22.
Thalia found Raff in the makeshift field hospital, having Dr. Wyeth cut yet another bullet out of him. She flinched as the scalpel dug into him, as the red trickled out. The wolf lord didn’t know she was watching, but he still refused all anesthetic, though he did accept a unit of Eldritch universal donor blood. Who knew how that would turn out? Most of what they did together was unprecedented.
When he finally noticed her, he pinned a smile on immediately, no matter how unconvincing. She returned it, trying not to think of that terrible moment on the wall. He almost died. Again. If I’d been even a second later—
No. There was no gain to be had by obsessing over tragedies that didn’t happen. Still, her insides churned with fear and adrenaline. It took all her self-control not to run to him and pull his messy head to her chest and slap the doctor’s hands away. Those impulses were both fierce and foreign, giving her no inner peace.
“Seems like you survived,” she said then.
“Not trying to brag, but I’m bloody good at it.”
Frustration rose like a stormy wave, but she quelled it. He wouldn’t appreciate being chided in front of the physician. Thalia wrapped that concern up and packed it tight and deep, along with her sorrow over Tirael. Layers of sadness and grief, hardly acknowledged, trembled within her, along with feelings she could scarcely name. The other Eldritch couldn’t see her weakness or uncertainty, however. They followed an icy, confident woman, one worthy to be queen.
Rather than quarrel with Raff, she turned to the doctor. “Is his treatment finished?”
“For now. He needs rest, though, and to stop taking terrible wounds.”
“Understood. I’ll try to keep him out of trouble,” she said.
“I’d appreciate it if you could extend that claim to the rest of us. Daruvar has seen sufficient excitement.”
It wasn’t quite a reproach—Wyeth wouldn’t dare—but the words held a similar shape. Thalia inclined her head. “I’ll do my best.”
Raff stood on his own. “I’ve been fantasizing about warm food and a hot shower, or vice versa, for what feels like forever. Any chance that a war hero could get some recognition around here?”
“A war hero? Really?” But she took the hand he held out to her. “Thank you, doctor. We’ll get out of your way now.”
She had no idea who to ask in the current hierarchy, who had been just below Lileth, so she stopped a random Eldritch staffer in the hallway. “Who’s been running the keep since…” There was no way to finish the question, not physically possible.
The woman knew, though, her eyes soft and kind. “Madam Isoline. Do you need her for something?”
“Not right now. We only require some food, as fast as you can prepare it.”
The worker nodded, glancing between her and the dirty wolf warrior at her side. I probably don’t look much better.
“Right away, Your Highness.”
“Oh, and if there’s venison left from Raff’s hunt, please give him a generous portion.” She suspected that the additional protein would help mend his injuries faster, though she was no expert in Animari care.
I need to become one.
As the staffer left, Raff brushed Thalia’s tangled hair away from her face. “Let’s take a break, shall we? It’s been rough.”
“Agreed.”
At her urging, he took the first shower and while he was safely out of earshot, she cried. For Tirael, the secrets she’d kept, hatred nursed furtively and kept alive through years of conspiracy and secret violence. She must have wanted vengeance for her mother and to stand proudly at their father’s side. Now she shared her mother’s ill-starred fate, a head on a pike, hair streaming in the bitter wind.
Thalia wiped her face as Raff stepped out of the bath in a whorl of steam. She’d hoped he take long enough in luxuriant scrubbing that he wouldn’t catch her, but he zeroed in on her tears straight away. Wearing only a towel—and that in the most cursory fashion—he dropped down beside her, water still beaded on his chest and shoulders.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You’re not. Come here.”
When he opened his arms, she went. Before she met Raff, before Lil died, Thalia had always cried alone. Always. Lileth had hammered it into her head almost from birth that she couldn’t trust anyone with her vulnerable moments; she had to hide them, deny them, pretend she was nothing but a suit of armor filled with endless courage.
She’d meant to stop, dam up the waterworks, but with his arms around her, the tears fell faster, and her sobs came loud and harsh, until she feared she might choke or pass out. He took it all while stroking her back and whispering nonsense words into the tangled mass of her grungy hair. Thalia didn’t even know why he would; none of this was covered in their agreement, but she held onto him with all her strength, her face against his warm, hairy chest. Unexpectedly comforting.
Who knew what else she might have said or done, if a knock hadn’t sounded. Raff released her gently and stood. “That’ll be our dinner. I’ll take care of it. You get cleaned up.”
Thalia retreated to the bathroom, conscious that he was shielding her. The room was still steamy, and the mirror blurred, but that made it easier to strip without minding how much weakness she’d revealed. Trust didn’t come easily to her, but he’d had so many chances to betray her that she couldn’t imagine him turning now. No matter why, Raff continued to honor their agreement and offer perplexing extra services.
Like holding me while I wept.
He’d probably object if she told him that the three words that sprang to her mind to describe him were sweet, generous, and gentle. Smiling, she stepped into the hot trickle of water that was the best Daruvar’s ancient pipes could provide. Because of the low pressure, it took a long time to scrub herself clean and rinse her hair properly, a delay sufficient to get her emotions in order, as Raff had doubtless known. She put her hair up in a towel and wrapped another around her body. For Thalia, that wasn’t an oversight but an intentional choice to respond to the intimacy of his dishevelment in kind.
When she stepped out of the bathroom, he had the food laid out on a low table, the fire built up in the hearth just beyond. “We dine by firelight?”
That, too, was kind, as the flickering shadows were forgiving of her red and swollen eyes.
Raff beckoned, patting the place next to him. “You have bread and a bubbling vegetable soup. I have a slab of venison in gravy over a bed of roasted potatoes.”
“Have you been charming the kitchen staff again?”
“Guilty,” he said, taking up his spoon.
Their meal was mostly silent, punctuated by the crackle of the fire. The flames gilded his skin and lent him a startling allure, so much that she kept sneaking looks, veiled through her lashes. One wasn’t enough, so her gaze returned to him repeatedly while she tried to decide when he’d become so beautiful. It wasn’t any single feature, but she loved the long spill of his dark curls now, and the breadth of his shoulders, the tight-coiled springs of his beard, and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled.
As he was doing now. At her.
“What?” she mumbled.
“You’re staring. Do I have stew on my face?”
“No.” It was an awkward wedge of an answer, stuck in the intangible door between them, but her sudden curtness didn’t dim the twinkle in his night-dark eyes. They were beautiful too, the deepest brown, fringed in ridiculous lashes and topped with thick, slightly intimidating brows.
“Hardly.”
Using the edge of his spoon, he scraped his bowl clean, seeming untroubled by Thalia’s scrutiny. “Then what is it? And if you can’t tell me this, tell me something else, a secret nobody else knows.”
Raff didn’t think Thalia would respond with a real answer. He expected a joke or a quick dismissal, but to his surprise, she bit her lip, deeply pensive. Then she scooted closer, as if the walls might seriously have ears. In this place, maybe he shouldn’t rule out the idea.
Eldritch politics were a lot deadlier and more convoluted than he’d bargained for. Raff still hadn’t completely wrapped his head around the fact that her half-sister had been hiding in plain sight and plotting Thalia’s downfall for how many years? Unheard of among the Animari—tempers ran too hot for that sort of treachery. In Pine Ridge, if you pissed someone off, the two of you fought it out and let it go.
“I’ve been wanting to tell you this anyway,” she whispered. “But I couldn’t figure out how…and maybe it won’t matter to you—”
“Just spill it,” he cut in.
Must be something major if she’s this nervous.
“I don’t have a gift,” she said, low.
Holy shit.
From what he’d gathered about Eldritch culture, this would be akin to revealing that she was Latent. Raff knew that gifts developed in early adulthood and that using the preternatural ability too much equated to burning life force. Korin had briefed him about the Eldritch Noxblade, Zan, who sacrificed himself for the Golgoth Prince during the Battle of Hallowell. His mind raced, weighing the implications. If her people knew, would they still support her push for the throne?
“That’s why you use the bracers,” he guessed.
She nodded, staring pointedly away from him into the fire. “I do have a certain mechanical aptitude that lets me design and build unusual things, but no innate power.”
“Did Lileth know?”
“She was the only one, until you.”
“Why’d you tell me?” Raff had asked for a secret, but he never could’ve predicted she’d share something so momentous.
The level of trust it indicated stole his breath. Right then and there, he decided it didn’t matter whether her people would still back her; they’d never hear of it from him. Plus, if she’d come all this way on sheer determination and charisma, then in his book, she’d more than earned the dubious benefit of an antiquated Eldritch title.
“You asked.”
“That’s an excuse, Lady Silver. You could’ve shared something else, like a little story about stealing cookies as a kid.”
A fleeting, wistful smile flickered at the edges of her mouth. “Lileth never let me get away with anything like that.”
“Sounds like she ruled your childhood with an iron fist.”
Thalia nodded. “There was no other choice. I would’ve been crushed if she hadn’t kept me safe, taught me all the skills I needed to survive my father’s court.”
She made it sound onerous…and unbearably lonely, a truth reinforced by the deep blue of her eyes. Sometimes they looked purple, but now, wrapped in that white towel, they were like the sea just before dusk, open and empty, as she gazed inward, across an icy tundra of desolate years. There had likely been no friendships, no roughhousing like he’d gotten from packmates, no solace from roving the hills.
He pictured her holed up in the library, endlessly reading. Given her prowess with the blades, he added to that mental image, placing her in Noxblade training from a young age, drilling alongside those who had to see her as better, stronger, and smarter, no matter what. If she fell, she had to get up twice as fast, if she took a wound, she had to pretend it didn’t hurt and examine the damage alone—while her mad father plotted to restore the glory of the old days, when the Eldritch ruled over the rest of the Numina.
How did she come out whole from that special hell?
It was beyond Raff not to reach for her, slowly, in case she wanted to be left alone. When she curled into him a second time, just as eagerly as when she was crying, his heart lurched in his chest, clenched and tightened. She felt so delicate and small, fragile compared to an Animari lover, but he already knew she was stronger than she seemed. Her heart raced against his, more proof that his touch did things to her, and her scent warmed, ripened, sheer chemical enticement.
“You like it when I touch you.”
It wasn’t a question, only an observation, and not even a surprising one. Raff was good at giving pleasure, but it rarely meant anything, and close skinship had never filled him with such euphoria before. She let him approach when no others were allowed the same privilege. Only he saw her softness and her faltering moments, and it was a kind of compliment that he couldn’t have envisioned receiving, before.
“Why state the obvious?” she muttered.
“Don’t sulk, I like it too. Your hair especially. Shall I fix it for you? Summoning your dresser would ruin the mood.”
Before she could protest, he got a comb from her night table and unwrapped the towel. Her hair spilled out, liquid silver in the firelight, so light and fine that it practically floated with static, half-damp and wild. With a little primitive thrill, he decided he would most likely kill anyone else who saw her like this.
“What are you doing?”
“Soothing you.” He didn’t say anything else about her lack of a gift. This was his way of comforting her and affirming their closeness. “I’ll be careful.”
Easier said than done, as there were lots of knots and snarls from their time in the wild, but she relaxed beneath his touch, eyes dropping half-closed as he worked on the tangles. He savored these moments with an intensity that skated so far past liking that the feeling must end somewhere in the hills of adoration. Eventually, the comb slid through her hair smoothly. Raff suppressed a quiver of a disappointment that he had no more reason to touch her.
“Is grooming normally part of the mate relationship in your pack?” she asked softly, as his hands fell away from her hair.
An interesting question, not one he’d considered before at length. “We don’t have a manual for such things. Each couple decides privately what works and suits them best.”
“Maybe it’s because of our long lifespans, but romantic pairings aren’t like this among my people,” she said.
“No?” That was an invitation to elaborate.
Thankfully, she took it. “Even sex and love are a game with power at stake. The one who cares more, gives more, loses more. Thus we strive not to reveal the true level of our desire or the real tenor of our yearning.”
“If you don’t ask for anything, you can never be denied.” That was one of the main reasons he’d never shown any sign how much it would mean to get his father’s, that crazy old wolf, approval for one of his own ideas, not one that came from Korin.
“Precisely. And if you make your lover beg, you win again.”
“Sounds terrible,” Raff said. “I hope you don’t intend to play those games with me.”
“There’s no point. I threw out the scorecard some time ago, even if I was initially inclined in that direction.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I can’t measure you, and I don’t want to.” There was no mistaking her honesty, evident in her soft voice and the clarity of her eyes, raised slowly to meet his.
“Well, my good wife, you’ll never need to plead with me for anything, except maybe an orgasm. I do like the pretty way you gasp and quiver when I’m holding you at the edge.”
She raised a pale hand to his face, her fingers light and cool on his cheeks, his brows, but the touch set him alight, no matter its delicacy. “Will you take me to bed now, husband? I’m not begging, mind. Only asking.”