The Prison Healer (The Prison Healer #1)(59)
What was surprising was Jaren’s lack of what Kiva considered general life knowledge, and she debated pressing for more details, but was unsure what to ask. She’d assumed for some time that he’d come from a wealthy upper-class family, but now she wondered if she’d been wrong. Perhaps the opposite was true, especially if his parents hadn’t hired a tutor to teach him such things. Maybe they hadn’t been able to afford one.
“Well, now you know,” Kiva said in an upbeat voice, not wanting to make him uncomfortable. People—especially men—could react poorly if they thought their intelligence was being criticized.
Setting down her cloth, she reached for her small pot of ballico sap and, without thinking, scraped some onto her finger and leaned forward to dab it onto his cut lip.
Jaren sucked in a startled breath, and Kiva’s eyes jumped up to meet his.
They were so close, her fingertip frozen on his lip.
She had a split second to decide what to do. Part of her wanted to leap backwards and put as much distance between them as possible, but she knew how that would look, how he might perceive such an action, how telling it would be that she was so affected by him. So despite her entire nervous system being hyperaware of how—and where—she was touching him, she continued applying the healing sap to his wound with unhurried ease, willing the heat from her cheeks and praying to anyone who would listen that she looked more relaxed than she felt.
“This isn’t too bad, so it should be better within a couple of days,” Kiva said, her voice half a note higher than usual. She cleared her throat quietly and was finally able to move her hand from his mouth, reaching toward his forehead. “This graze nearly touches the scar you got the day you arrived, but you’re luckier this time—it’s shallow and should heal without leaving a mark.” She gently smeared sap over the wound and, remembering the two dead men who had been delivered to Zalindov with him, added, “You never did tell me what happened. Or how you came to be here.”
There was a small pause before Jaren answered, “I thought you said it was rude to ask people what led to their imprisonment?”
His tone was joking, but there was a seriousness to his eyes, a warning that Kiva, despite her curiosity, decided to heed.
“Fair enough. But what about today? Ready to tell me what happened?”
She rinsed her sticky hand in the salted water and then walked over to the workbench under the guise of collecting some aloeweed gel. In truth, she needed a moment away from him, but she turned back again when he started talking.
“I had a run-in with another prisoner at dinner, someone who claimed to be an old acquaintance of yours,” Jaren said, almost too casually. “I didn’t like the way she was talking about you, and her friends didn’t like when I asked her to stop. Things escalated until we were no longer speaking with words.”
Kiva had been walking back toward Jaren when he’d begun speaking, but she’d frozen midstep halfway through his answer. “Please tell me you’re kidding,” she croaked out.
Jaren pointed to his face. “Does it look like I’m kidding?”
In a flat voice, Kiva stated, “It was Cresta, wasn’t it.”
“Red hair? Snake tattoo?” Jaren asked. When Kiva nodded, he said, “That’s her. She likes to talk big but isn’t a fan of sticking around once the action starts.”
Kiva already knew that much. Cresta was notorious for stirring up trouble and then letting others finish her dirty work, scrambling away before seeing any consequences herself. It was a miracle that Jaren and whomever he’d ended up in a fistfight with hadn’t been dragged away by the guards and sent to the Abyss for punishment. Or the gallows.
“You’re such a fool,” Kiva hissed, stomping the rest of the way over to him. It took all of her healer training to keep her fingers gentle as she applied aloeweed gel to his bruised eye, being extra careful around the parts that were already beginning to swell.
“Is that the thanks I get for defending your honor?” Jaren shot back, sounding indignant. “You should have heard what she was calling you.”
“Zalindov’s Bitch? The Heartless Carver? The Princess of Death? The Healer Whore? The Prison Pus—”
“Yes,” Jaren interrupted tightly, a muscle ticking in his cheek. “Among others.”
“Trust me, I’ve heard them all,” Kiva said, applying more gel. “But you don’t see me getting in fights over them. Especially with the prison rebels. Gods, what were you thinking?”
“The prison—” Jaren broke off with a curse. “Are you serious?”
“As serious as death,” Kiva said flatly. “Which you need to prepare for, if they decide to paint a target on your back.”
In a low tone, Jaren said, “I didn’t realize who they were.”
“Cresta is their leader in here,” Kiva said, prompting? Jaren to swear again. Her gaze traveled over to Tilda, and she added, “You’re lucky they have bigger concerns than you right now, or your next stop would be the morgue.”
A strained moment passed before Jaren quietly asked, “Doesn’t it bother you, what they say? Not just Cresta, but everyone? Doesn’t it hurt?”
“They’re just words,” Kiva said, ignoring the pang in her heart. Of course it hurt. No one wanted to be known as a bitch or a whore or any of the other names that had been slung at her over the last decade.