“Promise?” The look on her face would have taken me to my knees if I were standing.
“Promise, baby.” Because my eyes were stinging, I whipped my phone out of my back pocket and unlocked it. “Now, let’s do some online shopping! You pick, and I’ll pay.”
“But Koko—”
“No buts. Let me spoil my wife a little.”
And the way her gray eyes lit up was like the moon breaking through clouds.
19. For You Alone
Casimir
“Bro, we need to sort out our issues like that more often,” Zane groaned from his sprawl on the rug, red hair catching fire in the sun as he lay there and panted. “A good old-fashioned, knock-down, drag-out brawl.”
“You scared the animal.” I cut my eyes to where Brumous crouched under an accent table.
“Aw, come here, Brummy,” he crooned. “Your daddies are done wrestling for the night.”
I rolled my eyes, but stayed silent as the clown coaxed the wolf out from his hiding spot.
The kitchen doorway was twenty feet to my left. Twenty feet wasn’t far enough. I had caught every one of our beloved’s fractured whispers to Koa, despite Zane’s best efforts to distract me.
He doesn’t like me, does he?Seri’s voice came through the walls like smoke, seeping into every crack of my ribcage.
I crushed a fresh roll of gauze between my hands.
“Flowers,” Zane declared, flipping onto his elbows as Brumous slowly crept toward him. “Chocolates. You know, normal human courtship rituals. Not whateverthisis.”
He gestured to the triage station I’d built on the coffee table. Neat rows of antiseptic wipes, sterile scissors, three types of wound sealant…
My thumbnail dug into the gauze’s plastic wrapper. Tactical assessments I could parse. Supply inventories made sense. Seri? She was a whole different kind of battlefield, one that required a toolkit of skills I clearly lacked.
“She needs her wounds tended to, not cheap sentiment.”
“Oh, right, because nothing says ‘I adore you’ like compress wraps and antibiotics.” Zane rolled to wrap an arm around Brumous as the pup laid down next to him. “Tell me, when you stitched her up, did you even look at her face? Or were you too busy counting sutures?”
“Eighteen.” My grip tightened on the medical shears. “Precise placement requires complete attention, not distraction—”
“Damnation, Seri! Let me carry you!” Ko’s baritone shook the ceiling as our beloved hobbled into the living room. Her bandaged ankle buckled as she crossed the threshold, and I moved before I thought, hands braced to catch her shoulders, medical checklist shredding into static.
She collided with my chest, all flying curls and uneven breaths. Behind her, Ko raked his fingers through his black hair, and Brumous let out a happy yip from beneath Zane’s elbow.
“Stubborn little woman—”
“Casimir.” Her fingers curled against my biceps. “If you’re not busy, you said you’d check my arm.” The word rushed out of her in a single breath. Her eyes darted over to Ko, who nodded almost imperceptibly, before she turned her attention back to me. “The bandage itches, and I’m worried about the infection. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I know you don’t—”
Ice flooded my veins.
He doesn’t like me, does he?
As though I hadn’t memorized every injury she had. As if I could forget the exact number of stitches holding her together. As if I hadn’t set up specifically to do that right here in this room.
“Sit on the couch and—”
“Casimir.”
Her whisper locked every one of my muscles in place. She stood with her gaze locked on the base of my throat.
