“You’re not normal.”
“Cheers.”
“No-I mean, why would you want to be? Kett, you’re amazing. You’re glorious.”
“Stop,” she said quietly.
“No. Kett, I love everything about you. Don’t ever be like other people, they’re boring. You’re-”
“No, stop. Don’t do this. Don’t praise me, don’t tell me I’m wonderful and for the love of the gods, don’t pretend you love me.”
“But-”
“You don’t love me, Bael. You just think you ought to because you’re stuck with me.” She touched his shoulder, stroked over the skin until she found a sore spot then dug in. Bael sucked in a sharp breath of pain.
“See? You’re hurt this bad already. Imagine what’d happen if you actually were in love with me.”
There wasn’t anything he could think to say to that.
“How’s that bruise on your face?” Nuala asked as Kett took a bite of toast at breakfast.
“Five by five,” Kett said through her mouthful.
“Are you sure you’re not having any problem with movement?”
She swallowed her toast and shook her head. “No, it’s fine, see? Else I’d be eating through a straw.”
“Oh,” said Nuala, frowning in a way that made Kett wave her hand for more information. “Well, if it doesn’t hurt that much, try smiling.”
Her father guffawed. Realizing she was being made fun of, Kett snarled at her stepmother and grabbed three bread rolls as she stood up to leave. She rolled them into a napkin and added some fruit.
“Oh Kett, I didn’t mean it like that,” Nuala said, looking like a kicked puppy.
“I don’t exactly see how I’ve got a lot to smile about,” Kett said, tucking the coffeepot under her arm, taking two cups and leaving the room.
Going back up the stairs was agonizing. With her arms full, she couldn’t lean on the banister to spare her aching leg or hop without losing her balance. The main staircase at Nuala’s house was enormous, as tall as it was wide, stretching into infinity.
She was halfway up and considering dumping the food when someone came up behind her and started taking bread rolls from her arms.
“Gerroff,” she said, because it was Bael, and she’d been avoiding him all morning.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, ignoring her.
“Novelty.” She forced herself up another step.
“Yeah. Look, Kett. If you and I had just met, say in a bar or something, and hit it off and gone back to your place or mine-”
“You mean your castle with the turret cell? Cozy.”
“Or anywhere. And we’d felt the same kind of sparks we had from the start,” Bael went on, prizing the coffeepot from her arms, which left her with one hand free to hold the banister.
Kett stubbornly folded her arms, clinging to the two coffee cups, and trudged up another step.
“Would we have had something? If I’d never mentioned this whole mate thing? If we’d just…gotten together and had fun and shagged each other rotten-”
Kett lost her balance at the mention of that and Bael steadied her, his arm around her shoulders. She wondered where the hell he’d put the things he’d taken from her, then saw Var, dog-shaped, patiently standing there with the napkin held in his mouth.
“Great, now there’s dog slobber all over that.”
“He hasn’t touched the food. Kett, listen. Forget about all the mate stuff. Just think about how it’d be if you and I got together normally.”
“Weren’t you listening?” Kett asked, shrugging him off and grabbing the railing to haul herself up another two steps. “I ain’t normal.”
“And weren’t
She made a very unladylike snort and climbed up the rest of the steps, ignoring Bael even though he was never more than a few feet away. He kept following her, Var trotting along beside him like a good little pet, until she got to Jarven’s door and stopped.
“You following me?”
“I think I am.” He gave her a charming smile, which almost failed to do anything to Kett.
“I’m going to see Jarven.”
“I’ll come with you.
“Bael-”
“Let me, Kett.” There was guilt in his eyes. “I need to.”
She hesitated, but relented. Let him see what his men had done to her friend.
She opened the door and was mildly surprised to see Angie sitting by the bed, looking slightly guilty, a book in her hand.
“I was just-I thought I’d wait until he woke up,” she said, “and, um. See if he wanted anything.”
Kett kept her face straight and just nodded. “Sure. How’s he been?”
They regarded Jarven, asleep, probably sedated. There were bandages on his chest and arms and around his head. Here and there his skin crackled with ugly red patches, burns from his own dragons.
“He’s been quiet,” Angie said, her lip quivering slightly. She attempted a smile. “But then this is Jarven, and he’s always quiet, isn’t he?”
“He is,” Kett said, her heart going out to both Angie and Jarven, who no doubt was totally oblivious to Angie’s crush.
Bael moved over toward the bed, reaching out to Jarven, and Angie said sharply, “Be careful!”
But Bael just touched Jarven’s forehead, closed his eyes for a moment and murmured, “He’ll get better. He’ll be fine.”
Kett watched, uneasy. “Come on now. Leave him alone.”
She gave the coffee and food to Angie and left the sickroom to find Chance outside.
“I was just coming to see if there was anything I could do,” she said. She peered at Kett. “Maybe for you too. How are you feeling?”
“Five by five.”
“Liar,” Bael said, “you’re more like two by three.”
She scowled at him for that but Chance took her hand, frowning. “He’s right,” she said.
“You hear that, I’m right,” Bael crowed.
“And that’s why we’d never have had something,” Kett said.
Chance shook her head. “You’re the one who caused this,” she said to Bael, and his smile slipped. “You’re the one who has to fix it.”
“I would if I could,” he said, and she handed him a clay pot.
“You can,” she said. “Atonement is its own sort of magic.”
Which was how Kett found herself lying naked on her bed, the door firmly locked, as Bael spread some thick white paste over the scratches on her stomach.
“Strictly speaking, it was one of the dogs that did this,” he said.
“I ain’t having one of your hunting dogs slobbering all over me,” Kett said. “I ain’t even having Var doing it. I’m not into bestiality.”
“Good, neither am I,” Bael said.
Kett made a face, folding her arms over her breasts. She’d argued that there was no reason for her to be naked, but Bael had pointed out that one of the worst cuts was on her hip, and any clothes would just get in the
