Her eyes opened, soft and steady.“Nick.”
He swallowed past something that wanted to lodge in his throat.“I can handle a lot, babe.I can handle cages.Trolls.Bad food.Wadim documenting my humiliation for posterity.”
“Important historical humiliation,” Wadim called from his bench.
Nick did not look away from Kara.“But I cannot handle feeling you hurt and not being able to get to you.”It wasn’t a lie.No amount of humiliation could ever compare to not protecting his mate.
Her hand covered his where it rested against her cheek.Her fingers were warm.They were trembling, just a little, and that did nothing for his composure.“I saw a child hurt.”
He nodded.“I know.”
“And I couldn'tnothelp him.”Her smile was small, her gaze direct.“It would hurt my soul to leave an innocent in such a state.”
“I know that, too.”Just like not clipping her wings, he couldn’t ask her not to be what she was.A healer.It was a part of her just like the cells in her body.
“And if it happens again–”
“Don’t.”He probably should not bark orders at her, actually heknewhe shouldn’t, but his wolf was riding him hard.His beast wanted to wrap her in their arms and run.He wanted to get as far away from this place as possible and keep her locked behind a fortress.
Her eyes flashed, the gold in them catching the torchlight.“Nick.”
His wolf pushed harder, and his voice dropped with it.“Don’t ask me to be reasonable when you’re talking about possibly risking yourself and our baby.”
Her hand moved to her stomach, gentle and instinctive, as if to soothe a child too small to feel any of this yet.“Don’t go there again.I’m not trying to risk the baby.”
“Dammit, female.”He pressed his forehead to hers and let the contact steady him.“That’s what scares me.You don’t think about risk when someone is suffering.You just move.I admire it as much as I am frustrated by it.”
For a long moment, she said nothing.Then her breath left her in a shaky exhale, warm against his mouth.
“My stubborn mate, that’s what healers do.”She released his hand and ran it along his jaw.
He wanted to lean into her touch.Actually, he wanted to feel a lot more than her hand.Heneededher.He closed his eyes.She was who she was supposed to be, who the Great Luna intended her to be, Kara Luisa.He loved her for it.He feared it.He respected it.He hated it.All at once, all the time, and he had no plans to ever resolve any of those feelings into something tidier.Before he could answer her, the cavern shifted.
The silence that fell over it wasn’t the kind that came from people overhearing something private, although judging by the way Wadim had abruptly developed a deep scholarly interest in the cavern ceiling, there was a measure of that, too.This was a heavier silence.Intentional.Reverent in the way that only old places could be reverent, when they recognized one of their own.
The Troll King approached.
Every troll in the cavern lowered its head as he passed.His crown of iron and bone caught the torchlight in dull, ancient flashes, and the crystal at the top of his staff pulsed with a sickly green rhythm that Nick disliked on principle and on instinct in equal measure.
He no longer looked at Kara like a curiosity.He looked at her like a problem, or maybe it was a solution.Nick rose slowly from his crouch and stepped half a pace forward, sliding his shoulder into Kara’s line of sight without ever taking his eyes off the king.
Behind him, Kara sighed.“Subtle.”
“I’m not aiming for subtle,” he told his feisty mate.He didn’t use the bond to speak to her because hewantedthe Troll King to hear him.
The Troll King halted a few feet away.His black eyes moved from Nick, to Kara, to Torvik, who had wrapped one small fist into the hem of Kara’s shirt and looked perfectly content to remain attached to it for the foreseeable future.
“You have given our people a great gift,” the king said.Nick watched as emotion moved over the king’s stern face.“You have givenmea great gift.Torvik is my son.My youngest son, and I did not know if he was going to make it.Now, he will live.”
Kara’s eyes softened as she looked up at the Troll King.“I’m sorry that he was so sick, and I’m glad that I was able to help.”
“I realize that you need rest?—”
“You think?”Nick interrupted.To which he received a swift kick to his leg by his mate.Then a huff when she realized that it hadn’t hurt him.It was cute that she thought it would actually make him behave.
“Before you rest, I need to know the reason you came here.Then, we can speak further after you have rested.I would like to speak with you more about everything we have learned since your arrival,” the king continued, ignoring Nick.Which was truly beginning to piss him and his wolf off.“When I said you woke the deep, it was more than that.”
“Called it,” Wadim said, his voice sounding much too jovial than the situation warranted.
