He smiles softly. “I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried.”
“You were worried? You damn near gave me a heart attack. Don’t go trying to bleed out on me again, or I’ll have to hang you by your ankles from the tree!”
Aurelio frowns. “Why would you do that?”
I smile, a laugh rumbling quietly in my chest. “Because I need you here, idiot. Adventuring wouldn’t be half as fun without you.”
“Glad we can agree.”
Aurelio tries to move again, but he’s stopped by the pain in his shoulder. Rolling my eyes, I walk over to him, scoop him up in my arms, and carry him over to the brook, where I set to work rinsing out his wound. He bites his tongue and suffers through it like a champ. As soon as I bring him back fireside, I grab a roll of bandages and place his arm in a sling.
“There. Now, you’ll heal faster. Don’t try anything stupid,” I laugh.
“I won’t, I promise. Now, it’s naptime,” Aurelio mumbles.
He lays down on the ground, places his head in my lap, and falls right back asleep. I run my fingers through his hair, watching his face morph into a content smile. Glancing up at the sky, then back down at the fire, I feel a smile tug at the corners of my lips.
“If this isn’t heaven, then I don’t know what is,” I whisper.
Chapter twenty-eight
Aurelio
I’m still fairly out of it when my eyes flutter open. My vision is a little blurry, and my mind is foggy, but something feels…strange. About the ground, I mean. It’s much softer than I remember the dirt being before.
“Hey, you. Took you long enough to wake up.”
I blink, then Alessia’s face comes into focus. She’s incredibly close to me. Is she leaning over me while I’m laying on a bed of moss? No, the ground is far too soft for that, and I’d be soaked to the bone by now. She blinks down at me, a warm smile on her face, and reality suddenly sinks in with the force of a lightning strike.
“Am I…in your lap?” I question.
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
I feel my face go from cool to boiling lava in the span of five seconds. “Uh…Alessia? Why am I in your lap?”
“Because you looked uncomfortable. And I wanted to keep a close eye on you.”
“Ah. Right. Of course,” I chuckle nervously.
I go to sit up, but my shoulder spasms, and I have to bite my tongue.
“Ouch. Forgot about that,” I mutter.
“Idiot,” Alessia snorts. “Let me help you.”
My stomach flips as she picks me right up off the ground and carries me a short distance. I freeze up, unsure of this sensation, as I’ve never been carried like this before. I feel like the roles have been reversed, and my queen is treating me like a princess. It’s unsettling, but strangely wonderful all at once. Alessia’s not even struggling with my weight.
“You don’t need to move today. I’ve got you,” she promises.
“I can walk. I’ll just need help getting to my feet,” I insist.
Alessia looks down at me with a smirk. “Yeah, right. You could open your wound. Plus, what if I want to treat you like a king?”
Treating me like a king sounds a lot better than treating me like a princess. I’ll take it. I smile in reply, and Alessia looks ahead, seeming satisfied with the situation.
I can hear the crackling of the fire and smell the calming fragrance of burning oak wood before Alessia sets me down by the edge of the firepit. She takes extra care to prop me up by a rock so I can just lean back and relax. I’m starting to like this treatment more and more by the minute. She even serves up the roasted deer meat on one of the fancy plates she brought with her, one made from a special lightweight material that won’t shatter when dropped.
“Here. I reheated our leftovers from yesterday,” Alessia says, placing the plate in my lap. “Oh, and use your right hand before you forget, dummy.”
