Page 219 of Alchemised

She placed her hand in the centre of his chest, letting her resonance seep through. He was still weak with blood loss; the residual metal was impacting his blood regeneration. She propped his head on her lap and very cautiously poured an elixir down his throat, using her resonance to ensure it ended up in his stomach and not his lungs. Even unconscious, his expression was tense, as if braced for a blow.

She brushed his hair back from his forehead, trying to smooth the tense furrow between his eyebrows, and just sat with him for a while. When he felt closer to normal, she leaned forward, her fingers touching the back of his head to help him wake.

His eyes shot open.

Faster than she could move, his hand was around her throat, jerking her down as he jolted upright, his expression panicked fury.

He recognised her, catching her an instant before the back of her head slammed into the ground. Her neck snapped back, and her vision went white, pain shooting through her skull.

“What?” He still sounded dazed.

She felt his hands along her neck, resonance along her spine, as her vision swam back into focus. He was kneeling over her, the back of her neck cradled in his hands. Her heart was in her throat, pounding with such shock she could barely breathe.

Kaine was also breathing hard. “What the fuck, Marino?”

“You—passed out,” she managed to say.

He looked at himself, only then realising he wasn’t wearing a shirt and that the wound was gone. She thought he’d relax once he understood, but he looked angrier.

“I nearly killed you.”

“You were hurt,” she said, releasing a shaky breath. “Badly. Even by your standards.” She sat up and winced, touching the side of her neck gingerly. “As previously established, it’s my job to keep the Eternal Flame’s assets alive. You’re one of them.”

“I wasn’t going to die,” he said scathingly, but he leaned towards her.

She almost drew back, but he reached out tentatively and she made herself hold still.

He pulled her hand away from her neck, his eyes fastened on her throat, his fingers moving slowly down the length of it. She felt his resonance under her skin, warm along her spine. Another crack in his façade of indifference.

“Were you not supposed to be healed?” she asked, suppressing a shiver as his finger brushed along her neck. “I can—cut you open and put it all back in if you want.”

His fingers stilled, and he glared at her. “I’m not your patient.”

He might have been intimidating if he wasn’t sitting on the floor, both hands cradling her neck, tilting her head slowly from side to side. He’d clearly come around to taking spinal injuries very seriously.

Her heart was beating even harder now, remembering his fingers in her hair, pulling her towards him. When she was alone, she often went back to that memory, wondering what could have happened.

She drew a shivering breath and reached up, her fingers wrapping around his wrist. “I can’t let you die.”

He stilled. She felt his pulse against her fingers. She watched his eyes darken, the slow shift of black expanding as the heat of his hands bled into her skin.

He shook his head. “They don’t let me die.”

She squeezed his wrist tighter. “Are they—is Bennet still experimenting on you? I thought if you survived the array, then he couldn’t—”

He pulled his hand free. “I have this habit of surviving against all odds. Deserves to be studied, apparently.”

Without thinking, she reached out, touching his cheek. “I’m so sorry, Kaine.”

He looked startled, and it made his expression turn so young and scared, as if a part of him was still that sixteen-year-old. Then he went rigid, wrenching himself away from her touch, and when he looked at her again, he’d turned vicious. He shook his head as if in disbelief.

“You are unbelievable,” he said. “Truly.”

She didn’t know what he meant.

He shook his head. “When you first showed up here, I didn’t think you’d have it in you, but you are truly something else.”

Her gut twisted into a hard knot. “What do you mean?”