"You stayed?" I murmur, my voice rough from sleep and sickness.
He makes a soft affirmative sound. Like where else would he be?
The sweat cooling on my skin makes me shiver, but it's different from the bone-deep chills that wracked me earlier. This is just normal gross, not my-body-is-trying-to-cook-me-alive gross.
Yay. It's the little things.
I shift against Wraith's chest, testing how my body feels. Still weak. Still achy. But the nausea has finally backed off, and my head doesn't feel like it's going to split open anymore.
His arm tenses slightly when I move, like he's ready to catch me if I start to fall. The man's been holding me for... how long? Hours? And he hasn't complained once. Hasn't moved an inch, apparently perfectly happy to hold a sick, shivering girl all night.
"I think the fever broke," I rasp, my voice sounding like I've been gargling gravel.
Wraith makes a soft questioning sound, and his free hand comes up to press against my forehead again. His scarred palm is cool against my skin, or maybe I'm just not burning up anymore. Hard to tell.
He makes an approving rumble deep in his chest. This one definitely isn't a growl. I feel it more than hear it, the vibration traveling through his ribcage into mine.
"Thanks for staying," I mumble. "You probably have better things to do than babysit a sick stranger."
Another negative grunt. This one sounds almost offended, like the idea that anything could be more important than this is ridiculous.
My stomach growls—actually growls, not the sick churning from before—and I realize I'm hungry. Genuinely hungry, not just forcing food down because I know I should eat.
Wraith's chest rumbles again and he huffs, almost like a laugh. He carefully extracts his arm from around me, moving slowly enough that I can adjust without falling over. Then he reaches for the duffel bag, pulling out a sleeve of salted crackers and another sports drink.
He opens both for me before handing them over, watching with those intense blue eyes to make sure I can handle them okay.
I take a careful bite of cracker. It tastes like the best thing I've ever eaten, which probably says more about how awful I've been feeling than the actual quality of gas station crackers. But I'm not going to complain.
"You're really good at this," I say between bites. "The whole... taking care of people thing."
His eyebrows draw together and he shakes his head, his gaze dropping to his hands. Those massive, scarred hands that have been so gentle with me. There's a story there—several stories, probably—written in burn tissue. They don't look like theyhealed well. Maybe he needed to be cared for once, and he wasn't, and that's why he was there for me all night.
I finish the crackers and drain half the sports drink before my stomach tells me that's enough for now. My body might be ready to rejoin the land of the living, but I'm not going to push it.
"I should probably shower," I say, wrinkling my nose. "I smell like death warmed over."
Wraith tilts his head, and even with most of his face hidden, I can tell he's disagreeing. He reaches up and taps his nose, then shakes his head and makes a gesture I don't quite understand.
"Are you saying I don't smell bad?" I ask skeptically.
He nods firmly.
"You're either being nice or you're hiding a broken nose under that mask."
He makes that soft rumbling sound again and just shakes his head with another huffing laugh.
"Well, regardless of whether you think I smell like roses or roadkill, I need to get cleaned up." I push myself into a sitting position, testing my balance before swinging my feet to the floor and slowly standing.
The room only spins a little.
That's good.
Then my stomach does another unhappy flippy-flip and I'm reminded that I'm still recovering from whatever plague just tried to take me out. Standing up too fast wasdefinitelya fucking mistake.
Wraith catches me before I fall, one arm supporting my waist while the other steadies my shoulder. He makes a worried sound.
"I'm fine," I mumble. "Just moved too quick. Give me a second."
