"You," she mumbles, and he smiles.
"I'll get you a nice new cloak too. Your one is all torn and wet."
"Pubble?" She asks, her face turning red with hopeful embarrassment, and he grins, his giant fingers unlacing her boots and drying her sheet-white feet off with a flannel.
"If you want purple, you can have purple. Are you scared to let Renna touch you?"
She nods, shrinking away from me again. Gods, she's the sweetest child alive. Her eyes look too big in her thin face. Rexxan peers back at me. "It's women. She's scared of women, mostly."
"That's alright, I understand, Poppy. You just tell me whenever you want me to go away, yes?"
"Are you still friends?" She asks, and Rexxan tugs me closer to him, his thumb stroking my shoulder.
"We're getting married. Renna is going to be my wife." The glitter of happiness in his eyes as he says it with his eyes fixed on me has my heart doing somersaults.
Her eyes widen. "Really?"
"Yes, because a very sensible girl named Poppy told me I was a silly man who was pretending not to be in love with her."
Poppy's huge eyes widen in defensive shock. "I didn't say silly!"
"Didn't you? So I'm sillyandforgetful too?!" He gasps, two hands on his head in horror. A giggle escapes her blue lips as he puts clean socks on her feet.
I am so hopelessly in love with him.
He plants a kiss on her knuckles, and she looks up at him like he created the world and everything in it. "This old, silly, forgetful man has lots of big important jobs to do today, so I'm going to leave you here in the sensible hands of Alina." He beckons over a mortal healer who had been one of the first to arrive in a boat last week.
Alina smiles warmly. "She's beautiful. How old is she?"
"She's... well, in your ages she's two, but in our ages she's about eleven or twelve, so her speaking is more advanced than a mortal two year old."
Alina nods, taking in this information. "My name is Alina. I'm looking after you and your friends. If you're hungry or tired or something is hurting, just say my name and I'll be right here."
Poppy nods, her eyelids drooping as she lays down on the makeshift bed of hay. Rexxan puts a small pillow beneath her head as her lashes flutter shut. He stands and pauses for a moment, before picking up his dry cloak where it hangs by the door and draping it over her. He's a sight for sore eyes, his wet shirt clinging to every ridge and muscle beneath, crafted and honed by centuries of dedication.
A guard comes over with a note as we walk side by side out of the tent. "My lord, could I get you to assign—“
"I need a minute," he snaps, stalking out the door and across the treeline, dismissing anyone who comes near. I follow behind him, his long strides too great for me. He walks straight into the tall tent we'd been in earlier, and when I walk in he's stood with two hands on his desk, leaning over it and puffing out a slow breath. Worry slices through me.
"Are you alright? Is it your burns?"
"No." He rakes a hand through his messy hair. "Fuck. We were minutes away from losing her there, Rennalya."
"She's fine."
"But she could easily not have been!" He shouts, and I take a step towards him, walking him back towards the small single bed. He sits down on it, and I sit down beside him before he pulls us both down to lying, squished together because we barely fit. I like being squished with him.
"If she'd died today, she'd never have known any of the love that she deserves so much. I've known her since she was a baby. Fuck. And the rest of them, too. They deserve better than what happened today. You know, Siddie could easily have been an orphan, Ren. Imagine him dying like that; out there in the cold dirty water.Fuck."
This has hit him hard. I see that now. Rexxan is never affected by anything, but children are his weakness, and that girl out there is like family to him. I bury my head in his chest. "We'll help her. We'll get her back on her feet."
"It's not enough. I have to find her a family to go home to. I can't watch her go back into an orphanage. And before you say it, royalty can't adopt."
Oh. "Why?"
"We just can’t. It's written into law. Too many debates about bloodlines, claims to the throne, inheritances, and so on."
I hadn't thought of all of that. "Then we'll find her a family. I'll help you," I whisper, kissing his jawline. The stress radiating from his every pore is stifling. "Has anyone ever scratched your head?"
