“Bathing chambers,” he ground out. “Top shelf. Left side. Blue bottle.”

  I turned on my heel and strode back into the bathing chambers, scanning the shelves until I found what I was looking for. The blue bottle was smaller than the healing tonics, its contents dark and viscous. I grabbed it and headed back out.

  Varyth hadn’t moved from the chair, still shirtless and bleeding subtle defiance.

  “Get into bed.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Isara—”

  “I’m not arguing about this.” I stepped closer, using every inch of authority I possessed. “You’re injured. You’re exhausted. And you’re going to rest whether you like it or not. So either you walk your stubborn ass over to that bed, or I will physically put you there myself. And given the state you’re in, I don’t think you’ll enjoy the experience.”

  For a moment, I thought he might actually fight me on it. His silver eyes tracked mine with that calculating intensity, weighing options, assessing outcomes.

  Then slowly—finally—he stood.

  I watched him move toward the bed. He sank onto the edge of the mattress with more grace than someone in his condition had any right to possess, swinging his legs up and settling back against the pillows.

  “Happy?” he asked, and despite everything, there was amusement in the word.

  “Ecstatic.” I crossed to the bookshelf near the window, scanning the spines until I found something that looked halfway interesting. Some treatise on territorial magic. Perfect. Boring enough to keep me occupied without actually engaging my brain.

  I grabbed the book and turned back toward the bed. Varyth was watching me with that unreadable expression, probably expecting me to drag a chair over or leave entirely.

  Instead, I kicked off my boots and climbed onto the other side of the bed, settling against the headboard with the book in my lap.

  “What are you doing?”

  I didn’t look up. “Reading.”

  “Isara.”

  “Varyth.”

  “You don’t need to stay.”

  “Didn’t say I did.” I turned a page. “But I’m staying anyway.”

  The mattress shifted slightly as he turned his head toward me. I could feel the weight of his stare, could practically hear him thinking, calculating, trying to figure out how to dismiss me without sounding like a complete ass.

  “Why?” The question was softer than I expected. Less command, more genuine confusion.

  I finally looked at him.

  “Because I’m still pissed at you, but if you bleed out before I can properly shove you for being a manipulative bastard, it will absolutely ruin the effect.” I held up the blue bottle. “Now drink this before I change my mind about the whole ‘dragging a healer up here’ thing.”

  He took the bottle from my hand, our fingers brushing in the exchange. The contact sent heat spiralling through me, and judging by the way his breath hitched, he felt it too.

  Varyth uncorked the bottle and downed the contents in one smooth motion, his throat working on the swallow. When he finished, he set the empty bottle on the bedside table and settled back against the pillows.

  “I should’ve left you in the Veil,” he muttered, but there was no heat in it. Just exhaustion and fondness.

  “Yeah, well.” I shifted slightly, getting comfortable against the headboard. “Too late now. You’re stuck with me.”

  “Apparently.” His eyes were already starting to drift closed, the pain tonic working its way through his system. “Stubborn female.”

  “Hypocritical male.”

  A low, contented sound rumbled from Varyth’s chest.

  I glanced over. His eyes were glazed, pupils blown wide enough to swallow the silver of his irises. The tension that usually held him rigid as a blade was melting away, his body sinking deeper into the pillows like gravity had just remembered he existed.

  “That was fast,” I muttered, returning my attention to the book. Except the words wouldn’t cooperate, kept blurring into meaningless shapes because I was hyperaware of every breath Varyth took beside me.

  “Mmm.” The sound was liquid, drowsy. “S’nice.”

  I turned another page I hadn’t read. “What’s nice?”

  “Everything.” His head lolled toward me, and when I made the mistake of looking at him, his expression was so open it felt wrong. Like watching someone naked who didn’t realise they’d forgotten their clothes. “You’re nice.”

  My eyebrows climbed. “I literally just called you an idiot.”

  “Still nice.”

  His hand lifted—slow, uncoordinated—and his fingers found a strand of my hair that had fallen forward. He wound it around one finger with the kind of focus usually reserved for my black fire.

  “Soft.” His voice carried that particular quality of someone whose brain-to-mouth filter had just taken a holiday.

  Heat crawled up my neck. “Varyth⁠—”

  “Your hair.” He tugged gently. “S’like fire. Warm. Didn’t know you could be warm.”

  “You’re stoned out of your mind.”

  “Little bit.” He grinned—an actual, unguarded grin that did catastrophic things to my composure. “But m’not wrong. You’re—” He gestured vaguely at all of me. “You’re very—” Another wave of his hand. “Y’know.”

  “Enlightening.”

  “Mhmm.” His fingers drifted from my hair to my cheek, tracing the line of my cheekbone with clumsy reverence. “Skin’s soft too. You’re so fucking soft here, but…” He pressed his palm flat against my face like he was trying to prove a point to himself. “Hard where it matters.”

  My heart was doing something violent and arrhythmic. “Stop.”

  “Don’t wanna.” But his eyes were already drifting closed. “Wanna look at you. M’not allowed to look usually. You get all—” He made a stabbing motion with his free hand. “Pointy.”

  “Pointy.”

  His hand drifted down to catch my wrist, thumb pressing against my pulse like he was counting heartbeats. “These hands. So good at stabbing things.”

  A laugh tried to escape me. I swallowed it. “You need to rest.”

  “Stabbing,” he continued, like I hadn’t spoken. His thumb traced circles over my pulse point, each touch sending sparks racing up my arm. “And probably other things too. Haven’t thought about them doing other things though. That would be...” He frowned, like he was working through complex philosophy instead of barely coherent thoughts. “Inappropriate.”

  My pulse kicked against my throat. “Varyth.”

  “Definitely haven’t thought about them—” He cut himself off, jaw working like he was trying to swallow words that wanted out. “Nope. Not thinking about it. Very appropriate thoughts only.”

  “You should sleep,” I said again, but the words came out breathy. Ruined.

  “Mm.” He glanced down to where his thumb was moving against my wrist, hypnotised by the motion. “You stayed.”

  “You’re injured.”

  “You stayed anyway. In my bed. Second time now.” His expression, still relaxed from the tonic but carrying an edge of something rawer underneath. “That’s not fair.”

  I finally looked at him properly. His hair was mussed from where he’d been lying down, silver strands falling across his forehead in a way that made him look younger. More vulnerable. The control he wore like armour had been stripped away, leaving only this. Whatever this was.

  “What’s not fair?”

  He didn’t answer. Just shifted closer, and before I could process what was happening, his arms came around me. Strong despite the injuries, insistent despite the tonic dragging at his system.

  “Varyth, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

  But he was already tugging me down, pulling me against the solid heat of him with a determination that suggested the pain tonic had obliterated his sense of self-preservation along with his filter.

  I tried to resist. Tried to maintain some kind of distance. But he was surprisingly strong when he wanted to be, and my body—my treacherous, stupid body—remembered the last time I’d been this close. Remembered safety and warmth and the way his heartbeat had lulled me into the first nightmare-free sleep I’d had in months.

  He buried his face in my hair, breathing deep like he was trying to inhale my entire existence.

  “Not fair,” he murmured against my scalp, the words vibrating through me. “Second time you’ve been in my bed and I can’t...”

  He trailed off, but his nose dragged down from my hair to my temple, following some invisible path that made my breath catch. Lower, along my cheekbone, until his face was pressed against my neck and his breath was warm against the sensitive skin of my throat.

  “Really not fair,” he breathed, and dragged his nose up the column of my throat like he was trying to memorise the scent of me.

  Every nerve ending I possessed went into immediate crisis mode.

  “You’re high,” I managed. “The tonic⁠—”

  “Fucking tonic.” But he didn’t pull away. If anything, he pressed closer, one hand coming up to tangle in my hair, holding me in place. “Know what’s worse? Being sober around you. At least like this I can admit it.”

  “Admit what?”

  His lips brushed my pulse point—not a kiss, just contact—and the sound that escaped me was absolutely mortifying.

  “That I think about you,” he said against my skin. “All the fucking time. Think about how you look when you’re angry, when you’re fighting, when you’re with your children and you think no one’s watching.” His hand tightened in my hair. “Think about what it felt like waking up with you in my arms, and how you looked at me like I’d committed some unforgivable sin just by existing in the same space.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You did.” His voice was rough, raw, stripped of everything except honesty and too much pain medication. “And I understood. Because you loved him. Love him. And I’m just...” He exhaled against my throat. “I’m just the bastard who keeps pulling you into his bed when you’d rather be anywhere else.”

  My heart cracked straight down the middle.

  “That’s not—” I started, but the words tangled in my throat. Because what could I say? That he was wrong? That I didn’t wake up hating myself for finding comfort in his arms? That some traitorous part of me hadn’t spent the entire day trying not to think about the way his heartbeat had felt beneath my cheek?

  I’d be lying.

  And I was so fucking tired of lying.

  His breathing had started to even out, the tonic finally winning its war against his consciousness. But his arms didn’t loosen, and his face stayed pressed against my neck, and I could feel every word he’d just shattered me with branding itself into my skin.

  “Varyth,” I whispered.

  No response. Just the steady rise and fall of his chest, the warm puff of his breath against my throat.

  He was out.

  And I was trapped in his bed, in his arms, with every word he’d just said echoing through my skull like accusations I didn’t have a defence for.

  Fuck.

  I should move. Should extract myself and retreat to the safety of my own chambers before this could become even more complicated than it already was.

  Instead, I stayed exactly where I was, my hands coming up to rest against his chest, feeling his heartbeat slow and steady beneath my palm.

  Just for a moment, I told myself.

  Just until I was sure he was really asleep.

  Just until I could convince my body to stop fitting against his like we were two pieces of something that had been broken and poorly reassembled.

  Outside, night pressed against the windows, and the fire burned down to embers, and I lay in Varyth’s bed trying not to think about how this was the second time I’d felt safe in someone else’s arms since Navaire died.

  Trying not to think about how wrong that should feel.

  How wrong it didn’t.

  Fuck.

  31

  Ididn’t know how long I’d been there. Time felt slippery, unmeasured. It could’ve been minutes or hours since I’d somehow ended up in Varyth’s arms again, my back pressed against the solid heat of his chest, his body curved around mine.

  The rational part of my brain, the part that usually screamed run or fight or don’t trust this, had apparently fucked off to take a nap. Because I was still here. Still pressed against him. Still breathing in sync with the rise and fall of his chest.

  And gods help me, I didn’t hate it.

  The room was quiet except for our breathing and the distant sounds of the castle settling into night.

  Which should have been my first warning that peace never lasted.

  Behind me, Varyth stirred.

  It started with a small shift—his fingers flexing against my hip where his hand had been resting. Then a slow exhale that ghosted across the back of my neck and sent every nerve ending I possessed into immediate, catastrophic awareness.

  “Isara.” My name came out rough, sleep-thick and edged with something that made heat pool low in my stomach.

  “Mm?”

  His hand slid from my hip to my waist, fingers splaying wide like he needed to feel more of me. “How long have you been awake?”

  “Not long.”

  “Liar.” The word was a rumble against my spine, and then his mouth—gods, his mouth—brushed against the curve where my neck met my shoulder. Not quite a kiss. More like a question. “Your breathing changed twenty minutes ago.”

  Twenty minutes. I’d been lying here, hyper-aware of every point where our bodies touched, for twenty minutes.

  “You were awake too,” I accused, my voice coming out breathier than I’d intended.

  “Obviously.” Another brush of his lips, this time with the faintest edge of teeth. “Did you think I could sleep with you pressed against me like this?”

  His hand drifted lower, tracing the line of my ribs with maddening slowness.

  “You’re being very...” I searched for the word as his thumb traced lazy circles just below my breast. “Tactile this morning.”

  “This morning?” A low laugh vibrated through his chest into mine. “Isara, it’s past midnight.”

  Oh.

  “The pain tonic must’ve worn off,” I managed, trying desperately to sound casual while his hand continued its slow exploration of every curve and hollow he could reach.

  “Mm. Yes.” His mouth found that spot just below my ear that made my toes curl. “It has.”

  I waited for him to pull back. To remember whatever walls we’d built between us during our last fight.

  Instead, his hand slid up to cup my jaw, tilting my head back against his shoulder so he could trail his lips down the exposed column of my throat. Like he had all the time in the world to absolutely ruin me.

  “Varyth—”

  “You were saying something about the pain tonic?” His teeth scraped against my pulse point, and I felt him smile when I couldn’t quite suppress the sound that escaped me. “About me being delirious?”

  “Yes.” The word came out strangled. “Very delirious. Possibly concussed.”

  “Strange.” His hand drifted back down, fingertips grazing the underside of my breast through the thin fabric of my sleep shirt. “I feel remarkably lucid.”

  “This is—” I broke off when his teeth found my earlobe. “Fuck.”

  “Is?” he prompted, sounding far too pleased with himself.

  “Complicated.”

  “Life is complicated.” His hand found my jaw and tilted my face toward him, and gods, his eyes were molten silver in the darkness. “This is simple.”

  “I’m still pissed at you,” I said, but it came out weak. Unconvincing.

  “Good.” His hand slid under my shirt—skin on skin—and the sound he made against my throat when his palm found my ribs was sinful.

  Before I could process that, before I could ask why the fuck good was his response to me being angry⁠—

  A knock cut through the room.

  We both froze.

  For a single, horrible moment, neither of us moved. Varyth’s hand was under my shirt, his mouth pressed against my throat, his breathing as ragged as mine.

  Another knock. More insistent.

  “Fuck off,” Varyth growled against my skin, and the sound vibrated through my entire body.

  His teeth found the curve where my neck met my shoulder, not quite breaking skin, just pressure and heat and a scrape that sent electricity sparking down my spine. Then his tongue traced the same path, soothing the nip, and I had to bite down on my own lip to keep from making a sound that would destroy whatever dignity I had left.

  “Varyth.” Darian’s voice came through the door, apologetic but firm. “It’s important.”

  Varyth’s hand tightened on my hip, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. Another growl rumbled through his chest, this one pure frustration and utterly feral.

  “Define important,” he snarled, but he’d stopped moving. Stopped kissing. His forehead dropped against my shoulder, and his breathing was as ragged as mine.

  “Very important.” Fenric now, carrying that edge of urgency that said this wasn’t going away. “As in, you’re really going to want to hear this.”

  “For fuck’s sake.” Varyth lifted his head, and the look in his eyes was pure murder. Silver gone molten with frustration and something darker.

  Right. We were about to be interrupted by his entire inner circle.

  In his bedroom.

  Where I was currently sprawled in his bed wearing nothing but a sleep shirt and the world’s worst decision-making skills.

  “You should—” I started, trying to inject some rationality into the situation. “You should probably deal with that.”

  His jaw clenched so hard I heard his teeth grind together. “I’m going to kill them both.”

  “Later.” I shoved at his chest, trying to ignore how warm his skin was beneath my palms. How solid. How much I wanted to pull him back down instead of push him away. “Go. Before they break down the door.”

  For a moment, I thought he might refuse. Might tell them to fuck off again and come back to ruining me with his mouth and hands and that infuriating smile.