“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he assures me as he heads to leave.
“No need to rush on my account,” I say with a wave of my hand. Time alone with my thoughts would be good.
He narrows his eyes at me for a moment as he tries to work out my flippant attitude but quickly shakes it off and disappears out into the hallway.
With the room to myself, I begin to strip out of my travel worn clothing, abandoning them to the tile floor of the bathroom. It was a blessing I held onto Bastian’s rucksack. My clothes from yesterday were beyond saving, covered with blood and ripped to shreds for bandages. I was able to change back into the clothes from the day prior which included the fur-lined jacket, which was a godsend as we walked through the snowy landscape. But it also means I’ve worn the outfit I just stripped out of for three travel days now and I can feel it.
I reach across the bath to shut off the water before it overflows. The steam wafting up from the water has traces of lavender that instantly has my muscles relaxing. I throw my injured leg over the tub and tentatively lower it into the heatedliquid. I nearly let out a moan at how good it feels. I don’t know how this male can get the water temperature so absolutely perfect. Balancing my arms on the edge, I swing my other leg over and slowly lower myself in, submerging myself from the neck down. I sigh in relief as I lean back against the wall of the tub. Whatever soaps and salts he used when drawing this bath causes a slight sting to radiate from the puncture wound but it’s nothing I can’t tolerate.
The weightless feeling of the bath is a blessing to my aching feet. We had just done a two-day journey at a pace that’s far above what’s comfortable for me to turn around and flee for our lives. And then while deeply wounded set another punishing pace to reach civilization.
The entire journey was a quiet and contemplative one, the silence only broken by Bastian periodically checking up on me like a mother hen.
Are you in pain?
Let me check your bandages.
Do you need a break?
I mean, yes. I was very much in pain and in need of breaks, but I refused to admit that. I didn’t want to slow us down. And as I said this morning, the faster we could get moving, the sooner we’d get here so I could be doing exactly what I’m doing now.
We also had a brief conversation about who exactly attacked us. They had iron-tipped arrows. So, either they knew we were Fae, or it was some horrible coincidence. I still can’t think of anyone in Willowbrook who would be armed with iron arrows… And Bastian still insists that he recognizes the scent but can’t connect the dots to who and why.
I spent the rest of the day stuck in my head. It would occasionally drift to the conversations with Fleur and the prophecy. But the vast majority of it was spent thinking back on the attack. Why didn’t I run? Why did Iinsiston hangingback for Bastian? I need his help, yes, but he looked more than capable of taking care of himself. What was that thing with the shadows? It almost clearly came from him, but I don’t fully understand how he did it. Can I do that? Because that would be pretty cool…
I kept finding my eyes drifting to him as we walked, as if the whole evening didn’t happen and he would disappear because he was actually fatally injured. Just thinking about that or what could’ve happened had I left him makes dread curdle in my stomach until I feel sick. But I still don’t understand why I’m so ill at the thought of him being injured like that. At this point, I would say we’ve been promoted from reluctant allies to tentative friends, so there’s no reason I would have such a visceral reaction to that.
But it seems this male brings out these extreme responses in me for some reason. The situation with Helena in Grimhallow being the most obvious one… I was so irrationally angry, and I still can’t even put my finger on what the trigger was. Was it jealousy? But again,whywould I be jealous? I have no claim over him in the same way that he has no claim over me.
I let out an exasperated sigh. “I feel like I’m going fucking crazy,” I say aloud.
“A little crazy never hurt anybody,” Bastian’s voice echoes through the room.
I startle, sloshing water over the edge of the tub onto the tile floor. “Fuck! You could at least announce yourself. Or wear a bell like a fucking cat.” I huff as I peek over my shoulder to see him leaned up against the door frame.
He raises an eyebrow. “I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you. In fact, I slammed the door rather loudly for your benefit.”
I turn my face forward and sink further into the water. “Well, clearly I didn’t hear it.” I grumble.
“Clearly,” he deadpans, but I could swear without looking that he was smirking. “Whenever you’re finished, I need to treat your injury.”
“I’ll be done in a moment.” I say, looking at him over my shoulder.
He offers a simple nod before he ducks back out of the room, closing the door behind him to grant me some semblance of privacy.
I make quick work rising from the water and drying myself off with the towel he’d left for me on the counter. Next to it, I find an oversized t-shirt—his probably—and some fresh undergarments—definitelynothis. I don’t even want to stop and think long enough to figure out how he’s come across them, but I’m grateful for the change of clothes. I also try not to focus too long on the fact that trousers were not provided.
It’s because he needs to be able to access the wound.
I step back into the room to see a tray of food perched on the little table in the corner and Bastian crouched in front of the bed, spreading the supplies across the floor next to him.
His eyes flick to where I’m standing in the doorway, and he goes preternaturally still. His eyes are the only thing that moves as they track from my face, down the curves of my body, past the hem of the shirt where it hits me mid-thigh, all the way down the length of my bare legs, before they jump back up and hold at the edge of the shirt. I tug at the hem, hoping I can make it longer, so I don’t feel as exposed. There’s a kind of intensity in his gaze that almost makes it seem like my bare skin has offended him in some way. The longer he stares, the more my body heats under his attention. I shift on the balls of my feet and squeeze my thighs together at the sudden pressure in my core.
“Um…” I clear my throat which seems to pull Bastian from whatever haze he was stuck in, his eyes darting to my face. I could almost swear I see the faintest tinge of pink climbing hischeeks but before I can even begin to process the fact that he might be blushing, he turns his head back down to his things and obstructs my view.
“Come sit,” he commands softly.
I cross the room and sit on the edge of the bed facing him and he lifts his face, the pink I thought I saw earlier is gone, if it was even there to begin with.
