Nim let her head hang. She wasn’t going to win this. And truthfully, she knew he was right.
“Fine. Just for an hour.”
She climbed into the softness of the small bed, almost whimpering with relief.
“Do you need anything?” Jos asked quietly from the doorway, the perfect big brother stand-in.
“Just… I….”
He took a step back into the room.
“Never mind.”
“Ask me.”
“Is Tristan…?” She didn’t know what exactly her question was. She only knew that she needed him. And he wasn’t there. He’d saved her. Come back for her, as she’d known he would. He had been in Val’s room. Hadn’t he? But now he was gone. And she was all alone.
The look on Jos’s face was unreadable. Or maybe she was too tired to understand. “The captain is checking the perimeter and then he’s coming back to check on Val.”
That was different. Tristan would know that Val was her priority. “Okay.”
“Go to sleep now.” Jos was definitely using his big brother voice. Val spoke to her in precisely the same way. The thought made her want to smile and cry at the same time.
She exhaled slowly and lay back, closing her stinging eyes, huddling in the covers as Jos left the room and closed the door behind him with a quiet click. It was less than a minute before she was fast asleep.
She woke up with early morning sunlight streaming around the edges of not-quite-closed drapes. The fire had burned down to embers, but the room still felt pleasantly warm. She lay for a moment, getting her bearings and remembering everything that had happened.
Somehow, she had imagined that Tristan would be there when she woke up, but she was alone.
Her tired body felt weak and shaky as she opened her eyes and forced them to stay open. She needed to see Val. And they needed to plan. She counted to ten and then made herself roll over and climb slowly out the bed.
Someone had left a cup of water and a bread roll on the bedside table, and she took rough bites as she rifled through the room’s wardrobe once more. Her search revealed some men’s cotton trousers, which she pulled on over the shirt she’d already taken, followed by a short woolen cloak and a pair of thick socks. The leather boots she’d borrowed from Alanna were still soaking wet, so she left them off.
She let herself out of the room and padded quickly down the wooden floorboards to Val’s room.
The door opened with a slow squeak, and she paused at the entrance while her eyes adjusted to the warm darkness of the room. The air was thick with fragrant steam, and she could easily identify musk mallow and sage, and something mustier, hemlock perhaps. In capable hands, a small dose could help with pain relief, if the need was great. Her heart mourned the enormity of what had been done to Val—that he could be in so much pain.
She stepped into the room to see Val, huddled over on his side in the wide bed, wings twitching behind him as he moaned almost silently.
Rafe sat beside him, watching her calmly.
She stepped as quietly as she could up to the bed and laid a soft hand over Val’s forehead. It was slightly cooler than the night before, but still too warm.
Val shuddered but otherwise didn’t respond, seeming locked in his fitful sleep, and she looked up to Rafe questioningly.
“Valerian,” he said softly, as if that explained everything. And it did, to a degree.
“You’re keeping him asleep?”
“He needs rest. I’ve cleaned and treated his wounds, and I don’t want him pulling at the dressings. We’ve warmed him from the chill he had in the water, and I’ve also been treating him more directly myself. Right now, our biggest concern is his fever.”
Rafe was right, and she appreciated the professional respect shown by discussing his treatment plan with her. And the gift of his Nephilim healing. But it was still hard, so very hard, to see her brother lying unconscious and in pain. “How can I help?”
“He doesn’t need anything right now. In fact, you should be sleeping too.”
“I slept already. I want to help Val.”
“Get your energy back; he’ll need you strong when he wakes up.”
