Storm's Heart (Elder Races #2)(23)

A look came into his dark eyes, a new expression she couldn’t decipher. He stroked her lips with his thumb and stared at her like he had never seen her before.

Another knock sounded at the door. Hughes said, “I’ll see what they want.”

Without looking away from her, Tiago ordered, “Don’t open the door. Don’t let anybody in.”

“No, sir.”

Reality was trying to intrude. She didn’t want it to. She wrapped the fingers of her free hand around his thick wrist as her forehead crinkled. Holding her gaze, he whispered, the barest thread of a sound, “Shh.”

Hughes returned. “The Dark Fae delegation is demanding to see her highness. They’re denying your right to protect her and threatening war with the Wyr.”

FIVE

She tensed. Tiago tapped her nose with a forefinger. “Wrong response,” he whispered to her. “Remember, the world waits for you. Okay?”

She took a deep breath and made herself relax. “Okay.”

Tiago turned, his demeanor calm and unhurried. “Hughes, what an asinine thing to tell a hotel manager. They can throw as much of a fit as they like, as long as it doesn’t get them past the stairwell doors. Understand?”

The manager swallowed and nodded. “The floor’s been searched and evacuated. There are two guards at each stairwell door, and the elevators have been locked down for now.”

“Good. That’s how things stay” He turned back to her. “How is it going?”

She said, “The itching has stopped.”

“Excellent, and the wound is no longer draining,” Dr. Weylan told her. “That means the extraction has run its course. I’m going to close the puncture with just a few stitches and bandage you up. Once I cast a quick cleansing spell, you can get some real rest.”

She nodded, and the doctor was finished in no time. She put out a hand to stop him when he would have cast the cleansing spell. Tiago scowled, but she ignored him as she asked the doctor, “I’m already feeling shaky. I would like to get cleaned up before you cast that spell.”

He smiled at her. “Good idea.”

She had barely made a move to sit up when Tiago was there to slide his arms under her shoulders and knees and lift her upright. He hooked the IV bag onto a finger and carried her, still wrapped in a blanket, through the nearest bedroom and into its bathroom.

He set her on her feet with care. She turned and reached for the IV bag. He held it out of reach. “Stop it,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

Feverish color touched her cheekbones. She frowned at him. “I don’t think so. This is the end of the line for you, cowboy.” He opened his mouth to argue, and she told him, “There are some things a girl likes to do on her own.”

Amusement danced in his dark eyes. “There’s nothing you could do that I haven’t seen an army of uglier, hairier people do thousands of times before.”

“That may be,” she said with dignity, “but you haven’t seen me do any of it before. Please don’t argue with me on this one, Tiago. I’m tired and I hurt all over, and I want to go to bed.”

His mouth tightened, but he nodded. He checked the back of the bathroom door and hung the saline bag on the hook he found. “Don’t lock the door,” he told her. “I’ll be right on the other side.”

Who knew that the Wyr warlord’s real animal form was a mother hen? She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Fine. Get out.”

He shut the door.

She debated the possible merits of another shower while she used the toilet, but she simply didn’t have the energy to figure out how she might work that with the IV needle in the back of one hand. Instead she washed her face at the sink and brushed her teeth with the complimentary supplies.

There was so much to do, so much to plan for and an entire political minefield to maneuver, and the simple act of getting clean was almost too much for her. How long would Tiago stay to help? He had promised he would stay until she wasn’t sick any longer, but what did that mean? Would he leave after she slept and he had seen her into safe hands? That was the reasonable thing to expect.

She was shaking again and feeling irrational as she opened the bathroom door. Tiago was leaning against the wall just outside, arms crossed as he waited for her. He straightened when the door opened. She asked, “Can you help me get this bloody T-shirt off?”

He took one look at her distressed face, and his expression softened. “Of course I will.” He put the toilet seat down and guided her to sit. Then he knelt in front of her and stroked her hair as he looked with concern into her eyes. “Is it the T-shirt that’s got you upset?”

Her gaze fell away from his. She shook her head and her lips trembled.

“Then what is it?” He bent his head and tried to catch her eye. She wouldn’t let him. “Talk to me.”

She had to say it to somebody, at least just once. “I wanted a cousin who liked me,” she whispered. Her face crumpled.

The breath left his lungs as if she had sucker punched him. He gathered her close. She put her head on his shoulder and cried as he rocked her. He was so big he filled the bathroom. It felt so right to lean on him, to breathe in his scent and let him stroke her hair and rub her back and murmur to her. It almost made her believe in good things. She was too tired to fight it. She rested against him and let her cold, tired bones soak in his strength and warmth.