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Bronze finally dropped his pack and walked over to the door he’d just shut, scanning the walls along its perimeter. No light switch. He checked the wall space above the porcelain sink and below the cabinets. Again, no light switch, nor were there any overhead lights or tableside lamps. Then he looked at the sconces once more, inspecting them further. Inside the simple glass cages sat honest-to-God candles.
Fucking candles. In a medical suite.
That out-of-his-element feeling he’d had earlier crept up his spine in slow warning prowls. Worried he was missing a very large piece of the damn puzzle, he found the matches and quickly lit the lamps.
What the flames illuminated was not the picture he wanted to see.
The cot was not so unusual for a hospital, except if it featured none of the electronic aids or metallic handrails he expected. It was little more than a mattress with a hard plastic frame, small resin wheels, and the obligatory set of overwashed mass-produced sheets. The bedside armchair wasn’t anything altogether out of the ordinary either, with its uninspired wooden frame and ho-hum cushion in basic boring beige. There was no blood pressure monitor on the wall, however, nor any rolling IV pole. Without a window to let in any sunlight, flickering shadows danced fast and loose across a stone floor that looked about as hygienic as a borrowed bowling ball at a seven-year-old’s birthday party. No amount of bleach could touch the bacterial critters that stone could store.
The king’s physicians didn’t use linoleum for a medical suite? And mages forbid there was a patient with compromised breathing; how the hell would they maneuver oxygen tanks or respirators next to ye olde flickering fire hazards dotting the walls?
Bronze slowly spun in place, making damn sure he didn’t miss what his suspicion was telling him he’d never find. Impossible.
Even as he thought the word, the truth of his surroundings and what he’d seen ever since he got there solidified into sharp focus. There were no electrical outlets in the room, no hookups for respirators or oxygen, no monitors for vital signs. No ethernet cables or even so much as a damn night-light.
“You don’t use electricity,” he said softly, his words tinged with stunned disbelief.
But Clara must not have heard him, because when he turned to face her, she was just bringing her head up from between her knees and the flush in her cheeks was quickly fading to its more natural rose-kissed hue. “There, I think I’m better now. Oh, goodness, I still can’t believe I did that.”
Whatever realization his brain had landed on seconds ago, and whatever it was so eager to panic about, fled with the insignificance of a runaway thought.
Bronze was no stranger to hefty doses of hubris. Hell, there were times he gorged on the stuff like a recovering vegan attacking a cheese plate. But he’d never seen pride look so perfect as it had on Clara’s features. Her shaking had long since subsided, and her shoulders no longer sagged under the weight of someone else’s expectations. It was her eyes, however, that stunned him the most.
Clear, vibrant, and sparking with an excitement he’d yet to see from her before.
It was more than enough to make him forget about . . . whatever he’d been stressing over a moment ago.
“He’s wrong, you know,” Bronze said, closing the distance between them and taking a seat next to her on the bed, eager to finally rest his injured leg and see for himself that her father had truly done nothing more to Clara than talk to her.
No bruises or red marks on her skin. Good.
Clara gifted him a sad smile, no doubt realizing her feat of strength came at a high cost. “Wrong? About what?”
Her hand lay gripping the edge of the thin mattress, mere inches from his. Owing to no feeling other than instinct, he lifted her hand up and cradled it between his warm palms. The tips of her fingers were still cold, but despite her soft rush of breath, she didn’t pull them away and instead curled them closer into the center of his hands.
The simple touch extended all the way to his core, until his angel fire throbbed with warming recognition.
“I heard what he said to you, and I want you to know that there are worse things to be labeled than a viper. In fact, vipers notoriously get a bad rap, usually by the uninspired or uneducated. They’re low-hanging fruit for nasty metaphors, but in reality, they’re some of the most amazing creatures this realm has ever seen.”
She looked at him quizzically, and a corner of her lips lifted. “Vipers? Are we thinking of the same snakes?”
“Oh, most definitely. Let me tell you something about those beauties. Did you know that, for all the venom they carry, they still have the ability to choose whether to inject their victims?”
Her shoulders bobbed on a snort of disbelief.
“It’s true. They don’t always go for the kill, because they don’t always need to. However, when they’re cornered or feel threatened in any way, they administer an open-mouthed bite, and at the last second, they can make a conscious choice whether to rotate their fangs to avoid lasting damage to their prey. Their true power is being able to wound with a dry bite, but doing so without releasing a drop of venom.”
Her eye roll came right on cue, but he was ready for it. What he wasn’t ready for was her fingers loosening slightly within his grasp and then burrowing further in a way where they found snug homes between his. It wasn’t a tight handhold. Just a tentative linking, but one that he wasn’t so eager to break anytime soon.
“Not only do vipers choose whether to inject their venom, but they also decide how much to dispel.”
“Wouldn’t they always want to kill what threatens them?”
“The snake uses its cunning to take into account many different facets of the situation. Don’t forget, their eyes see more than others do. Their vertical oval-shaped pupils can widen or narrow fully, enabling them to take in more light than their prey would. To see what other creatures can’t. They can also give birth to live young, which, I imagine, affords them some additional perspective on the power they have and choose to wield.”
“You almost make them sound pleasing.”
Pleasing. Yes.
