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Lucan let him.
Gods.
He let him go.
Gone…because she was bleeding.
He should have chased Vaelor. Instead, he crossed the sanctuary in two strides and caught Elarian just as her knees finally gave way.
“Elarian,” he whispered as he gathered her close, body shaking against hers. “Look at me.”
She only replied with a soft moan.
“Lucan…”
forty-three
Sinners
Elarian remembered very little of the journey back to Lucan’s chambers.
Not the corridors they crossed. Not the servants who scattered at the sight of their prince carrying her through the palace as her blood splattered across the white marble floors. Not even the gasps and hushed whispers that followed them through the halls.
She remembered only Lucan’s arms around her.
How he burned hot against her shivering skin. His fingers curled around her wound, trying in vain to hold her together as if he could staunch the bleeding by will alone. Blood soaked through her clothes, but she did not care. Pain flamed beneath her ribs and her vision blurred. The shame of failing a mission she had completed a thousand times before did not come.
Because as Lucan hurried through the corridors she had come to know all too well, she only thought of the way he held her. As if letting go was not an option, that she might disappear the moment his fingers loosened.
But she couldn’t. Not here, not like this.
She was the Ashen Blade. She had survived wars, betrayals, centuries of hatred, and the endless cruelty of those who claimed to own her. She did not vanish simply because someone stopped holding her. Greater wounds had tried to keep her down to no avail. She only needed rest; and yet, when Lucan carried her into his chambers—his jaw clenched so tightly, it looked painful—she found herself strangely unable to tell him that. Perhaps because some small, traitorous part of her was just as afraid as he of losing the other.
Lucan lowered her onto the bed with the kind of care she imagined lovers might give one another. Heart stuttering, she clutched him close even as she wished to hit him.
Anger would have been easier. Cruelty, even. If he had thrown her down, if he had reminded her that she was nothing more than the weapon he had stolen from Reshva, then she would have known exactly where they stood.
Instead, he knelt before her and pressed a hand against her side.
“Hold still,” he quietly commanded, ice in his words.
Elarian looked away.
“I failed.”
Lucan’s fingers stilled. For a breath, he only stared at her. Then, he continued removing the bloodied fabric from her wound.
“No.”
Her eyes snapped back toward him. “No?”
“No.” The answer carried such certainty that it almost angered her more. “You did not.”
Elarian grimaced as his fingers brushed against her wound. The bleeding had almost stopped, but his touch burned against her skin.
“It is clean. Wide but not deep. You will heal by morning,” he whispered.
She hardly cared about that.
