“Good, because I like holding you.” His roving hand twitched against her, and then his palm was flattening over her side and down to her hip. “This bruise looks painful.”
Seeing it now, she could understand his concern. The place where she’d fallen was already a splotchy, discolored purple. But despite the sight, there was only a distant ache thanks to his massage and the special gel he’d rubbed into her muscle.
“The spasm was the worst of it, but you helped with the soreness.”
“Spasms affect the muscle, right?”
She nodded, shifting her free hand to guide his up and down her thigh. “This muscle cramps often, especially with the hip dislocation, which luckily didn’t happen tonight. The muscular atrophy in my left leg, plus the tight calf, is part of my walking challenge. I can’t always straighten my foot, and it’s so weak, even if I managed to get more weight on it, it would likely break.”
“You mentioned balance, too, that first day we met. Is that muscular?”
“Yes and no. It’s more a neurological injury, stemming from the brain bleed. It’s tied to coordination. It took me alot longer than the average child to speak or link the processes of thinking movement and actually performing it. My parents were so patient with me, though. I didn’t know it was an issue until I was older and was put in the school system instead of continuing with private tutors.”
Kizros hummed, fingers smoothing over the bruise. “I think that’s the first time you’ve mentioned your parents.”
Aofe chewed on the inside of her cheek. “I don’t like to bring it up, or… I didn’t. They were older when I was born, which might have accounted for the medical issues. But I—they—were always happy with me. We lived comfortably, and when they got sick and passed, everything was left to me.” She swallowed, rubbing her thumb over Kizros’s knuckle. “Except my dad’s sister wasn’t too happy to take custody of me without access to that inheritance. I don’t know all the legal stuff, but at the end of the day, I never saw a coin of it. By the time I was old enough to understand, it was too late to untwist myself from the mess of their made-up medical costs and fees for housing me. I think some of the nurses where I got therapy noticed, which is why they let me stay to watch their work. That’s where I was when…”
When she’d been taken, walking home in the early evening while the sun was still out. She remembered screaming, seeing people walk past the alley and ignore her completely or scurry faster to avoid any altercations. Then the awful smelling rag and… nothing until she’d woken in the demon infirmary.
No one had stopped to help. No one had cared or tried to protect her.
Until Heck.
Until Kizros.
Silently, the demon’s tail dipped underwater and curled around her leg. “I’m sorry. I wish there was more I could say or do, but I’m grateful that you have good memories with your parents.”
Aofe wiggled in place, turning enough so she could see his face as she held a damp hand to his cheek. “Will you tell me more about your family?”
He huffed. “You saw most of it. My siblings followed in my father’s footsteps, so of course they are closer to my parents. They’re not…baddemons, they just have a very narrow view of the world. They work hard, but it comes from privilege, and with all the intention of maintaining their social status. None of them could understand why I wanted to start from nothing, get an apprenticeship, and move into some dingy apartment above the shop.”
“Why did you?” she asked, then hastily corrected, “Not the dingy part. This apartment is beautiful, and I love it.”
“Except the stairs,” Kizros teased with a smirk.
Aofe rolled her eyes. “Yes, I could do without the stairs every day, but you know what I mean.”
He took a breath, deep enough that her body rose and fell with the movement. “I never enjoyed what my parents did, spinning words to line their pockets or for the benefit of the privileged demons they served. I wanted to help others in adifferent way, and there was always something in me drawn to life itself. Growing plants, finding solutions to soil problems, getting my hands physically and metaphorically dirty. Plus, the flowers don’t complain when I talk at them.” Kizros grinned fully at that. “I enjoyed helping demons, whether it be ailments or just wanting to grow a vegetable in their yard.”
She pressed a kiss to his chest before resting her cheek over his heart. “That’s beautiful.”
“What about you?”
“Hmm?”
“The questionnaire you filled out. You had the skills for an apothecary out of necessity, and perhaps convenience, but is that what you wanted?”
Aofe considered the question, drawing a sudden blank. “No one’s ever asked me that.”
“If you wanted to make medicine?”
“What I wanted, period.”
There was a pause, and then Kizros was tugging her head off his chest to look at her. “What do you want, Aofe?”
You.
The word, theconcept, was on the tip of her tongue. And perhaps it was the sincerity in his gaze, the aftereffects of what they’d just done, that made her realize no matter what she said, he’d find a way to make it happen.
