Swollen, angry red flesh came into view, seeping fluids, red and yellow. Much worse than she’d imagined.
The irritated look on his face shifted to incredulity. “You’ve been walking like this?”
The sock dropped to the bed. He seemed disinclined to further torture, so she collapsed back on the bed.
When the other sock slid off, he hissed.
Cool air rushed to the exposed skin, stinging anew.
She dropped her arm over her face.
Her arm blocked out all the light, and just for a moment, she let herself pretend she was far, far away. Someplace safe, where she had a big, warm, loving family. Where she wasn’t alone, and she was free to do whatever she pleased.
Any minute now, Torum would shout, and this time, maybe he really would spank her. It didn’t matter. She had nothing to do and no one to see and nowhere to go anyway. Maybe he was right, and she was pathetic and stupid and thoughtless.
Silence.
The bed dipped, and she flinched, preparing for whatever came. A broad hand slid beneath her back, and another under her knees, and then her body lifted from the bed, and she rested against solid warmth.
She peeked out. Torum had lifted her. His jaw clenched tightly, brows low. It was a face of anger, but at least he wasn’t shouting.
It was nice to be carried. She might as well pretend it was a hug and enjoy it. Gods knew when she’d next get a hug.
She rested her head against his chest, listening to his heart, and his arms tightened slightly. Trees. He smelled of trees. If he weren’t such a beast, this would be pleasant.
He walked down the passageway and turned into the bathing chamber where he merely lowered her to sit at the edge of the bathing pool and squatted beside her. “Put them in the pool.”
“Oh, no, I think…” She hesitated, holding her feet off the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees. It would hurt. Badly. “Perhaps, I could j—”
“In the pool.” He pointed, and his voice brooked no compromise.
She made a face.
He snagged her by an ankle and dragged her closer to the water. “It’ll sting.” His voice was quieter than she’d heard it, little more than a caress across the air in the darkened chamber.
She took perverse comfort in that hard, unyielding gaze.
It did sting.
He dragged her other foot toward the pool.
She couldn’t stop the way her face tightened, but she didn’t say a word. When she could stand it no longer, she pulled her feet out. It was bad. Her feet were swollen and discolored with infection.
He pushed her feet back into the pool. “I’ll be back.”
She winced but left them there. The burn settled into a sullen, angry throb.
The air currents shifted as he left the chamber. She sat alone in the herb-scented, darkened silence until heavy boot steps announced his return.
“I can take care of it,” she said.
His brows lifted as he sank down to a squat beside her, eying the way she gingerly placed her legs so her feet dangled over the edge of the pool. “You can’t even walk.”
“I’ve been walking just fine.”
Ignoring her, he pulled a towel from one of the cabinets near the pool, shifted her to lean against the wall and took a seat cross-legged facing her. “That was your mother?”
She nodded, and the silence stretched as he lifted her legs to rest in his lap. Because she needed something to do, she pulled out her holo-cam and zoomed the lens in on the hard planes of his darkened face.
Her face heated at the touch of his broad thumbs on the backs of her calves, and she shivered. Those same thumbs had stroked her breasts the night he’d kissed her and touched her lower lip the night of the birds, but something about this touch and the tenderness behind it made her belly dance.
He dried her feet with the edges of the towel, carefully avoiding the sore spots. “You should have told me.”
“Would it have mattered?”
On the holo-cam’s screen, the dimple flickered. He sifted through the kit and pulled out a vial and a puff. The Vestigi medi kits were vastly different from the Argenti ones. He was right; she’d have had no clue what to use.
He squirted dark-blue fluid onto the puff, intent on his ministrations, and she took advantage of the opportunity to study his face, softened in the dim light.
“What did you think I’d do?”
“Toss me into the waste ejector. Cut my rations. Tie me up. Bellow. Spank me?” Her cheeks heated furiously in what had to be the goddess of all blushes at that last one when she got an obscenely vivid flash of him doing just that. His broad, callused palm swatting down over her bare bottom. Her lower belly tightened.
A flicker of a dimple flashed on one of his cheeks—so fast she nearly missed it. But it was a nice one. A good dimple.
“Strange thing to punish someone for.” His lips curved. “Has to hurt like hell.”
“You should try dancing shoes. A four-inch spike connected by nothing more than ribbons. I’ve had worse cuts.”
He made a face like he doubted that. “This will sting.” He stroked the wet puff over the raw spots and blew lightly on her feet, and the air on her toes may have been cool, but everything else was suddenly very, very warm.
This great big man with mean black eyes and hard, angry hands puckered his lips and blew on her feet. She held her breath, watching on screen.
In the dim light, his eyes weren’t strictly uniform black. The pearly orbs floated in the center, locked on her, and she was trapped in their thrall. She couldn’t have moved even if she wanted to. His gaze drifted down from her eyes, lingered on her lips.
He set down the puff and cradled her calves in his palms, his broad thumbs stroking circles along her ankles. “Why do you do that? With the holo-cam?”
Klym looked down at his face on the screen.
