Page 91 of Godbound
“You’ve wrestled a helpless, injured girl,” I mutter. “Hope that makes you feel accomplished.”
He tucks the blanket around me, then leans back as his voice drops to a quiet challenge. “Ask me again when you’ve stopped blushing.”
The next morning, I wake to a cool, damp cloth pressed against my forehead. My skin tingles beneath it while a fever burns deep within my bones. My refusal to rot something living is demanding its cost.
By evening, I’m delirious, trembling and drenched in sweat. Only my Godbeast’s stream of colorful curses keeps me tethered to consciousness as he begs me, in vain, to decay anything he can find.
But I refuse, unable to bear the thought of taking an innocent life. Despite the agony coursing through me, a frail, stubborn pride endures, keeping me defiant.
Time dissolves into a blur. Hours slip through my fingers. Heat seeps into my marrow, only to vanish, leaving a bone-deep chill.
The magic inside me changes too. Once, it was a quiet coil beneath my sternum like a sleeping serpent, but now it grows vast and consuming.
I drift in and out of awareness when something happens. A weight presses against me, solid and real, dragging me back from the dark. My limbs tangle in something warm and hard, and panic surges through me. For a disoriented moment, I think I’m bound in chains, trapped and helpless until my senses clear, and the truth strikes me. It isn’t chains at all.
It’s him.
Kaelzar’s arms encircle me, firm yet protective, anchoring me to the world. Shocked, I scramble away so fast that pain lancesthrough my side, making me moan.
“Please,” Kaelzar says quietly. “Stay calm.”
He lifts his hands in surrender, making no move to approach. My gaze flickers to the scars across his palms before sliding upward. He’s shirtless, the chains are unmoving.
My eyes catch on the sigil I noticed before: a circle of black fire bound in chains. The sight of it stirs unease in the pit of my stomach.
“You reopened your wounds last night,” he says, his tone even but edged with weariness as he leaves the bed. “I had to stitch them again. You were thrashing in your sleep. I only held you to keep you from making it worse.” He reaches for the cup on the side of the bed and walks around to me with it.
I want to reply, but heat and exhaustion smother my words. My strength slips away, and I sink back into the bed.
Kaelzar moves closer, holding a cup to my lips. “Drink,” he murmurs. I obey, taking a few sips. “One more sip, for me.”
A weak smile flickers across my lips, unbidden, as a drop spills down my chin. My eyelids grow heavy, and I surrender to the darkness that follows.
When I wake again, night has already fallen. Silver light drifts through the open window. The faint scent of crushed herbs lingers in the air. I register a movement, the slow, rhythmic sway of being carried. A thin bedsheet clings to my skin, damp from sweat.
Kaelzar’s arms are firm beneath me. I don’t realize where he’s taking me until the dull gleam of water catches the light. The tub waits near the hearth.
He steps in first, the faint sound of rippling water echoing in the quiet. Then he draws me down with him, lowering me until my back rests against his chest, his arms holding me steady.
The water closes around me—cool, almost cold—and the contact steals the breath from my lungs. I gasp, arching instinctively, but his hands tighten just enough to keep me from slipping beneath the surface.
The shock cuts through the fever’s fog. Then slowly, as the coolness seeps into my skin, the shock of it fades. The heat draining from mefeels almost physical, a slow unwinding of something that had gripped too tightly.
I breathe again, shallow at first, then steadier. The water ripples softly against my collarbones.
Kaelzar doesn’t speak. His breathing remains calm behind me, measured, as though willing me to follow its rhythm. The room settles into silence broken only by the faint crackle of the fire and the quiet lap of water.
Gradually, the haze begins to thin. My thoughts, once scattered and fever-bright, begin to find their shape. I can smell the metal tang of the tub, the faint salt of skin, the lingering smoke from the fire.
Then awareness returns, slowly and uncomfortably. I realize how close we are: his bare chest solid against my back, his arm a weight across my ribs, his legs braced around me beneath the water. I can feel the fabric over his legs through the water—trousers, I think distantly. I am wrapped in a bedsheet, I realize, with only my undergarments beneath it. The intimacy of it presses in, and my first impulse is to hide behind the remnants of fever.
For an instant, I even consider pretending I’m still delirious. It would be easier than this, than feeling every breath of his against my neck.
But the thought feels cowardly. I’m too tired to pretend, and too grateful for what he’s done to lie.
“I think,” I manage, my voice rough, “this might be the least dignified bath I’ve ever taken.”
His chest shakes with a quiet laugh, the sound a low vibration against my back. “Fortunately, I’m the only one here to see it.”
