Page 6 of Maksym

“Yes,” she said softly. “Even him.”

Taras made the smallest sound under his breath. It might have been amusement. It might have been survival instinct warning him not to laugh.

Millie approached the side of the bed slowly. She tracked every step. When she reached the mattress, she paused again.

“I am going to sit here,” she said. “Only sit. I will not touch you unless you allow it.”

She did not answer.

Millie sat on the edge of the bed with careful grace, leaving distance between them. The mattress dipped, and she flinched, but she did not retreat farther. There was nowhere farther to go unless she climbed the headboard.

I remained across the room.

The bond wanted me near her. My blood wanted to monitor each tremor of her new pulse from inches away. The king in me wanted information: who had taken her, where she had been held, how she had crossed my wards, how far the rot spread beneath my rule.

Millie only sat.

Sometimes I thought that was why she had always been better at care than any of us. She did not confuse urgency with usefulness.

“You are safe now,” she told her. “I know those words may not mean much yet. That is all right. You do not have to believe them immediately.”

Her breathing hitched.

“You may be angry,” Millie said. “You may be confused. You may be very frightened of what has happened to you. None of that makes you ungrateful. None of that makes you difficult. It makes you someone who has survived something terrible.”

Something in her face shifted.

Not trust. That would have been too easy, and the world had not earned such generosity from her. But the rigid line of her shoulders dropped by the smallest fraction.

I saw it. Taras saw it. Millie pretended not to, because naming a fragile thing too early could kill it.

“The first waking is cruel,” Millie continued. “Too much sound. Too much light. Your body feels strange. Your thoughts may not hold still. But it will pass. We will help it pass.”

She swallowed. The motion looked painful. Her gaze moved to Millie’s throat. Hunger stirred in the room. I felt it through the bond before she seemed to understand it. New, sharp, ashamed the moment awareness touched it. Her eyes jerked away from Millie’s pulse and slammed shut.

I took one step before I could stop myself. Her eyes flew open. I froze. Millie lifted one hand slightly toward me without looking away from her. A small command. Stay. I stayed.

Had any noble in my court attempted such a gesture, I would have removed the hand from his political future, if not his body. Millie did it with the calm authority of a woman who had once ordered me to finish broth while enemy scouts burned on the eastern ridge.

“You are not bad for being hungry,” Millie said to her. “You hear me? Hunger is not wicked. What was done to you was wicked. There is a difference.”

Her mouth trembled.

No tears came. Perhaps she had no water left for them. Perhaps the transition had stolen even that human mercy for the moment.

I wanted, with sudden and unreasonable violence, to see her cry somewhere safe.

Not now. Not from fear. Later. When tears could mean release instead of defeat. When she had enough faith in the walls around her to fall apart and know nothing would come through them.

Millie tilted her head. “Can you tell me your name, my dear?”

Names mattered. I knew that better than most. Titles created distance, law, function. Names entered the blood differently. Outside Amethyst, she had been a dying woman. On my bed, she had become my mate. Under my fangs, she had become my fledgling. None of those things were chosen by her.

This, perhaps, was.

She looked at Millie.

Then at Taras, who stood motionless near the door.