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She lifts her bandaged hand from the bed and holds it in front of her face. “Another scar to add to the rest, I suppose. You think magickal scars are different from mortal ones?”
“They can be. Though the gods tend to leave bodies behind, not scars.”
Elora shivers at that, disentangling her fingers from mine and reaching up to play with my hair. When her stomach growls, she blushes, color rising to her chest and face. I laugh and kiss each of her pink cheeks in turn.
“I’ll bathe you and then feed you.”
“You will not,” she says indignantly, wriggling back against the pillows as I slide off the bed. “I’m perfectly capable of bathing and feeding myself.”
Ignoring her, I conjure a copper tub in the center of her room, moving it close to the fireplace so she’ll be warm enough. I wave my hand and the tub fills with steaming water, the surface sprinkled with lavender and eucalyptus leaves.
“What would you like to eat?”
When she doesn’t answer, I turn back to her, frowning when I see her staring down at her unbandaged hand in disbelief.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s nothing.” She holds her hand out to me, and I cup it in my own, palm up. “No wound, no scar. Nothing.”
It’s odd for it to heal so quickly, but it’s not as alarming as her tone suggests. And all the better for her not to have a reminder of yet another time she almost died for the sake of someone else.
“I’ve been applying that healing salve three times a day. I’ll have to let the healer know it works better than she thought.”
“Is it possible for a simple healer’s ointment to completely heal a magickal wound?”
“I’ve never had a mortal attempt to sacrifice themselves to save the realm before. Anything is possible.”
I dislike speaking the words even now, even with her clear green eyes looking up at me, knowing she’s all right. That I get to keep her.
She nods, not altogether convinced by my assessment, but not willing to argue with me either.
I sit beside her again, cupping her face in my hands.
“I’m never going to let anything happen to you ever again. You are mine to protect.”
“Whatever it takes,” she replies, echoing my words from the last night she shared my bed. “Forever.”
“You heard me?”
She nods, leaning up to kiss me again. I ease her back against the pillows, sliding my hand up her side. She wiggles beneath me, but I stop just short of her breast, grinning against her lips when she groans in disappointment.
“Not yet, little one. I want to make sure you’re as well as you can be before I take you again.”
“I feel perfectly well,” she says, gripping the front of my robes with her healed hand and pulling me in for another kiss. “Let me show you.”
Her fingers glide down my chest to the tie of my breeches, and I’m hard in an instant. I should stop her when she works open the thin leather tie, when she slides her hand against my skin, when she gently grips and strokes me. But I don’t.
Because I thought she’d never touch me again, and if this is what she needs to feel like herself after what happened, I’ll gladly give it to her.
Peeling the coverlet back, I pluck her from the bed and set her on her feet, smiling when she makes contact with the cold floor and squeaks.
“What are you doing? I thought—”
I undo the tie on her own breeches, hooking my thumbs into the top and dragging them down her legs.
“I’m going to fuck you in that tub until you scream for me. You know how much I love to hear you scream my name.”
She looks over my shoulder at the tub, lips curling into an enticing grin.
