Page 26 of The Second Death of Locke

Despite her reactions, Kier hadn’t stopped. His face was close to her wound; it was still leaking blood. He wiped it away in a pink smear of salve and blood.

“Let me see,” she said.

“I don’t think,” Kier said very carefully, “a kiss will heal it.”

Her laugh was cloudy with the lump firmly lodged in her throat. She took in the wound: when it was cleaned, it didn’t look so deep. “I think it’s okay if you just wrap it very tightly,” she said.

He looked at her, finally, and she saw the raw guilt on his face. He hadn’t been angry at her at all. “If that wound was on me, would you be satisfied with wrapping it?”

She chewed on the inside of her lip. “No.”

Kier nodded. He found a fresh needle, thread.

He’d patched her up many times, bandaging wounds she couldn’t reach herself, rubbing antiseptic salves and ointments into her skin, getting her stable if anything major happened during a battle, which it almost never did.

But for anything more serious, she’d always gone to the infirmary—it had nothing to do with Kier’s experience or lack thereof; even though he’d watched her do stitches so many times, he probably knew how to as well as she did.

“Anesthetic, please. That greenish-gray salve, in the pot with the blue lid,” Grey said, looking at the wall. He rubbed the salve over the edges of her wound, the catch of his rough fingers making her hiss.

“Sorry,” he murmured. She didn’t look as he prepared, but she felt it when he started stitching.

It wasn’t his fault—actually, it absolutely was his fault that it hurt as much as it did. She sucked a breath through her teeth, her nails digging into his thigh, feeling every single puncture of the needle, every tug of the thread.

“You’re doing so well,” he murmured, pausing to wipe a tear from her cheek.

“Keep going,” she snarled. “Get it done. Quickly.”

Halfway through, she dropped her head to his shoulder, numbing to the ceaselessness of the pain. Finally, he tied off the knot and cut the thread and his arms were around her.

“Fuck you,” she said into his neck, wet with her tears.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

His arms tightened, one wrapped around her bare back, one tangled up in her sweat-and-blood-filthy hair.

“I shouldn’t have gone,” he said. “I shouldn’t have left.”

With her good arm, she curled herself around him. He tugged her, pulling her off the bed, onto the chair, onto his lap. He moved one arm down, draping it over her thighs, hand under her knees, holding her against him.

“I nearly killed Brit and Sela,” Grey said against his skin.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Kier said.

It didn’t matter; it didn’t dull the pain. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried, and she didn’t now. She only hid her face in Kier’s neck, as if burying herself in him could solve anything at all.

She didn’t remember falling asleep. When she woke, she was curled in bed with Sela at her back, in the second room they’d had originally. Grey turned and looked over to find Brit arranged on another mattress on the floor, Ola curled up next to them.

She sat up, the blanket dropping to her waist. She was in a clean shirt that smelled like Kier, her arm aching. The captain himself sat by the window, looking out. Eron perched cross-legged in front of the door.

Kier glanced up at her, the early-morning light illuminating the dark shadows under his eyes.

“How long did I sleep?” she murmured, pitching her voice low so as not to wake the others.

“A while,” Kier said. “You needed it.”

She slid out of bed. He’d taken off her trousers, too, stained with blood as they were—she wore only the shirt and her own shorts. “Give me a moment to sort myself out, then I’ll take over watch.”

“You should keep resting.”

Grey leveled a look at him. They’d talked about this. “You need sleep. You too, Eron. I can handle it.”

She didn’t wait for protest. She grabbed her supply bag and wash kit and made her way to the small washroom on the second floor.

The door to the room where Kier had stitched her up was ajar, and the room where they’d fought had no door at all.

Grey hesitated in the empty entry, taking in the bloodstains on the bed where she’d tended to Brit, the dark marks soaked into the wood floor where the bodies had lain. She shuddered, moving on down the hall.

In the washroom, she changed over her padding—honestly, after all the fucking drama the day before, the fact she was still bleeding was a travesty—and took stock of Kier’s stitches.

They weren’t necessarily neat, and she imagined the scar would be ghastly, but they would get the job done.

She looked at her face in the glass, taking in the tangle of her hair and the flaking spots of dried blood on her skin.

I am the High Lady of Locke , she thought as she took in her reflection, nearly cracking into a fit of hysteria.

She rinsed her skin with water and tried to brush out the tangles before giving up. She needed to bathe properly, but there would be time for that when everyone was better rested.

Back in the room, Eron lay on the bed next to Sela and Kier was curled up in the corner in a nest of blankets.

“You sure you’re okay?” Kier asked her. He handed over a pair of trousers from the pile of clothes near the door. Someone must’ve gone back for Ola’s washing and hung it to dry. They were still a bit damp, and too big. She cinched them around her waist with her sword belt.

“I need time,” she said. It was as honest as she could handle being right now. She locked the door behind her, checked it twice.

She found her sword in a heap of her pack and bloodstained clothing. She sat in the chair Kier had vacated and rested it across her knees.

“Not too long,” Kier said, eyes slipping shut.

“Whatever you say, Captain.”