my ankle. His eyes lifted to mine. “So, no pain?”
“None,” I gritted out.
He huffed out a laugh. Fuck, if that wasn’t the most inconvenient sound I’d ever heard.
I wanted to taste it. The little quirk of his lip, the light dancing in his blue-gray eyes.
I didn’t know when it changed, but all at once, I wanted to climb into this man’s lap and see how skilled he really was, broodiness be damned.
I bit my lip, and his eyes tracked the movement.
“Serae,” his voice was a low rumble, “you need to be careful with my brother.”
An ice bath would’ve had less of a chilling effect on me. My face fell. “What do you mean?”
“He’s not what he seems. Everything’s a fucking game to him.”
“A game?”
He nodded.
“Right. But not to you?”
A frown pulled at the corners of his mouth, and the loss of that little smile hit me like a blow. “I—”
The doors behind me opened.
“This way,” Raif said, leading the same healer who had set my ankle just two days prior. In fact, she was the same elderly woman who’d been helping me since I arrived in the Riht.
“Delly,” she admonished, Wep’s grimace was spectacular, “you know better than to let someone train on an injured joint. Knees and ankles are no-goes. Say it.”
“Knees and ankles are no-goes,” he repeated flatly.
I turned, catching Teke’s eye. Delly? I mouthed.
They shook their head and mouthed back, Don’t ask.
I couldn’t have asked if I wanted to, because at that moment, she took my ankle in hand and rolled the joint, testing my rotation. I gasped as pain like glass shards grated between the bones.
“Disgraceful,” the woman tittered, then began layering a thick salve over my skin. She followed it with a bandage, then a stiff wrap, making the joint impossible to move. “There we go. Let’s get her to bed. Come on, lift her up.”
“Lift me what?”
“Sorry about this,” Wep whispered, and in one smooth motion, he had me in his arms, carrying me like a baby.
“O-oh.” Brilliant. I wrapped my arms around his neck.
He cleared his throat, and I felt the reverberation in his chest against mine.
Thank the Nine Martyrs, my room was close.
Wep took off, but his pace was careful and steady.
I might have expected to be jostled on the stairs in anyone else’s arms, but Wep was always perfectly balanced—perfectly in control.
A loose strand of hair at the base of his neck brushed against my arm, and the intimacy of our situation screamed at me.
“You punched your brother,” I whispered.
His eyes flicked to mine. His jaw flexed in that way I liked, and the images in my head—
“No, I don’t want to see them. Keep your thoughts to yourself. You’re shouting them at me.”
“Sorry. You’ll have to teach me that part.”
“Preferably soon.”
“First on the right,” he said.
I turned my head as the healing matron opened my door and held it.
“My thanks, Marr Magda. I can take it from here.”
“Right, you can.” She turned a shaking finger on me. “No walking, lots of fluids, and you drink down the bottles I’ll be sending three times a day.”
I nodded, barely getting out a thanks before she shuffled out the door and let it thud shut behind her.
Wep stood there, holding me like I weighed nothing and dutifully avoiding my eyes.
I racked my brain and came up with exactly nothing to say.
“Chair or bed?” he asked, sparing me.
A question like that can do things to a girl. I swallowed that quip right back down. “Chair.”
“Bed it is.”
“What? No, I can…hobble around, I’m sure.”
“No walking.”
“That’s impossible. What if I have to pee?”
He paused halfway to my bedchamber. “Do you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He nudged the door open with his boot and entered, then hesitated. “Uh, which side?”
“Either is fine.”
“Only monsters don’t have a preference.” His eyes met mine, and they were far too close. I could see every fleck of silver, the faint blue rims around his irises, and the widening of his pupils with perfect clarity. My eyes dropped to his lips as he wet them.
“He’s got jokes.”
His lip quirked.
“Right.”
He moved, and before I was ready to let go, he had me settled on the patterned quilt and propped against my pillows.
He looked around, finding my chair and writing desk covered with my paint jars, drying and soaking flowers, and the little practice sketches I’d made.
The edge of my bed was the only option. He took my ankle in his hand again, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to touch me, and began inspecting the healer’s work.
“Marr Magda is the master healer here. Lucky she came.”
“I saw her two days ago.” I didn’t mention that I’d also seen her multiple times before his return.
His brows raised, and he nodded. “Good.” He massaged my calf, soothing the sore muscle and sending tingles all over.