Page 17 of Fought it Through the Teeth

"I know. I was there for most of it."

Morgan huffs, but the corner of his mouth twitches despite his best efforts. He pulls his shirt over his head, which requires a series of movements that are each individually painful and collectively excruciating. By the time the fabric clears his head he is breathing hard and his eyes are watering and he can feel the cool air of the room against the sweat that has broken out across his chest.

"Well," Bohdi says, from behind him. "Hopefully it's not as bad as it looks."

Morgan can't see his face, but the tone carries enough information. He stands with his back to Bohdi and his hands braced on the table and says, with more composure than the situation warrants, "That good, hm?"

"Did the boar trample you? I admit I was there, but maybe I blinked once or twice and missed it."

"I bruise easily. Comment on that at your own peril."

"I would never." Bohdi's voice is moving and then he is standing behind Morgan and Morgan can feel the warmth of him, the radiant heat that Bohdi carries, banked behind skin. "Nothing broken, you think? Again, I'm no expert."

"And you think I am?" Morgan snorts. "No, I think it's just bruised. Like my pride."

Bohdi laughs. The sound is warm and genuine and close, close enough that Morgan feels the puff of breath against the back of his neck, and the hair there stands on end.

"All right," Bohdi says. "Hold still. I'll try not to make it worse."

"Your bedside manner is inspiring."

"You should hear what I say to the men in the field. This is the gentle version."

"I shudder to think."

Morgan holds still. His hands are flat on the table, fingers spread, and he stares at the wood grain and waits.

Bohdi's hand touches his back.

The first press of salve is cool and startling and Morgan flinches before he can stop himself, not from pain, but from the simple shock of contact. Bohdi's hand stills immediately.

"All right?"

"Fine. Cold."

"Oh, was I supposed to warm it up? I'll keep that in mind."

Bohdi's fingers spread across the bruise below Morgan's right shoulder blade, and the salve is cold but the hand beneath it is not. Bohdi's palm is warm and broad enough to cover the span of the bruise with room to spare. He works the salve in with small, firm circles, pressing into the damaged muscle with a pressure that walks the precise line between helpful and painful, and Morgan breathes through his nose and lets him.

"How's your optimism holding up?" Bohdi asks, his voice easy, conversational.

"I guess that depends on what your plan is going forward," Morgan says lightly. "Are you planning on killing him before he marries me or am I to be a widower?"

"You have as much patience as your brother."

"I don't mean to critique your assassination skills, but the man we came to kill is still very much breathing."

"As much as I would love to remedy that, I need a scenario where his entire stronghold does not come down on me with blades drawn." A pause. Bohdi's thumb traces the edge of the bruise, following the border where purple fades to yellow. "You've got to give me a little more time, your highness."

His hand moves lower, following the line of bruising down Morgan's ribs, and the pressure adjusts, gentler here, where the tissue is more tender, the circles smaller and more careful.

Morgan stares at the table and thinks about grain tallies.

This is a strategy he developed years ago, a method of managing the crisis that proximity to Bohdi produces in his body. When Bohdi stands too close at a council meeting, Morgan thinks about grain tallies. When Bohdi strips to the waist in the training yard and Morgan happens to be crossing the courtyard at precisely the wrong moment, Morgan thinks about grain tallies. When Bohdi emerges from the hot springs beneath the Keep at Valen, dripping and tattooed and shameless, he settles onto the rocks with his legs spread and his head tipped back and everything on display for the gods and the world. Morgan thinks about grain tallies with such ferocious concentration that he could recite the annual wheat yield for every village in Rengara from memory.

He thinks of grain tallies, wheat yields, the barrel count from the northern stores, the discrepancy in last quarter's⁠—

Bohdi's hand slides across his lower back and Morgan's mind goes blank.