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“I’ll pay for counseling if that’s what they need,” Charles declared. “Can you set it up, Doc?”
“I can imagine it now,” said Alora, with a bitter smile, altering her voice to a squeaky drone. “‘Just lay back on the couch and tell me what happened, Alora...’ ‘Well, it all started when my evil father captured Kaevin and me in another world, chained us to a wooden platform, and burned me with a hot iron to force us to take his oath of fealty. We would’ve gotten away if I’d been able to transport us out of there after closing the portal...’”
Doc covered his face with his hands, groaning through his fingers. “Maybe a counselor isn’t such a good idea. I can barely handle the truth myself. I might be able to study up on PTSD and figure something out...”
Kaevin cleared his throat. “I don’t want to offend anyone, but Alora and I need to... uhmm... I mean... my head is hurting and I think hers is as well...”
“I’m outta here,” said Uncle Charles, his cheeks turning blotchy red.
“Me too.”
Doc slid out the door behind Charles, leaving the door open. That was fine. They didn’t need total privacy to kiss, but it was less awkward if people weren’t watching.
Kaevin rattled the cup of ice on the bedside table, “Do you need another piece?”
“This one is pretty melted, but I think I’m okay.”
Bracing with one hand, he leaned to kiss her. She was accustomed to the tingle, now recognizing the feeling of their soulmate bond replenishing. The tingle was quite pleasant, though the necessity of the contact reduced the romantic aspect a bit. He kept his lips pressed to hers for several minutes, not that she was complaining. When he ended the kiss, his fingers traced a tickly path along her jaw before withdrawing.
“I love you, Alora.”
Okay, that’s still romantic.
Her gaze dropped down to two large pieces of gauze taped across his stomach and on his side. “That awful warrior stabbed you with the sword.” She’d seen it happen and wondered how he was still alive.
“Scratches. Barely through the skin. You know I’m gifted in dexterity and weapons.”
“Yeah, but not humility, right?”
“I would be completely humble if I weren’t the best,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
She touched the gauze, feeling his answering stab of pain. It’s worse than he said.
“They both had swords, and you both had only knives. And I assume those guards were also gifted, right?”
His shoulders shrugged. “We were more gifted. I’ve got enhancement from my soulmate bond with you and from the defender bond with Jireo.”
Her stomach turned a flip-flop as she replayed the fight in her mind, but she kept her emotional response at bay. “What happened at the end? I thought you were injured. I thought he was going to kill you.”
“Ha!” said Jireo, sauntering into the room, his own bandage peeking from the sleeve of his t-shirt. “And were it not for me, you would’ve prevented his plan from being successful.”
“Whose plan?”
“Obviously, Kaevin was attempting to convince him he was too injured to fight, but of course, I knew better. A couple of slashes to the gut and one to the thigh would never be enough to—“
“A slash to the thigh?” She turned to Kaevin and pinned him with her most accusative stare. “You didn’t tell me about that.”
“The small cuts weren’t life threatening,” Kaevin argued.
“It’s all my fault. Everything.”
“It’s not all your fault. But I would like to discuss something...” His brows created a deep furrow on his forehead.
Oh no... here it comes.
“I told you never to transport without me.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.” Something about his authoritative tone didn’t sit right with Alora, no matter how reasonable his argument. The fact that Kaevin was eighteen while she was still only sixteen was a constant source of conflict, though she suspected he would’ve been just as bossy if she’d been a year older than him. In truth, after all she’d been through in the past six months, she’d matured way beyond most sixteen-year-olds.
