Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
It feels like it takes me hours to drag my flickering limbs over damp ground to the exit. When I do, I fall into darkness and startle awake, clinging to Quin’s command.
He is the first thing I see.
We’re on my bed, my head resting on his crossed legs like he’s a pillow. The rest of him leans against the wall, arms crossed. At my stir, his head bows towards mine and his hands cradle gently around my ears. His first words come with the tight curl of his lips. “Finally.”
I stare up at him and smile. “On the brink of death, and still aggravating.”
His hair and braids drop closer, the ends touching my face. “I’m also your king, after all.”
I blow at his hair, the warmth of him under me radiating through to my bones. “If I do recover,” I murmur, “beware of more spanking.”
“Promises, promises.”
I raise a hand. It feels easier to move this morning, with Quin here. I pinch one of his jewelled fastenings and tug it off, and Quin’s eyes flash in a way that steals all my breath. My hand remains ticklish at the ends of his hair, the fastening clamped between my pinched fingers.
He lifts his hand to mine and for a moment I think he’ll steer it into his loosening braid, but his grip tightens and he draws my hand away. “Recover,” he murmurs.
Recover . . .
I lunge upright out of his lap, checking—still the faint glimmer of a working shield. I haven’t infected Quin. Yet.
I heave my achy body off the bed, almost knocking Quin’s cane to the ground, and throw on a cloak. “I need Nicostratus to shield me.”
One step toward the door and wind surges, pushing me backward. Quin catches me effortlessly, his large hand splayed against my back. A heated whisper hits my ear, “You’ve got me now.”
I turn my face towards his, and his lips skate over my cheekbone. His breath pebbles down the side of my nose and catches at my lips, and for a moment I feel a shivery rush in my bones—like a pull of light. His light. The lovelight he gifted me.
“Save your magic,” I say quietly. “You’ll need to shield yourself when—”
He presses my chest and a shielding spell stretches out of him and around me. “My brother searched through the night until he found me and my men. I’m indebted to him for helping you while I wasn’t here. But, Caelus, I’m here now. And the only magic I want covering your body is mine.”
The light swells inside me. I grab the back of his neck, pressing my forehead to his. “Quin, you must know I—”
He steals my lips—fast, bruising, gone before I can breathe. “I said, not until you’re better. Not just less fevered—fully healed. Not until then, got it?”
“You’re always goading me.”
His lips curl.
A knock at the door has me trying to pull away, but Quin holds me firmly against him and hollers. Olyn enters with a hot broth and a startled look. Quin doesn’t bat an eyelid, but his arm curls me even closer against his chest. And when I reach out for the broth, he bats my fingers away, takes the steaming bowl and holds it up to my lips. My eyes cut to his, and his hook mine back with a quirk of his brow that just dares me to resist.
I sip. And sip and sip and sip until he’s tipped an entire bowl of broth down my throat. He smiles with satisfaction and I shake my head, lips twitching.
Olyn clears her throat, a pointed reminder that she’s still in the room. I push myself up from Quin’s lap and cross to the table, where my healing bag waits. “Your son and queen will be relieved to see you.”
“My son I hugged the moment I arrived.”
I glance at him, at this simple statement, and it feels like my stomach and chest drop through me suddenly. I’m left feeling . . . even lighter than I possibly knew I could. Quin tended to his son’s needs first.
This . . .
What a good father, what a clear-minded man. What a king.
I hold up the vial of horse pus. “Then let’s gather the crusaders and talk.”
We stand in the same hall we were first led to in the mountain stronghold. Nicostratus and Bastion, myself and Quin, Olyn and Queen Veronica holding her son, and then Lykos and Megaera, who sit close to Zenon and his father. A dozen other highly-ranked crusaders stud the hall as well.
“You’re talking about infecting healthy people!” someone cries in outrage.
“It’s forbidden,” another hisses.
“If caught, your entire family will be killed.”
“If caught crusaders like us will be guillotined regardless!”
“What if it harms the healthy?”
“What if it saves them?”
“The risks . . .”
“Horse pus! Who would?”
“I will.” The words strike like a hammer, ringing through the hall, cutting through the rising noise. Silence falls.