Then she turns away and marches back to her basket of bandages, leaving me openmouthed. She dared to defy a king—and it worked. I can’t drag her back now without revealing her defiance. Not unless I want to punish her with the flat of my sword. She let me keep my dignity and then bound me with it.
I think Delphie won this round, but the competitor in me compels me to follow her because I know I’ll win the next one. I crouch next to her, bracing the young miner’s arm so she can apply a layer of ointment and wrap the bandage around his burned and bruised flesh. She gives me a tentative smile, a peace offering I do not return.
Any desire to deliver another set of awkward apologies has vanished. She is too forgiving. She should hate me for hurting her. She should hate this place for the danger it puts her in. But instead she is on her knees, serving us.
I stand up as soon as the miner’s bandage is secured. “Enjoy playing healer, terrakin. I’ve arranged a space for you on the first medical transport to Olethia. It will arrive in six hours. Make sure you’re on it.”
I spot Aqen, arm in a sling, on my way out of the pits. I squeeze his good shoulder hard enough to make him wince.“Watch her. Make sure she gets on the next transport. I’ll deal with you later.”
Then I drag myself back to the only available bed on Usuri. It makes my cock painfully hard because it’s steeped in the smell of my goddess-given mate, but I’m too tired, both physically and mentally, to do a R’Hiza-damned thing about it.
Chapter 7
Delphie
It stings, being sent away, but I’m not going to waste time dwelling on the rejection. I was wrong about coming here. Nik isn’t any more invested in finding Lena than any of the other kings, and now he has bigger problems to worry about. Plus, all I can do here is review comm transcripts, and I can go through them anywhere. Might as well be with my feet up on a resort planet that has hot alien sex shows, good snacks, and a couple of my best friends living on it.
“Do you have family?” I ask the young miner that Nik helped me bandage. The parts of him that aren’t blackened from the explosion are swollen from being battered by a cave-in. His skin is swirling orange, although it’s lessened now that the healer has administered some kind of herbal concoction and done a special massage to help the pain-pigment dissipate.
“No,” he says tersely, staring at the ceiling instead of making eye contact. He’s dissociating, I realize.
I’ve never been this close to trauma before. Usually I don’t see people until they’re months or years out from the event that caused their PTSD, and my heart beats a little faster thinking that maybe I can help this guy beat it. Maybe he won’t have to go through years of struggle.
“Anyone else you can talk to? A friend, maybe? A girlfriend?” I press.
He finally looks at me. “There is a female I admire. But I have not spoken to her in many weeks. Not since I came to Usuri.”
“Why haven’t you commed her?”
“I wanted to surprise her. Impress her with my earnings when I returned to Irra. Stupid. Now all I will have to show her is some ugly scars.”
“Scars aren’t ugly,” I say automatically, thinking of the one that carves a furrow in Nik’s stony face. That ragged record makes him seem more...real. “They mark our life experiences, that’s all. I think you should comm her. Let her know what happened to you.”
“Maybe.”
I’ll take a maybe. I follow up with the head healer, Cidro, to suggest forming a support group for the injured miners and warriors, somewhere they can work through their feelings after the accident.
“A cranac tocomplain?” he asks, shaking his head already. “That is the way to start a rebellion.”
“Maybe a smaller group, then? Three or four?” I have to respect that their culture is practically allergic to gatherings. “If you group them by type of injury, you could use it for treatment and rehabilitation, too. Physical healing is important, of course, but so is mental healing. Talking about a trauma is one of the best ways to avoid long-term health problems from it.”
“It keeps their pigment flowing. I can see the wisdom in that,” he concedes, nodding. “I will ask Jara Nik about starting a mind-healing program.”
My hope deflates a little. I don’t think Nik has ever dealt with any of his trauma, and he’s clearly had plenty of it. Everything I’ve ever heard about his father has been brutal, and I haven’t heardanythingabout his mother or any of his brothers’ mothers. It’s hard to feel sorry for him when he’s such a jerk,though. Especially when he’s wandered off somewhere and left all of his people suffering on the floor, waiting to be treated.
“Miss me?” a voice says at my elbow. It’s Aqen! His arm is in a makeshift sling, but he’s alive!
I want to fling my arms around his neck, I’m so relieved. It’s only his injury that holds me back from squeezing the crap out of him. “Thank god you’re all right.”
“Praise Alioth,” he agrees. “Jara hasn’t killed me yet.”
“I won’t let him punish you. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were trying to do something right by asking him permission! I’ll stand up for you in court,” I say, voice growing more and more heated until it starts to turn heads.
He chuckles, but it’s not a happy note. “I disobeyed him by leaving my post, and I’ll take what I deserve. You’re lucky all he’s doing is sending you back to Olethia. Not many people can defy him without feeling the flat of his blade.”
“He won’t hurt you while you’re injured, will he?”
“No, but my back isn’t injured,” Aqen says wryly. “He’s a just leader, don’t worry.”
