Elana woke slowly. The warmth in her arms had disappeared. She stood and paced around the bed. David had curled up with his back against a bedpost, picking at the silver chain wrapped around his bare left foot. A smile touched her face because the rebel, trained in the ring as a gladiator, took a moment to realize she was there. He froze, his eyes wild and blank. He had been scratching at the manacle with nothing but his nails. The only thing saving him was the fur inside the cuff.
“Stop it, David.” She pet his blonde hair, making him scowl. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
As she found her boots by the door, David hugged his knees to his bare chest. His brown eyes darted about her room but kept landing on her. Elana just smiled and stepped from her bedchambers.
A massive gauntlet slammed the door behind her. She jumped a mile and whirled toward Aldien, who shook.
“Did he hurt you, Highness?”
“No. Don’t talk to me like that.” She huffed, shoving her hands into her pockets as she stalked down the corridor. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. But her stepmother Taria didn’t want to understand that. Even Elana’s personal guard didn’t recognize it, of all people.
David had woken before her. His first reaction was to escape, not hurt her. Chances were that she was safe around him.
Elana pushed her way into the dimly-lit war room.
General Cilen drew frantic scribbles on the board map, maneuvers that would surely get soldiers killed. Taria didn’t bother hiding her distaste, her face twisted. She spun toward Elana and gestured at the general. “Can you believe this? She came here with no plans involving an advance on Cerces.”
“I… agree.” Elana peered at the board. Cilen slowed, sucking in a breath of relief. “We have David. Their government is going to fall apart on its own. They shouldn’t have a chain of command. They’re not established enough for that.”
Taria slammed a palm on the table. The lantern at its center, the room’s single light, shook. “We’ll still advance. Take back Astal.”
Elana shook her head. “You’ll cause a crisis and force someone into leadership. If anything, Cerces will become more powerful.” She folded her arms. “Hold the border.”
Taria turned to Cilen. “Show me an advance.”
Cilen shot Elana a pleading glance, but the princess shrugged. What the queen didn’t have in blood she had in seniority, and that won out. Even when it was harebrained.
As Cilen went on with her scribbling, Taria turned to Elana. “I heard you ordered a manacle.”
“I did.”
“But it was lined with fur.”
Elana set her jaw. “It was.”
“What are you doing to that boy?” Taria scowled. “We don’t have time for your youthful stupidity.”
Elana glanced over Taria’s shoulder, at the army’s suicidal advance. Better than elder stupidity. “He has a high pain tolerance. You should know that.”
Taria growled. Finally, a concession. “Just get some information out of him. Is Cerces that unorganized?”
Elana pursed her lips. Based on his actions this morning, she guessed that David didn’t care for the method, just the result. “I’m not sure. Likely?”
Taria shoved her. “Well, go find it out.”
Elana stumbled, then pushed her way out of the room, hissing curses under her breath. Cerces had the right ideals. They just had the wrong methods, and not enough money to sustain themselves. It left them looting cornfields and food stores.
It was just a matter of winning her father’s favor. If Taria’s plan failed— which it would— and she managed David well, she stood a solid chance.
She glared at Aldien, who promptly stepped out of her way. He smashed a fist to his breastplate. “I’m just warning you, Highness. There have been awful sounds coming from there since you left.”
Elana started. She’d heard of rebels killing themselves the first chance they found. What if David found a way to strangle himself on his chains?
She kicked the door open.
It wasn’t exactly what she expected. David strained against his shackles, his feet skidding on the hardwood floor as he hauled on it. The wood post had splintered to the point where she could see its metal core, but evidently, David hadn’t. He kept pulling, his hands bloodying the shackles as he rubbed them raw. The bed slid forward another foot or so, to the point where it was almost halfway across the room instead of against the wall. It had cut streaks in the floor’s polish and left a wake where it’d been dragged.
Elana cleared her throat.
David turned and froze. He dropped to his knees, planted his bleeding hands on the floor, and cast his eyes downward. “Princess.”
“Idiot,” she sighed, glancing at the ruined floor and, more importantly, his ruined hands. “David, I need you to put the bed back.”
He jerked up again, visibly relieved. As he shoved the bed back into place with his chain dragging behind him, Elana turned to her vanity and found the washcloth and bandages she had set aside the night before… the night she had first found him unconscious on the floor of her bedroom. She approached him from behind, and when he finished resetting the bed, he turned to find her a foot in front of him. He jumped back, hit the mattress, and fell to the floor, his legs spread around Elana’s boots. She sighed once more and knelt. He flinched— expecting a slap, maybe— but she only tugged one of his bleeding palms into her lap. He cocked his head at the water pitcher, then winced as she wiped his hand clean with the washcloth.
“Oh, don’t tell me this hurts, rebel.” His hand wasn’t damaged. The chains had simply dug into his palm a little too hard. The metal had spread the blood around, making it look like he had lost a finger.
“Princess.” He glanced at the rosy water the washcloth splashed on the hardwood.
“Don’t worry about it.” She bandaged his hand, pausing to wipe the sweat off his face with an extra washcloth. “What were you planning to do, anyway?”
David eyed the damaged bedpost and its gleaming metal core. “It looked breakable. That guard out there— whoever he is—”
“Aldien.”
“Aldien.” He met her eyes. “He wouldn’t know how to use a sword if it hit him in the face. I’d just knock him out, take the blade, and… why am I telling you this?”
“Because I asked.” She finished wrapping his other hand and stood. “It seems like you’ve healed up plenty if you’ve already tried to escape.”
David’s breath caught. She had known he felt better; when he fell asleep on top of her, he didn’t complain as she adjusted him throughout the night. But this was far more fun.
She jabbed a finger. “Up.”
David stood as slowly as he could manage. They locked eyes for a heartbeat; David was a good few inches taller than Elana.
Elana shoved his shoulders and David toppled backward onto the bed.
How had she managed that? David was moon-eyed. But his bandaged fists were a hair higher than his head.
Elana took advantage and leaped onto his chest. She had his right arm bound before it dawned on David.
She had the foresight to leave the ties in place the night before, and thank the gods for that. Although David was already mostly on the bed and somewhat bound, he let out a mewl and reached for her stomach with white, bandaged fingers. She flinched, pinned his arm, and swept black hair from her eyes. She grabbed him by his underarms and dragged him further up the bed. Even that made him flinch, a light chuckle breaking his lips. Then he grumbled to himself and snapped his mouth shut.
Resigned to fate, but still brave. Interesting.
She pinned his kicking right leg, dragged it to the corner of the bed, and tied his toes back. His left leg was easier. She just had to pull the chain tight, step on it, and bind his ankle from there.
She gave both of his soles a tap before drifting up beside him. “Yesterday was fun, but today seems great.” She reached under his arm, but before she could so much as touch him he lunged to the side and cut her off.
Her brow furrowed. She couldn’t have that.
She sat down on the bed, her weight pinning his right arm. But as she undid the knot and tried to tighten it, his bicep wiggled out from under her. He knocked her onto the hardwood.
She rolled over, watching him fumble with the tie around his other arm. This time she heard him grumble, “Crazy bitch.”
He freed his left wrist and reached for his feet, but Elana jumped behind him, curling her arms over his shoulders. “I’ll show you just how crazy I am.”
She ran her fingers over the wide, sensitive scar on his stomach, the one he had defended so fiercely the day before.
“NOOOO!” He grabbed her arms, flexing as if to throw her over his shoulders. But she folded one elbow and forced her hand under his right arm. He smashed his upper arm down, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Her nails still scratched at his ribs.
“Hmphmphmphmph…” He buried his chin into his chest, laughing as Elana moved that hand higher into the blonde hair under his arm. Meanwhile, she moved her other hand across his stomach. His left arm let go of her shoulder, trying to protect the scar. His right arm still battled hers, but its grip grew weak and eventually fell away, also chasing the nails running across his stomach.
Unwittingly, that freed Elana’s other hand. She brought it up and ran fingers along David’s neck, ears, and chin, covered in day-old stubble. He shook, but she planted her knees around his waist, keeping him in place.
“Hehehehehe…”
She left his face and stomach alone, and as David still giggled, she pinched her fingers into the muscle above his hips. He swatted her hands away, but as he knocked away one, she clawed at his other side.
She waited until he threw his head against her, then swung her weight about his waist so he flattened on the mattress. This time, he was well tied on the bed, still giggling.
She let herself fall aside, her face level with his. “No escape, huh?”
His brown eyes flashed and he growled.
“Well, that was for calling me a bitch.” She climbed onto his hips again and met his terrified gaze. “This is for destroying my bedroom.”
She massaged his scarred sides.
“AHIIIIIAhaha…!” The sound cut out. Elana looked up, shocked, but he hadn’t passed out like the night before. He looked like he was drowning, or maybe choking on air. No. Laughing silently. She continued for another few seconds, then moved up to the center of his chest, running two nails in small spirals. He sucked in a deep breath, then his laughter, real laughter, restarted.
She’d have to make a note of that spot for when she was truly upset with him. Here… he was just being himself.
Elana reached up, running four nails from his wrists to his armpits in a slow, wavy path. He watched the hand trailing down his right arm through teary eyes, clenching his teeth. She dug her thumbs into his armpits.
“NAYAH haHAhahaHAha haHAhaha!”
She ran a finger around and around his armpit hair for a moment, then dragged it down, over his nipple and back to the rim of his scar. Somehow he still managed to look scared through broken brown eyes. “I’m sorry…”
“You were sorry last time, too.” She spun her fingers around his tight abdomen, cutting into his scar. He had resigned himself, but every so often she stopped tracing the lines of his muscles and scar and instead drilled into his navel. Elana smiled at that. It was like pressing the trigger of a crossbow, the way he would arch under her.
She pat his stomach. “I think this has had enough.”
“Oh,” he gasped, buckling, “thank you.”
She slipped off him and walked to his feet, but not before jabbing his navel one last time.
“GAH!” He let out a bark of laughter, then closed his eyes, his flushed face somehow reddening.
“But I forgot these!” she said.
David jerked, then ripped at the silk ties holding him in earnest. Between the bandages on his palms and the smooth fabric, he didn’t have the grip to tear it. “No. No, no no, you said I was done!”
She tapped the ruined bedpost his foot was tied to. “I did not say that.”
His eyes shut. But this time, she did not kneel in front of his foot. She strode over to her desk and brought out a jar, one that rattled. David opened his eyes again.
“Now I am so glad I kept all my ruined quills.” She plucked one out of the jar. Ink-stained, but a feather all the same.
He gasped.
“NOhohohehehe hehe…”
Elana brushed the arch of his foot. There. A softer ‘torture’ to cool him down after something like what he just went through. He wasn’t so bold to admit this wasn’t bad. He was terrified of her. But this was easier on him than anything she had done before.
She began brushing closer to his toes.
“He, he, hehe, he…”
All right, not that easy.
She flipped the quill around, using its split tip to run down the stem of his second toe.
“NO! NAHAHahaha hahaha,” he shrieked, laughing as she continued the trail along the bottoms of his toes and down his instep.
At least she could still surprise him.
She spread his toes, running the feather along the soft skin between them while peering over his foot. David had abandoned his stoic facade, throwing his head back toward the bed’s canopy.“Nah… nahahahah… please…”
Elana ducked over to the other foot, grabbing a fresh feather. The last one had stained the skin there by mistake. This time she started with the tip of the feather at the pads of his toes.
“HO! He, hehehe, hehe…”
She flipped the feather, scribbled it across the ball and heel of his foot, then spread his toes once more. His screaming turned back into helpless chuckles as she finished between his fourth and fifth toe, dancing the feather’s tip against his smallest toe pad before standing and unbinding his right foot. She had gotten to his left foot and his left arm before he could open his eyes again, and as she reached over him to untie his right arm, he reached up and rubbed a thumb under her left arm.
She jerked back. David had a smile plastered on his face as he untied his other arm. “I think someone else is ticklish, too.”
“If you think for a second you can do to me what I just did to you, I will call Aldien and have you thrown into the deepest pit of a dungeon we have.”
“Well, that’s not fair.” He rolled his shoulders, his back creaking. “Besides, you’ve already done that. Didn’t really stick.”
“I guess that’s true, but remember, you’re a prisoner here.” She sat down next to him. “You okay? Did you hurt your back?”
“A little. It’s nothing. An old wound from the ring.”
“That’s the definition of something.” Elana slid behind him and dug the heels of her hands into his shoulders. David groaned, his head rolling back. She wrapped her elbow under his arm to his shoulder, making him wince, but this time it was soft. It helped her keep pressure as she moved her hand down his spine. His head drooped, ear and sweaty hair against her neck.
“About Cerces.” She dropped her chin on his other shoulder. “What are they going to do now that you’re gone?”
“There’s a council.” He grunted as she hit a knot in his back. “It’s made up of angry village leaders.” His breath came soft. “There’ll be fighting. Gods, there’ll be fighting. Why— they need me—”
“Shh, David. You’re exhausted.”
He looked up at her. She was just rubbing his back now. “I am.”
“Here.” She let him lay on the bed, carefully hiding the silk ties and leaving the silver chain on the floor. She grabbed a clean rag, dunked it in water, and rubbed down his hair, face, and chest. He sighed, and a smile crossed his lips.
She trailed a hand down one of his limp arms. “I’m going to leave for a spell. Why don’t you rest?”
He had already closed his eyes, but nodded drunkenly all the same.
Elana left her quarters, let Aldien lock the door behind her, and made her way down the hall to the war-room with almost a skip in her step.
Part 3 (F/M)
“Stop it, David.” She pet his blonde hair, making him scowl. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
As she found her boots by the door, David hugged his knees to his bare chest. His brown eyes darted about her room but kept landing on her. Elana just smiled and stepped from her bedchambers.
A massive gauntlet slammed the door behind her. She jumped a mile and whirled toward Aldien, who shook.
“Did he hurt you, Highness?”
“No. Don’t talk to me like that.” She huffed, shoving her hands into her pockets as she stalked down the corridor. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. But her stepmother Taria didn’t want to understand that. Even Elana’s personal guard didn’t recognize it, of all people.
David had woken before her. His first reaction was to escape, not hurt her. Chances were that she was safe around him.
Elana pushed her way into the dimly-lit war room.
General Cilen drew frantic scribbles on the board map, maneuvers that would surely get soldiers killed. Taria didn’t bother hiding her distaste, her face twisted. She spun toward Elana and gestured at the general. “Can you believe this? She came here with no plans involving an advance on Cerces.”
“I… agree.” Elana peered at the board. Cilen slowed, sucking in a breath of relief. “We have David. Their government is going to fall apart on its own. They shouldn’t have a chain of command. They’re not established enough for that.”
Taria slammed a palm on the table. The lantern at its center, the room’s single light, shook. “We’ll still advance. Take back Astal.”
Elana shook her head. “You’ll cause a crisis and force someone into leadership. If anything, Cerces will become more powerful.” She folded her arms. “Hold the border.”
Taria turned to Cilen. “Show me an advance.”
Cilen shot Elana a pleading glance, but the princess shrugged. What the queen didn’t have in blood she had in seniority, and that won out. Even when it was harebrained.
As Cilen went on with her scribbling, Taria turned to Elana. “I heard you ordered a manacle.”
“I did.”
“But it was lined with fur.”
Elana set her jaw. “It was.”
“What are you doing to that boy?” Taria scowled. “We don’t have time for your youthful stupidity.”
Elana glanced over Taria’s shoulder, at the army’s suicidal advance. Better than elder stupidity. “He has a high pain tolerance. You should know that.”
Taria growled. Finally, a concession. “Just get some information out of him. Is Cerces that unorganized?”
Elana pursed her lips. Based on his actions this morning, she guessed that David didn’t care for the method, just the result. “I’m not sure. Likely?”
Taria shoved her. “Well, go find it out.”
Elana stumbled, then pushed her way out of the room, hissing curses under her breath. Cerces had the right ideals. They just had the wrong methods, and not enough money to sustain themselves. It left them looting cornfields and food stores.
It was just a matter of winning her father’s favor. If Taria’s plan failed— which it would— and she managed David well, she stood a solid chance.
She glared at Aldien, who promptly stepped out of her way. He smashed a fist to his breastplate. “I’m just warning you, Highness. There have been awful sounds coming from there since you left.”
Elana started. She’d heard of rebels killing themselves the first chance they found. What if David found a way to strangle himself on his chains?
She kicked the door open.
It wasn’t exactly what she expected. David strained against his shackles, his feet skidding on the hardwood floor as he hauled on it. The wood post had splintered to the point where she could see its metal core, but evidently, David hadn’t. He kept pulling, his hands bloodying the shackles as he rubbed them raw. The bed slid forward another foot or so, to the point where it was almost halfway across the room instead of against the wall. It had cut streaks in the floor’s polish and left a wake where it’d been dragged.
Elana cleared her throat.
David turned and froze. He dropped to his knees, planted his bleeding hands on the floor, and cast his eyes downward. “Princess.”
“Idiot,” she sighed, glancing at the ruined floor and, more importantly, his ruined hands. “David, I need you to put the bed back.”
He jerked up again, visibly relieved. As he shoved the bed back into place with his chain dragging behind him, Elana turned to her vanity and found the washcloth and bandages she had set aside the night before… the night she had first found him unconscious on the floor of her bedroom. She approached him from behind, and when he finished resetting the bed, he turned to find her a foot in front of him. He jumped back, hit the mattress, and fell to the floor, his legs spread around Elana’s boots. She sighed once more and knelt. He flinched— expecting a slap, maybe— but she only tugged one of his bleeding palms into her lap. He cocked his head at the water pitcher, then winced as she wiped his hand clean with the washcloth.
“Oh, don’t tell me this hurts, rebel.” His hand wasn’t damaged. The chains had simply dug into his palm a little too hard. The metal had spread the blood around, making it look like he had lost a finger.
“Princess.” He glanced at the rosy water the washcloth splashed on the hardwood.
“Don’t worry about it.” She bandaged his hand, pausing to wipe the sweat off his face with an extra washcloth. “What were you planning to do, anyway?”
David eyed the damaged bedpost and its gleaming metal core. “It looked breakable. That guard out there— whoever he is—”
“Aldien.”
“Aldien.” He met her eyes. “He wouldn’t know how to use a sword if it hit him in the face. I’d just knock him out, take the blade, and… why am I telling you this?”
“Because I asked.” She finished wrapping his other hand and stood. “It seems like you’ve healed up plenty if you’ve already tried to escape.”
David’s breath caught. She had known he felt better; when he fell asleep on top of her, he didn’t complain as she adjusted him throughout the night. But this was far more fun.
She jabbed a finger. “Up.”
David stood as slowly as he could manage. They locked eyes for a heartbeat; David was a good few inches taller than Elana.
Elana shoved his shoulders and David toppled backward onto the bed.
How had she managed that? David was moon-eyed. But his bandaged fists were a hair higher than his head.
Elana took advantage and leaped onto his chest. She had his right arm bound before it dawned on David.
She had the foresight to leave the ties in place the night before, and thank the gods for that. Although David was already mostly on the bed and somewhat bound, he let out a mewl and reached for her stomach with white, bandaged fingers. She flinched, pinned his arm, and swept black hair from her eyes. She grabbed him by his underarms and dragged him further up the bed. Even that made him flinch, a light chuckle breaking his lips. Then he grumbled to himself and snapped his mouth shut.
Resigned to fate, but still brave. Interesting.
She pinned his kicking right leg, dragged it to the corner of the bed, and tied his toes back. His left leg was easier. She just had to pull the chain tight, step on it, and bind his ankle from there.
She gave both of his soles a tap before drifting up beside him. “Yesterday was fun, but today seems great.” She reached under his arm, but before she could so much as touch him he lunged to the side and cut her off.
Her brow furrowed. She couldn’t have that.
She sat down on the bed, her weight pinning his right arm. But as she undid the knot and tried to tighten it, his bicep wiggled out from under her. He knocked her onto the hardwood.
She rolled over, watching him fumble with the tie around his other arm. This time she heard him grumble, “Crazy bitch.”
He freed his left wrist and reached for his feet, but Elana jumped behind him, curling her arms over his shoulders. “I’ll show you just how crazy I am.”
She ran her fingers over the wide, sensitive scar on his stomach, the one he had defended so fiercely the day before.
“NOOOO!” He grabbed her arms, flexing as if to throw her over his shoulders. But she folded one elbow and forced her hand under his right arm. He smashed his upper arm down, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Her nails still scratched at his ribs.
“Hmphmphmphmph…” He buried his chin into his chest, laughing as Elana moved that hand higher into the blonde hair under his arm. Meanwhile, she moved her other hand across his stomach. His left arm let go of her shoulder, trying to protect the scar. His right arm still battled hers, but its grip grew weak and eventually fell away, also chasing the nails running across his stomach.
Unwittingly, that freed Elana’s other hand. She brought it up and ran fingers along David’s neck, ears, and chin, covered in day-old stubble. He shook, but she planted her knees around his waist, keeping him in place.
“Hehehehehe…”
She left his face and stomach alone, and as David still giggled, she pinched her fingers into the muscle above his hips. He swatted her hands away, but as he knocked away one, she clawed at his other side.
She waited until he threw his head against her, then swung her weight about his waist so he flattened on the mattress. This time, he was well tied on the bed, still giggling.
She let herself fall aside, her face level with his. “No escape, huh?”
His brown eyes flashed and he growled.
“Well, that was for calling me a bitch.” She climbed onto his hips again and met his terrified gaze. “This is for destroying my bedroom.”
She massaged his scarred sides.
“AHIIIIIAhaha…!” The sound cut out. Elana looked up, shocked, but he hadn’t passed out like the night before. He looked like he was drowning, or maybe choking on air. No. Laughing silently. She continued for another few seconds, then moved up to the center of his chest, running two nails in small spirals. He sucked in a deep breath, then his laughter, real laughter, restarted.
She’d have to make a note of that spot for when she was truly upset with him. Here… he was just being himself.
Elana reached up, running four nails from his wrists to his armpits in a slow, wavy path. He watched the hand trailing down his right arm through teary eyes, clenching his teeth. She dug her thumbs into his armpits.
“NAYAH haHAhahaHAha haHAhaha!”
She ran a finger around and around his armpit hair for a moment, then dragged it down, over his nipple and back to the rim of his scar. Somehow he still managed to look scared through broken brown eyes. “I’m sorry…”
“You were sorry last time, too.” She spun her fingers around his tight abdomen, cutting into his scar. He had resigned himself, but every so often she stopped tracing the lines of his muscles and scar and instead drilled into his navel. Elana smiled at that. It was like pressing the trigger of a crossbow, the way he would arch under her.
She pat his stomach. “I think this has had enough.”
“Oh,” he gasped, buckling, “thank you.”
She slipped off him and walked to his feet, but not before jabbing his navel one last time.
“GAH!” He let out a bark of laughter, then closed his eyes, his flushed face somehow reddening.
“But I forgot these!” she said.
David jerked, then ripped at the silk ties holding him in earnest. Between the bandages on his palms and the smooth fabric, he didn’t have the grip to tear it. “No. No, no no, you said I was done!”
She tapped the ruined bedpost his foot was tied to. “I did not say that.”
His eyes shut. But this time, she did not kneel in front of his foot. She strode over to her desk and brought out a jar, one that rattled. David opened his eyes again.
“Now I am so glad I kept all my ruined quills.” She plucked one out of the jar. Ink-stained, but a feather all the same.
He gasped.
“NOhohohehehe hehe…”
Elana brushed the arch of his foot. There. A softer ‘torture’ to cool him down after something like what he just went through. He wasn’t so bold to admit this wasn’t bad. He was terrified of her. But this was easier on him than anything she had done before.
She began brushing closer to his toes.
“He, he, hehe, he…”
All right, not that easy.
She flipped the quill around, using its split tip to run down the stem of his second toe.
“NO! NAHAHahaha hahaha,” he shrieked, laughing as she continued the trail along the bottoms of his toes and down his instep.
At least she could still surprise him.
She spread his toes, running the feather along the soft skin between them while peering over his foot. David had abandoned his stoic facade, throwing his head back toward the bed’s canopy.“Nah… nahahahah… please…”
Elana ducked over to the other foot, grabbing a fresh feather. The last one had stained the skin there by mistake. This time she started with the tip of the feather at the pads of his toes.
“HO! He, hehehe, hehe…”
She flipped the feather, scribbled it across the ball and heel of his foot, then spread his toes once more. His screaming turned back into helpless chuckles as she finished between his fourth and fifth toe, dancing the feather’s tip against his smallest toe pad before standing and unbinding his right foot. She had gotten to his left foot and his left arm before he could open his eyes again, and as she reached over him to untie his right arm, he reached up and rubbed a thumb under her left arm.
She jerked back. David had a smile plastered on his face as he untied his other arm. “I think someone else is ticklish, too.”
“If you think for a second you can do to me what I just did to you, I will call Aldien and have you thrown into the deepest pit of a dungeon we have.”
“Well, that’s not fair.” He rolled his shoulders, his back creaking. “Besides, you’ve already done that. Didn’t really stick.”
“I guess that’s true, but remember, you’re a prisoner here.” She sat down next to him. “You okay? Did you hurt your back?”
“A little. It’s nothing. An old wound from the ring.”
“That’s the definition of something.” Elana slid behind him and dug the heels of her hands into his shoulders. David groaned, his head rolling back. She wrapped her elbow under his arm to his shoulder, making him wince, but this time it was soft. It helped her keep pressure as she moved her hand down his spine. His head drooped, ear and sweaty hair against her neck.
“About Cerces.” She dropped her chin on his other shoulder. “What are they going to do now that you’re gone?”
“There’s a council.” He grunted as she hit a knot in his back. “It’s made up of angry village leaders.” His breath came soft. “There’ll be fighting. Gods, there’ll be fighting. Why— they need me—”
“Shh, David. You’re exhausted.”
He looked up at her. She was just rubbing his back now. “I am.”
“Here.” She let him lay on the bed, carefully hiding the silk ties and leaving the silver chain on the floor. She grabbed a clean rag, dunked it in water, and rubbed down his hair, face, and chest. He sighed, and a smile crossed his lips.
She trailed a hand down one of his limp arms. “I’m going to leave for a spell. Why don’t you rest?”
He had already closed his eyes, but nodded drunkenly all the same.
Elana left her quarters, let Aldien lock the door behind her, and made her way down the hall to the war-room with almost a skip in her step.
Part 3 (F/M)
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