Despite his pride, a kernel of fear lodged in his gut. He didn’t regret it. Refused to. But there was a very real possibility he’d just signed his own death warrant.
“Kit.”
Nick knew what the command meant this time.
Chapter Six
Nick didn’t hurt, but his body felt off, nerves not quite aligning with the right parts. Hethoughthe was lying in a bed, though his internal balance was so off he was equally sure he was levitating mid-air. He breathed deeply, and his lungs spasmed as the breath stretched his ribs too far and sent fuzzy discomfort through him.
Nick curled his will around the hope of seeing his dad’s worried face upon opening his eyes, and he forced himself towards awareness, resisting what would be an easy fall into a drugged sleep.
Kit occupied the plain wooden chair at Nick’s bedside.
He was staring at his hands again and didn’t notice Nick had woken.
Nick took the chance to look around the room. There were desks crowded on one side, a dresser, a trunk and a metal stove right next to the bed. The ceiling was low, and a porthole offered a sliver of daylight. There were two doors, and Nick vaguely recalled one led to a tiny, economical bathroom. That triggered a recollection of Kit helping him stumble to the room many times, and the murky memory of finding an old-school shaving knife and trying toshaveuntil Kit took the blade from him with a curse.
Nick reached up, fingering a cut on the underside of his jaw.
A sickly sweet smell radiated from the cup on the bedside table; it triggered Nick’s empty stomach into letting out a protesting rumble.
“Am I allowed to eat, or is starvation going to be part of all this shit?” Nick asked.
Kit’s head snapped up. His hand moved quickly to his pocket, where he stashed something away, so purposefully inconspicuous that it caught Nick’s attention.
“I have oats,” Kit offered. “If you feel well enough?”
“How well do you expect me to be after that?” Nick asked. Kit hadn’t turned Nick’s bones into the mincemeat the woman had demanded, but he’d sure as shit given him a beating.
Kit’s expression went from worried to blank. “I warned you.” He stood abruptly. Nick thought he’d leave the room, but instead he went to the metal stove. He fuelled it from a wooden pile at its side and placed a pot on top to warm.
“How long was I out?” Nick asked. There was a large ceramic pot with water next to the stove, and a wooden pail with more water next to that. Nick supposed it made sense to keep water nearby when you had fires lit inside a wooden ship.
“A day.”
Surprise filled Nick. Adonis should have found him by now, shouldn’t he? And surely his family would get Goldilocks, Bee, and Dew to aid in the search as well?
Kit spooned something white from a jar into the oats.
“What’s that?”
“The doctor said to give it to you when you ate. It’s painkillers.”
Nick’s gaze travelled down, realising that Kit had his tail tucked tightly around his leg. The weapon was inconspicuous like that.
“We took you for a reason,” Kit said, “but no amount of purpose will stop Lady Desre from killing you if you do anything like that again. Our need is great, but her pride is greater.”
Kit said that as a fact, not a threat. Anger welled up, but not as strongly as it should have. It was dampened, and since Nick didn’t have the will or want to even try to sit up, he assumed that was the result of drugs.
“Then she should learn to keep her hands to herself.”
Kit flashed a look at Nick, and something akin to admiration crossed his face. Nick blinked, and the look was gone. “I imagine she has,” Kit said, speaking into the pot of boiling oats. “As far as you’re concerned,” he added lowly.
Nick frowned.
Kit’s tail slid out from around his legs, quivering in the air just behind his body. He cast another sideways look at Nick. His lips parted the same moment the door swung open, and whatever Kit had been about to say vanished as his head snapped to the doorway. His body tensed in the few seconds it took to turn and then relaxed when he saw who stood on the threshold.
A woman with the same black hair as Kit, and the same blue eyes, entered the room. She looked to be around the age of Nick’s dad, while Kit couldn’t be any older than his mid-twenties. Nick thought back to ‘Lady’ Desre, but he couldn’t decide how old she was. There had been no noticeable wrinkles or marks of age, but something about her felt old.
