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Everything hurt. Something along his ribs felt freshly torn, a pulpy, liquid pain igniting with each breath.
“Hm?” Ragnar turned from the basin, wiping his face with Leif’s damp towel. His air was so motherly – no, worse, that of an elderly nursemaid – that the bones in his hair and the teeth hanging on his chest provided hilarious counterpoint. Leif would have laughed, if it wouldn’t have hurt so badly. “Proud of yourself? Your grace?”
“Stop.”
Ragnar balled up the wet towel, and threw it, straight at his face.
Leif lifted a hand automatically to catch it, and couldn’t hold back the hiss of pain as lightning arced around his ribcage.
Ragnar made a disgusted sound as he stalked across the room. “So wise, my alpha. So brave, fighting small men in a training yard; tearing all his muscles to bits to prove he’s a better swordsman than the fancy Southern lordlings.”
“Do you remember,” Leif asked, “when you were the one without a single worry or second thought, and I was the responsible party?”
Ragnar dropped down to sit on the edge of the bed, in the angle between Leif’s arm and side. “A happier time,” he said, sullenly.
Leif did laugh then, a quiet chuckle, quickly tamped down before it could send too many shockwaves through his sore chest.
“It’s not funny,” Ragnar sulked. “You’ve ruined me.”
He settled, and the mattress, which had groaned from his added weight, settled as well; in the silence that followed, filled only by the call of birds and men through the open window, his words had a chance to settle, too. To land between them, heavier than their combined mass on the bed; heavier than anything Leif could recall them having said to one another. Up ‘til now.
Leif took a shallow, careful breath. Ragnar faced the window, holding very still.
There were many things he could have said, all of them rejected because they were too sentimental, too human, and therefore meaningless, despite their forbidden, flowery implications.
He swallowed, with some difficulty, and said, not unkindly, “You ruined yourself.”
“Aye,” Ragnar agreed, and didn’t sound bitter about it, as Leif had expected. Sad, perhaps. His lashes lowered, as his gaze dropped to his lap, and he picked at a callus along the base of his middle finger. “I suppose I did.”
The stairs creaked, and both of them perked up.
Well…Ragnar perked up. Leif attempted to sit up, thought better of it, and listened instead.
In their short time here, he’d come to learn the rhythm of everyone’s stride, the way the floors took their weight, the scents of their sweat and skin. By the time the footfalls had reached the top of the stairs, he knew it was Amelia who approached, and then he steeled himself and pushed upright with a quiet curse.
Ragnar shot him a chastising look, but then Amelia appeared in the open doorway with a quick rap of her knuckles, and a jump of her brows that evidenced surprise. She hadn’t expected him to be upright, he thought, and he nearly hadn’t been.
He pressed what he hoped was a subtle hand to his ribs and said, “My lady,” voice only a little strained.
Amelia sighed at the title, but she’d stopped pointing out the hypocrisy of him wanting to be called by name, while adopting a formal address with her. She folded her arms, and propped a shoulder in the doorjamb. “How long did it take you to sit up just now?”
“Ha!” Ragnar barked.
Leif made a face – only to realize that he’d already been making a face, a rather damning grimace that he failed to wipe away completely. “Perhaps…not as quickly as I would have liked.”
Amelia’s lips twitched, and she bit down on the lower one a moment, managing not to smile, despite Ragnar’s continued laughter. “I’ll have to trust you to know your own limits.” Then, more seriously: “That was an impressive display in the yard earlier. You’ve clearly trained long and hard under expert swordsmen.” Like so many of their conversations, her words were dressed as a formal address, one noble to another, carefully crafted in the way of Statesman Speech.
But the glint of her eyes spoke of sincerity – she did admire his skill, and the knowledge was more flattering than it should have been.
“Thank you,” he said, and meant it. “Bjorn is a ruthless master in the yard.”
“Bjorn,” Ragnar scoffed. “The same man who pined after your mother for two decades without speaking up for himself.”
“Don’t speak of my mother,” Leif said, and sent Ragnar a pointed look that was received with a widening of his eyes, and a ducking of his head. A murmuredyes, alpha.
“Your mother,” Amelia said, stepping further into the room, resting a hand along the back of the chair that had become Ragnar’s usual place. “Tessa tells me she’s…” she hesitated a beat “…expecting a new brother or sister for you?”
Ragnar pressed a hand to his mouth, stood, and walked to the window. Leif could see his shoulders shaking, however, with silent laughter. He spared him an unseen sour look, and couldn’t hold back a sigh as he returned his attention to Amelia. “Yes. She’s with child.”
