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"I'm fine," I assure him swiftly, pressing him back down with gentle, implacable hands. "Varkos is dead, Grok. We won. You..." My voice fails me, a hard knot of remembered terror lodging in my throat. Swallowing thickly, I force myself to go on. "You saved me. Stepped in front of his blade, the blow meant for my heart. Ancestors, Grok, you almost..."
A single rogue tear slips free, streaking hot down my cheek. I dash it away impatiently, fixing him with a glare I hope hides the way I'm shaking inside. "Don't you ever do that again, you hear me? Don't you ever scare me like that again. Watching you fall, seeing you so still, so much blood..." A shudder ripples through me, ice in my marrow. "I thought... I thought I'd lost you."
His face softens, a big, callused palm coming up to cradle my cheek. I lean into the touch helplessly, starvation and succor in one.
"Never," he rumbles, low and rasping but so achingly alive. "You'll never lose me, Lily. Not in this world or any other. I'm yours, remember? Always and only. To whatever end."
A sob hitches in my throat and I turn my face into his palm, press a fierce kiss to the heart of it. "You better remember that, you great idiot," I manage to croak. "Because if you ever pull a stunt like that again, I'll kill you myself. Slowly and painfully. Over many, many days."
He chuckles softly, then winces, face pinching with pain. I make a low, distressed sound, hands fluttering uselessly over his chest.
"Hush now," I croon, gentling him back onto the thin pillow. "No more talk, no more fuss. You need to rest, regain your strength."
He grumbles wordlessly but allows me to settle him, eyes already fighting to stay open. Bending, I brush a soft, lingering kiss to his brow, his fluttering lids. "Sleep," I whisper against his skin. "I'll be right here, keeping watch. Nothing and no one will touch you again, I swear it. On my life, my love."
He sighs, a soft susurrus of breath. Nuzzles his face clumsily into my touch. "Stay?" he mumbles muzzily, more than half asleep already.
"Always," I vow, throat aching, heart full to breaking. Perching on the edge of the bed, I stroke his hair as his breathing deepens and evens. Watch the lines of pain slowly smooth from his dear, rugged face.
My heart. My home.
Safe and alive and here.
For now, that's enough. That's everything.
Let the world and its worries wait. The war, the wounds, both physical and spiritual. The hard choices and harrowing roads ahead.
In this moment, in this space...there is only him. Only this.
This love, this light...that I'll fight to my very last breath to keep.
No matter the cost. No matter the scars.
What follows are days of pain and recovery, of fear and hope in equal, agonizing measure. I barely sleep, barely eat, every waking moment consumed by Grok's care, his comfort. I change his bandages religiously, feed him broth and healing teas spoonful by shaking spoonful. I bathe the sweat and sickness from his skin, murmur songs and stories and every sweet, silly nothing I can think of to tether him to the world, to wellness.
To me.
Sometimes, in the darkest hours of the night, when his fever burns brightest and he thrashes and moans in the grip of delirium...I crawl into the narrow bed beside him. Press myself to the heat and heft of him, skin to skin, heart to heart. I stroke his hair, his heaving flank, and plead with him in broken whispers.
"I'm here," I rasp against the humid hollow of his throat, the throb of his pulse. "I'm here, Grok. Come back to me. Please, please...come back to me. I can't do this without you. Can't be, without you. I'm not that strong."
But even as I say it, I know it for the lie it is. Because I am strong. Strong enough to hold him, hold us both, through this and every other storm to come. I am Lily Hawthorne, the Red Blade, Scourge of the Borderlands and Beloved of the Bloodclaw Warlord.
I do not break. I do not bend.
Not even for this, the greatest battle of my life. The fight for him, for us.
For our future, our forever...that I'll wade through every hell, every horror, to claim.
And slowly, day by stubborn day...I begin to win that battle. To turn that tide.
His fever breaks, lucidity seeping back into his eyes for longer and longer stretches. His skin loses its waxy pallor, some of its healthy grey luster returning. He manages to keep down solid food, regaining a measure of his formidable strength.
And in the moments between, the sweet, stolen hours of calm and connection...we talk. Low, and halting, voices hushed in the honeyed half-light.
Of our pasts, our hopes and scars and secret shames. The stories that have shaped us, honed us...all unknowing...for this. For each other.
He tells me of his childhood, the harshness and the hunger of it. Of how he clawed his way up from nothing, forged himself into a warrior, a warlord...through blood and brawn and sheer, unbreakable will.
