She jumped like she was snakebit. “You’re unbelievable. I should have done a better job of killing you.”
“The odds were stacked against you,” he said comfortingly. “You can be pleased that you came much closer to succeeding than most. Lower yourself a bit, darling, and sit on my face. I promise you’ll like it.”
Muttering something he couldn’t make out, she clambered over him, putting herself behind his back. He started to reach for her, to pull her back, but weakness and dull agony greeted the attempted movement. “How much of my back is still stuck to the headboard?” he wondered.
“Most of it,” she shot back. “Are you sure you’ll survive without help? I really think I should call a healer and screw the consequences.”
“Regretting your murderous vengeance already? It was the love bite, I’ll bet. No woman can resist that.”
“Something tells me you’ll regret all this in the morning.”
“Your attempt to murder me? I regret it already.”
“In the end it was an accident,” she argued. “I really think I should call for the Refoel healer.”
“Don’t.”
“There’s so much blood and… other things.”
“I’ll live to drive you into a killing rage another day,” he promised. “Don’t call anyone. Just let me sleep.”
“Are you…”
He lost the rest of her words to blessedly numbing unconsciousness.
And woke with a mother of a headache. Which, considering the nature of his own mother, was saying something. His mouth was dry, his body ached all over, and his skull throbbed like earth elementals were digging at it from the inside. People didn’t realize how much blood loss feels like a hangover. Torture and binge-drinking: two sides of the same coin. It all came down to dehydration.
“Water,” he croaked, before remembering he was likely alone. Before remembering next that he was probably with Seliah. Cracking open one eye, he searched the murk of the unlit room to spot Seliah huddled in a big armchair, wearing his shirt and fast asleep. Some nurse she was.
With a groan he also recalled all the salacious comments he’d made during the night. Oh, and biting her. And inviting her to sit on his face. What a fucking mess, only without actual fucking to make it worthwhile. Needing the fortification, he reached for the brandy carafe on the bedside table.
“You’d do better with water than more liquor,” Seliah said, her eyes open now and owlish in her piquant face, watching him warily.
Swishing the brandy in his mouth to remove the foul taste of near-death, he spat it into the empty glass. Dark blood turned the liquid nearly black. Part of the healing process, though even his maman wasn’t sure why. It was mostly old blood, it turns out. “Except you didn’t leave me a handy carafe of water, did you?” he returned, feeling surly. Pushing himself up out of the bed, he pulled on the trousers he’d dropped there before he staggered to his feet.
“Should you be up?”
“I might not be able to die,” he answered, feeling oddly freer that she knew about his nature, dangerous as that would be for both of them going forward, “but near-death feels like shit. I need water.”
“There isn’t—”
Holding up a hand to stop her, he used his wizardry to trigger the fire elementals in the lamps to brightness and went to the empty water pitcher. Setting it under the tap on the wall, he woke the water elemental. Before the pitcher was full, he tipped it up and drank deeply, allowing the excess to dribble over his face.
“I didn’t know how to do that,” Seliah said quietly.
He grunted, filled a glass from the tap, and took it to her, still holding his partially full pitcher. “House Elal water elemental tied to House Hagith plumbing. Nothing but the best for El-Adrel.” He drank more water. “Anyone can trigger it. Remind me to show you the trick.”
Refilling the pitcher, he wandered back to the bed, studying the bit of shaft still sticking out of the headboard, the arrowhead so deeply buried there was no sign of it. His dried blood soaked the material, dull black now, along with bits and pieces of shriveled gunk that used to be part of him.
“I am sorry,” Seliah said in a small voice, from right behind him. He glanced at her, swathed in his black shirt, legs bare and hair tousled. She looked like she’d crawled out of bed with him, only after far more enjoyable activities than the near impalement. Ridiculously, he wanted nothing more than to gather her up into his arms and kiss her senseless, then make real use of that bed. After he’d dealt with the gore, naturally.
Also naturally: that could not happen.
“No worries, poppet,” he drawled, making it extra sardonic. “We both know you don’t exactly have a stable temperament. Take a crazy girl to bed and…” He gestured to the gruesome mess. “Well, one gets what one gets.”
He’d expected fire to light her plaintive amber gaze, but she flinched, pale beneath her dusky skin. Miserable and guilty. “I think we do have to face that I’m unstable,” she said in a fragile voice. “I’ve been sitting here all night, watching you sleep, smelling the blood, and I don’t know what I was thinking. I nearly killed you, Jadren.”
“In point of fact, you didn’t,” he said lightly, oddly compelled to relieve her guilt and misery. He began stripping the blood-stained sheets from the bed. “You couldn’t and can’t.”
