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“I heard you.”
“You hear too much.”
For the first time since Düren, the room almost feels normal again. Almost.
Aster sends flowers twice, white orchids the first morning and dark blue ones the second. I leave both arrangements exactly where the staff puts them. She doesn’t get to disappear for years and then make him feel better with flowers.
She never comes upstairs herself. According to Cassian, she cried the first time she saw Rowan unconscious and decided she wasn’t going to make his recovery about her.
Every few hours, my multi-slate lights up with another message asking if Rowan woke up yet, if he ate anything, if the fever finally broke.
Let me know the second he opens his eyes.
I don’t realize how exhausted I am until the second night, sitting beside Rowan’s bed while rain moves softly against the tower windows and the estate sleeps around us. For the first time in days, my eyes drift closed.
Then Rowan jerks upright with a broken gasp. He groans in pain, but I’m already grabbing his shoulders and easing him back down onto the mattress.
“Easy,” I say. “Mouse, easy. You have several broken ribs.”
His breathing turns rough, panic and pain tangling together. He stares around the dark room like he doesn’t recognize where he is.
“Rowan.”
His gaze finally finds mine. For a few seconds, he just stares at me, dazed and unfocused beneath the bruising.
“Hey.” My voice breaks as I smooth shaking fingers carefully through his hair. “Can you hear me?”
He blinks again, confusion moving across his face. His breathing stays uneven, his chest heaving beneath the blankets.
A cold knot forms in my stomach. Is he afraid of me?
He lifts one trembling hand toward my face. The second his fingertips brush my cheek, his expression changes. His hand drops back to the bed like touching me was a mistake.
Something inside my chest caves in. Because Rowan always touches me. Always. I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it half the time.
Half asleep in bed. Sitting beside me at the Noctis. Curled against my chest after sex. Whether he’s nervous, happy, angry, or scared, he’s always reaching for me.
Seeing him pull away now hurts almost worse than finding him underground did.
“Mouse?”
His breathing catches. As confusion drifts across his face, I’m terrified he remembers the pavilion. The tunnels and the woman are bad enough, but not as bad as me standing there looking at him like he was a liar.
I reach for the glass on the nightstand because his lips look cracked. “You need water.”
He watches me for a moment with the same dazed, unfocused expression as I hold the glass carefully to his mouth. He drinks mechanically, swallowing too fast like he’s only now realizing how thirsty he is.
A droplet slides down the corner of his mouth, and I wipe it away with my thumb.
Fuck. I missed touching him even more than I realized.
Rowan pulls back against the pillows. The movement is small and instinctive, but it still cuts straight through me, leaving me struggling for breath. That’s the first time Rowan has ever pulled away from my touch.
Pretending it didn’t just rip something apart inside my chest, I set the empty glass back on the nightstand and force myself to breathe normally. “How are you feeling?”
Rowan looks toward the windows, still disoriented enough that his gaze keeps slipping out of focus against the rain-dark glass and gold city lights below the tower.
“Where are we?” he asks, his voice coming out rough and thin.
