He lifted me up, twisting me around so we were facing one another, before dragging me back into his lap. I pulled the blanket up around us. We sat like that for several minutes, tangled up in one another, hearts still pounding as we slowly came down from our high.
With a sigh, I leaned my head against his chest and closed my eyes, the exhausting activities of the day finally catching up to me.
“You should go to sleep.”
“Iamsleeping,” I grumbled against him.
His chest shook with a quiet laugh. “In an actual bed, Chaos.”
Still grumbling, I untangled myself from him and let him help me to my feet, and then through the motions of cleaning ourselves up. I dressed for bed, but he pulled on a proper shirt and pants and went to check in with the guards around my room.
He was gone for no less than a half hour. Despite my exhaustion, I couldn’t fall asleep without him in the room, and I was moments away from getting up and going to patrol the halls myself when he finally returned.
I shot upright as he closed the door and locked it behind him. “Anything to report?”
He shook his head. But just as before, he didn’t seem convinced that all was as well as it appeared on the surface.
Did he sense something that my guards couldn’t?
I clutched the sheets to my chest, working the silk anxiously between my fingers, thinking.
“Rest,” Aleks urged.
“…What about you?”
“I’m not tired.”
“Me either,” I yawned.
His lips quirked in a small smile. “Liar.”
I was too tired to argue.
He settled down in the nearby chair—close enough to provide some measure of comfort. I watched him for a minute more before giving in and curling up with my pillow.
I drifted in and out of sleep.
Every time my eyes fluttered open, I saw Aleks still sitting up, wide awake and staring at the door. No matter what I said to him, our conversation always ended the same way: with him reassuring me, over and over, that he was fine, that he wasn’t tired, until I lost the battle to stay awake.
The fourth time I woke, I found him on the other side of the room, pulling on his coat.
“...Aleks?”
He didn’t answer me this time.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, looking toward the window, trying to gauge the hour. It felt like it was still the middle of the night.
“Where are you going?” I asked, sitting up.
He paused only for a moment before continuing to fasten the buttons of his coat, then moving on to his boots, which he pulled on with methodical detachment.
“Look at me, Aleks.” I got out of bed and started toward him, but lost my courage after only a few steps, bracing my hand against the dresser as my balance swayed. “Please?”
Finally, he finished dressing and turned in my direction. It was almost more painful than him keeping his back to me—the way his gaze slid past mine, either unable or unwilling to hold it.
I was barely breathing as he walked over to me. As he took my hand, his thumb stroking my palm for a moment. My lungs felt like they might shrivel up completely when he finally glanced up and met my eyes.
“I would give anything to keep you safe,” he said.
