Heh.
“I’m taking you to the bathroom,” I announce. This is something we’ve done already, so this isn’t new. I carry her in, she’s embarrassed that I have to set her on the toilet. But then I leave and I know that she’s managing to adjust her clothes herself and do her business and she always call me back when she’s finished and her clothes are correct again.
“Yeah,” she agrees. “I’ve gotta go.”
I scoop her up. One arm under her knees, one behind her back. She wraps her arms around my neck like it’s becoming natural.
She weighs nothing to me. I try not to think about how perfectly she fits against my chest.
While Sloane is busy, I return to my own room and use my own bathroom and quickly change into a fresh set of clothes. Then I return. When she calls for me, I carry her back to the bed, settling her against the pillows.
“I need to check your bandages,” I tell her. “The hospital said twice a day.”
She nods, extending her feet toward me. The supplies are on the nightstand where I left them last night—the saline, antibiotic ointment, sterile gauze and medical tape.
I kneel at the foot of the bed and take her fragile, human-sized left foot in my hands. So small compared to mine, even swollen and bandaged. I begin unwrapping carefully. The wounds underneath make my jaw clench.
There are multiple lacerations across the sole from when she ran through a fucking jungle barefoot, several puncture wounds from thorns or roots, and one deeper cut on her heel that required stitches.
“How does it look?” She’s asks, watching my face.
I keep my expression neutral. “Healing. No sign of infection.” I examine the stitched wound more closely. “This one’s the most concerning. That’s the one we watch. Don’t forget these wounds are evidence of your strength,” I remind her. “You managed to climb and pull yourself out of that pit and run through the dark to survive. I suspect not many humans would’ve been able to do what you did.”
“Thanks,” she snorts. “I think if I were a little more fit and weighed less, I would’ve made it out faster and gotten much further than I did, but I appreciate you saying that. It reallywashard getting out of that damn pit. I fell down the first time and had to start all over again. It sucked.”
“Strong and brave,” I confirm as I clean each wound with saline, working as gently as my hands allow. “I’m going to apply antibiotic ointment to every cut, every puncture. Then rewrap with fresh bandages, careful not to bind too tight.”
She nods with agreement.
My rough hands are on her soft feet. I’m enjoying this intimate moment with my female.
Sloane silently watches me work. “You’re good at that,” she says softly when I move to her right foot.
“I’ve had practice. I was originally trained as a hunter for my commune and I’ve had more than one partner get hurt with the both of us far, far removed from help. I’ve bandaged orcs and we’ve had to slowly make our way back to the commune to be fixed by our healer.”
“You don’t go to human doctors?”
“No,” I shake my head. “Orcs are always healed by our own healers. Although, now that, in modern times, so many of us live off commune, we’ve ended up in human emergency rooms. They have learned how to stabilize us and then airlift us out to the nearest commune.”
“Oh interesting, I didn’t know that.”
I keep answering her many questions about orc biology, hoping to keep her mind off what I’m doing. When I finish, I don’t let go immediately. My thumb traces the arch of her foot—uninjured skin, soft despite everything.
Her breath catches.
I force myself to release her and stand up. Put the supplies back on the nightstand.
“Breakfast?” My voice comes out rougher than I’d like.
She nods, cheeks flushed. “Breakfast sounds like a great idea.”
I havemy back turned to Sloane as she changes her clothes while sitting on the bed. Then I carry her to the bathroom so that she can brush her teeth and her hair and apply makeup.
She bites her lip. “Um, maybe I could rent a wheelchair for a few days, so then you don’t have to carry me around like this.”
“No,” I growl.
Her eyes widen.
