“Wasn’t joking.”
Adeline almost didn’t hear his answering laugh, but it hummed through her chest, warm and oddly intimate. Her eyes slid shut before she could stop them.
“Do you want to go to sleep now?”
“Mm. In a minute.”
Kai stiffened beneath her, but then there was the soft tap of the tin setting down on a nearby surface, and the warmth of his arm came around her, loose against her troubled stomach.
“Alright.”
???
She woke, as she had so many times, to the lull of Kai’s breath and his steady heartbeat beneath her head. Content to be in his arms, with the damp air breezing over her cheeks, as though reminding her that this warm bed was the ideal place to be.
In those slow and sticky waking moments, she curled instinctively closer, his arm tightening around her even in sleep.
Then her eyes flew open.
Bollocks.
There was the missing guilt, at last. It arrived with vicious urgency, seizing at her insides, swelling up within her, rising in her throat like—
Oh bollocks.
Adeline sat up, swaying so immediately, she had to grab at the headboard to catch herself. Kai stirred, eyes screwing up, then blinking half-open, peering blearily around for her.
“Kai?”
He sat up, at once alert at the whimper in her voice.
“What is it? What’s—”
The hot bile rolled up her throat and she retched, scrambling out of the bed in a blind panic, dimly aware of Kai on her heels as she stumbled upright.
“Gonnabesick,” she blurted, hand clamped tight over her mouth.
Kai bolted, but when the next insistent wave of clawing, sour heat rushed through her body, he was there. A bucket thrustunder her as she doubled over, her curls quickly twisted up in his other hand.
Her throat opened to the burning rush, insides convulsing painfully. The sound was excruciating; the retching and splattering, the gasping pants in between. It seemed an age before it finally ended.
“ —alright now,” Kai murmured, and she realised he’d been speaking the whole time; low, soothing words by her ear as the nausea overwhelmed her every sense. “You’ll be alright.”
“Daughters fucking slay me,” she croaked.
“All done?”
“I think so.”
The heat was gone, the sick, rolling feeling ebbing away to leave only a pounding headache and the vile taste on her tongue. Kai set the bucket down and produced a handkerchief, still holding tight to her hair with the other hand until she had cleaned herself up.
He took the cloth and bucket and disappeared beyond the creaking door without a word while she clawed her dress off, taking a silent moment to pray that Imogen had packed a few loose day dresses rather than giving in to her own preference for corsetry and heavy ice diamonds.
She stood shivering in only her shift, glancing around for her trunk, when Kai returned with a bundle of supplies tucked under one arm. He took two of his long, brisk strides inside before faltering mid-step. And as he paused, she caught the slight widening of his eyes on her—then he glanced hurriedly away.
“Adhlas, I—I’m sorry, I didn’t even think—”
“It’s fine,” she said, although she now wondered if it would be more awkward orlessif she grabbed the cover from the bed to drape over her shoulders and chest. It hadn’t even occurred to her how bare she was until he stood there stammering, eyes darting every which way but hers. Itshouldhave occurred to her that he’d be uncomfortable with such casual intimacy, considering how they’d left things.
