The Prison Healer (The Prison Healer #1)(116)

He didn’t need to mention what they both knew—that the Butcher’s newest beating had only enhanced his pain.

Having nothing on hand to help him, Kiva was just about to release his tunic when her eyes fell on one of his older scars, buried beneath fresher scabs, but still there. Seeking a distraction—any distraction—from how she felt at seeing his newer wounds, she touched a finger to it, causing? Jaren to shiver again, but then he froze when she said, “You said someone close to you did this.”

Jaren pulled away from her, lowering his tunic himself. “Forget what I said.”

Forget?

Forget?

He was the heir to the throne, one of the most protected people in the kingdom. And someone had hurt him. Had abused him. How could she just forget about that?

“Seriously,” Jaren said firmly, seeing her expression. “Just drop it.”

Kiva saw red. “Drop it?” she repeated, her anger rising anew. “You’re willing to trust me with your magic and your identity and your secret, forbidden plans, but not this?”

Jaren remained silent.

Her fury growing, Kiva pointed a finger right in his face and said, “After everything we’ve been through! After the Trials and the poison—the gods-damned poison that Naari swears your family will stop—after all that, you want me to just—”

“It was my mother, all right!”

Kiva lurched backwards, Jaren’s shouted words echoing down the tunnel.

The queen had hurt him? Queen Ariana had scarred him?

The fire flickered, as if reacting to Jaren’s distress.

“She— It’s—” He broke off, cursed, ran a hand over his face, wincing as the move tugged at his abdomen. Taking a deep breath, he tried again. “It’s not really her. It’s the angeldust. She has a problem with it, sometimes takes too much. Too often. When that happens, she forgets who she is, gets confused, loses control.”

Compassion rose within Kiva, dousing her earlier fury. All of it.

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but it was clear Jaren wasn’t lying. It also explained why he wouldn’t take poppymilk or any other addictive drug. He’d seen what they could do when used incorrectly. He’d felt the effects. He lived with the scars.

She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but he got in first.

“Please,” he rasped out. “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t look at me like I’m broken.”

Kiva didn’t think he was broken. After everything she’d learned about him, she thought he just might be one of the strongest people she knew.

And that terrified her.

“Come on,” she said, rising to her feet and holding out her hand. “We should get going.”

Jaren stared at her fingers as if they would bite.

“You’re not saying anything,” he said.

“I just said something,” Kiva returned. “I said we should—”

“About my mother. My scars.”

Kiva looked down at him. “Do you want me to say something?” she asked. “Do you want me to tell you how sorry I am that you had to go through that? That I can’t imagine how hard it must have been? That I think it’s incredible you can separate the drug from the user and still care about your mother enough to want to protect her?”

Jaren’s throat bobbed.

Kiva moved her hand closer to him, and this time he took it, allowing her to help him painfully to his feet. He swayed and tried to get his balance, her arms automatically coming around him to help steady him as she continued, “I can tell you all that, but I think you already know. Or at least, I hope you do.” She paused, but made herself finish, “I can also tell you that if she isn’t already getting help, then you need to get it for her.”

Jaren’s hands had come to rest on her waist as he’d tried to get his feet under him, but at Kiva’s words, even though she’d just begun to pull away, he drew her back again, curling his arms tightly around her back, until he was embracing her fully.

“Thank you,” he said in her ear, his voice rough with emotion.

She wasn’t sure what he was thanking her for—whether it was her lack of pity that he’d so feared, or her encouragement to get his mother the help she needed. Either way, her heart was beating almost out of her chest at his proximity, at how good it felt to be in his arms, even while she warred over everything she still knew about him, about herself.

But still, she allowed herself that moment. That one, single moment in time, melting into him and closing her eyes, wrapping her arms around him in turn.

And then she remembered his wounds.

He hadn’t uttered any sound of pain, but she knew the embrace had to be hurting him—not just his back, but his cracked ribs too, with how tightly he held her. So she gently pushed back out of his hold, looking him in the eyes and asking, “Better?”

He offered a shy smile. “Better.”

“Good,” she said, with a perfunctory nod, as if her heart weren’t still pumping triple time. “Now, what were you saying before? About Rooke making a mistake sending you down here?”

“Ah, that,” Jaren said, rubbing his jaw and looking uncomfortable, but Kiva knew it wasn’t because of the moment they’d just shared. He didn’t seem to have any problem showering her with affection. But then again, he was a prince. He was probably used to women falling at his feet. She wrinkled her nose at the thought, and it distracted him enough that he deviated from what he’d been about to say, instead asking, “What was that look for?”