Light floods the hallway before I make it three steps.
“You’re bleeding.”
I turn to find Elara standing in the bedroom doorway, wearing one of my shirts and nothing else. Her hair is sleep-mussed, eyes still heavy, but she’s looking at me with an alertness that suggests she’s been awake longer than she should be. Waiting.
“It’s nothing.” The words come automatically, the same deflection I’ve used a thousand times with a thousand different people. “Go back to bed.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t retreat into the bedroom or accept my dismissal. Instead, she walks toward me with deliberate purpose, and I find myself frozen, watching her approach like she’s something dangerous. Elara is all curves and generous hips, and the sight of her alone is enough to make my mouth go dry.
“Let me see.” It’s not a request.
“Elara—”
“Let. Me. See.”
The command in her voice does something to me I don’t want to examine. I’m used to being obeyed, to making decisions and having them followed without question. Having someone stand in front of me and demand compliance—demand the right to take care of me—it’s disorienting.
She reaches for my shirt and I catch her wrist automatically. “It’s just a graze.”
“Then it won’t hurt to let me look at it.” Her eyes meet mine, steady and unyielding. “Unless you’re afraid of what I’ll find?”
The challenge in those words loosens something in my chest. I release her wrist and lift my arms slightly, letting her push my shirt up and over my head. The fabric pulls against the wound and I can’t quite suppress the sharp intake of breath.
“Just a graze,” she repeats flatly, staring at the blood-soaked makeshift bandage on my upper arm. “Sit down.”
“I can handle it—”
“Nikola.” My name sounds different in her mouth than it does in anyone else’s. Less professional, more intimate. “Sit the hell down.”
I sit.
She disappears into the bathroom and returns with the first aid kit I keep stocked with enough supplies to handle anything short of major surgery.
When she kneels between my spread thighs, carefully unwrapping the soaked gauze, I have to force myself to breathe normally.
“This needs stitches,” she says, examining the wound with a clinical detachment that would be impressive if I weren’t hyperaware of how close she is, how her hair falls forward to brush against my bare chest, how her fingers are gentle despite the steel in her voice.
“Butterfly stitches will hold it.”
“It’ll scar worse.”
“I have plenty of scars.”
She looks up at me then, and something in her expression makes my throat tight. “I know. I’ve counted them.”
The admission hangs between us. When she went exploring my body two nights ago, mapping damage with curious fingers—she was paying attention. Cataloging. Remembering.
“This is going to hurt,” she warns, reaching for the antiseptic.
“I can handle pain.”
“I know that too.” She pours the liquid over the wound without ceremony, and I focus on her face instead of the burning sensation spreading through my arm. “You handle everything. Control everything. Manage every crisis like you’re running calculations in your head.”
The observation is too accurate to be comfortable. “That bothers you.”
“It terrifies me.” She dabs at the wound with gauze, movements efficient despite the tremor in her hands. “What happens when something goes wrong that you can’t calculate your way out of?”
“Like tonight?”
