He handles me with care that would be insulting if my ribs didn’t still feel like they’d been kicked in by a particularly enthusiastic dragon.
“Just because you’ve never seen me feed my fist to a man in full combat doesn’t mean I’m not well-versed,” he boasts. “You think otherwise, but I could very easily hold my own to you, little monster.”
A bratty hum leaves me because no—I do not believe him. I would kick his royal ass in a magicless fight.
Legend smirks and shifts closer, so I push up on my elbows.
“Okay, we had our little kidnapping adventure, fun times, now take me back.”
“Later.” He straightens, eyes sweeping over me, cataloguing every injury and place another’s magic touched my skin. He hates it. His jaw flexes. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’ve bled worse,” I say, but my voice comes out a little thinner than I’d like. The room tilts sideways when I try to sit up.
His hand lands flat on my sternum, gentle but unmovable, pressing me back into the mattress. “You’re staying here until you rest.”
I glare up at him. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“I get to decide everything,” he counters. “I’m your King.”
“I’m going to slap you.”
Legend chuckles, but goes silent a moment later, eyes not leaving my face. “Lie down, Haide.”
Something in his tone, low and edged, slides along a part of me that isn’t interested in arguing.. I sink back, hissing when a bruised patch along my spine protests, and he curses under his breath.
“Stay,” he orders, like I’m a particularly troublesome dragon pup.
“Not a pet,” I grumble.
A basin full of steaming water magically appears. The surface shimmers with the telltale sheen of a healer’s magic.
A bitterness coats my tongue.
If I were a real gifted, I would heal on my own with time.
Legend wrings out a cloth and climbs onto the bed with focus that screams I’m currently the center of his kingdom. I swear I canfeelthe satisfaction rolling off him and into me. Not because I’m “hurt,” but because he gets to heal me.
It’s way too fucking much.
“Legend,” I warn as he braces one knee by my hip.
“Relax,” he murmurs, leaning over me. “I’m just cleaning you up. No big scheme here.”
The cloth touches my cheek, cool against skin that feels too hot. His hand cups the side of my face, thumb stroking once, slow and soothing, as if he’s taming a skittish creature instead of a girl who can kill like a beast.
“I am not a weak doll that needs caring for. I don’t need you.”
“Ineed to do this; and you’re going to let me,” he says quietly.
The words land with more weight than they should, and my throat tightens.
He must be bewitching me or something. Slipped some herbal drug into that water or the air because this girl who lies back and lets someone else in—she’s not me.
She can’t be me.
To want is to lose, Haide. To need is to die.
He works in silence, wiping away blood and dirt, following the line of my jaw to my neck, my collarbone, and the exposed stretch of my stomach where my shirt has ridden up.
