Page 32 of Legacy Ascended

His eyes hold mine. "Sleep. Please."

Then he leaves, and the room goes quiet.

Torres has the near side of the bed with his boots off and his back against the headboard. Soren has the chair. Luke hasn't moved off the edge of the mattress.

Three of them are still in the room. Ander has gone, but his new bond hasn't. All four sit warm and separate in my chest.

"Stay until I'm asleep," I say.

"Yeah," Torres says.

Luke turns the lamp down. Soren stretches his legs out. Torres finds my hand under the blanket and keeps it, and starts telling Soren something about his classes that is transparently designed to be boring.

I go out somewhere in the middle of his second sentence.

Chapter six

Jessica

The first thing I hear is Torres losing an argument in his sleep.

"—not the point," he tells the ceiling, quite clearly, and then goes quiet again, and I lie there in the gray light of my own room and grin until my face hurts.

He's on his back with one arm over his eyes and his feet off the end of my bed. Soren's chair is empty but his coat is still over the back of it. Luke is somewhere else, judging by the smell coming in from the kitchen, which is coffee and something with butter in it.

Then my shoulder remembers it was shot.

"You're awake," Torres says, without moving his arm.

"How do you know?"

"You went from asleep-breathing to swearing-breathing." He rolls onto his side and props his head on his hand, hair completely destroyed, voice sleep-rough. "Morning."

"Morning."

"You want the thing guaranteed to take away the pain or the experimental version."

"Hmmm, I have more questions about my options."

"The pills, or me kissing you until you stop noticing your shoulder." He considers. "Full disclosure, the second one's got no research to back it up, but I’m game if you are."

"Pills. Then the other thing."

"Efficient," he says, and goes to get them.

Luke brings breakfast in on a tray with his sleeves rolled and his hair still wet. He sets it across my knees, moves the coffee to my right side without being asked, and then sits on the end of the bed and eats half my toast.

“You’ve been awake for a while. What happened?"

"My father's office." He breaks off another corner of toast. "Nothing that can't wait until you've had a meal."

Soren comes back from the gym looking like he wants to ask me something.

"Go for it," I tell him.

"Do you want help with the sling, or would you rather fight it for ten minutes and then be furious?"

"Help."