Morgath jolted awake. He groaned and rubbed a hand over his face.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“What happened?” she answered with another question.
Her throat felt dry and sore.
He ran a hand through his tangled hair, pushing it back from his face.
“The dagger poisoned you. The magic wasn’t settled. Imprinting magic on weapons is a complex process that takes time and precision. That’s why the room is locked, so no one would go in there and get accidentally poisoned by touching something that isn’t ready.”
She tried to sit up, but her body felt so heavy that she collapsed back onto the pillow.
“How long was I asleep?”
“Three days.”
“No…”
She dragged in a breath. Bad idea. She started coughing.
Morgath reached for a cup of water on the nightstand. He held it to her lips, and she drank greedily, spilling some down her chin.
“My friends?” she asked.
“They’re fine. They’re being kept in one of the houses under watch.”
“And Jorrad?”
His expression hardened slightly. “He’s under watch too.”
Audrey looked at him more carefully. He was wearing a shirt, so she couldn’t see where she’d shot him. The memory came back in a rush, and guilt twisted in her stomach. She hadn’t expected to feel bad about it.
“Are you all right? I’m sorry I shot you.”
Morgath laughed, a short sound without much humor.
“I’m fine. You shouldn’t worry about me. It stung a bit, I won’t lie, but you hurt my feelings more than my flesh.”
She dropped her face in her hands, as if she was trying to hide from him. She didn’t know what to say to that, didn’t know how to process the fact that she cared about his feelings at all. She was supposed to hate him, supposed to want him dead, but somewhere along the way, everything had gotten twisted and confused.
Morgath got up and lowered himself on the bed next to her. He touched her shoulder gently.
It was embarrassing to admit she found his presence grounding. She found herself leaning into him.
“It might have been true once that I didn’t want a human bride,” he said. “But it’s not true now. I care about you, Audrey. I feel deeply sorry and ashamed of what happened to you and how your family died.”
She looked at him reluctantly, searching his face for any sign of deception. His sincerity was written in the set of his jaw and the sadness in his dark eyes. She knew him well enough now to recognize when he was being honest, and this was one of those times.
“Now what? Where do we go from here?”
He shrugged, at a loss for answers. His shoulders sagged, and he looked more tired than she’d ever seen him.
Audrey took a deep breath and forced herself to ask the important questions.
“What about Jorrad? Will he be let go despite what he did? What about all the humans you and your horde killed during the war?”
“It was war. Lives were lost on both sides. I remember your town. There was a human military base there. That was why my horde attacked it. Not only my horde. Three hordes attacked the town that day. It’s true, we left it burning. But it was war.”
