Page 62 of The Thornwyck Rose

Erik’s jaw tightened. His fingers curled against his side.

“What word do you bring from Mortlande’s outpost keeps?” she asked.

“They are secure. Shrewsbury surrendered,” Erik said, voice rough. His eyes didn’t linger on hers but looked unfocused past her.

“Very well.” She inclined her head, every movement deliberate to keep her breath calm. “On behalf of the Marcher Lord of Mortlande, I congratulate you on your victory. Go to your homes and enjoy the night. Lord Henry will summon you when he recovers from his illness.”

They bowed. Erik hesitated a moment longer than the others before turning to go.

It meant nothing, she told herself again, but she couldn’t let Erik walk away wounded.

“Commander de Montfort, please stay in the council chamber. I shall send vinegar and flax for your injury.”

He stopped, allowing the other two men to pass him into the stairwell. He turned to her, said nothing more, but gave a slight bow before proceeding to the council chamber down the hall.

Isolde went to the cellar to retrieve the wound-care items. Seren should have sent for the physician, but he was tending Henry. She’d stitched knights’ wounds before, but a slow, creeping, fluttering wave crossed her stomach when she thought of caring for Erik’s wound.

Her womb held a child once more, so perhaps the pregnancy was causing the flutter, though itwasn’t nausea. She reasoned it had nothing to do with being close to Erik, stitching a wound upon his bared skin.

Erik was her friend, nothing more, she told herself. And she hoped after she rejected his kiss, he was still her friend—if it was a kiss that she rejected. Her mind had played so many tricks on her, trying to believe lies, rejecting intuition, that she didn’t know what the truth was regarding Erik anymore, except one fact:

Under Henry’s tyrannical rule, Erik cared for her life and her children, and she cared for his and his son’s.

That was all.

That was all it could be.

She swallowed the bitter taste on her tongue and left for the council chamber. She entered quietly with Margot lingering behind, and was startled at the sight of Erik, though not unexpected.

He sat in the chair by Lord Henry’s table. His uniform lay discarded near the hearth, stiff with sweat and blood, and his chest rose with steady breaths that did not match the pain she knew he felt. He always bore it in silence.

Seren had seen his skin once before—bared under Henry’s cruelty, mocked for its pagan stains—but that had been forced, cruel, and public.

This was intimate in the worst way.

His fingers gingerly touched the open gash on the back of his shoulder. He stopped when he saw her.

“Lady de Thornwyck, you should not be here,” he whispered.

Seren glanced back down the corridor.

Tomas, the hall guard, walked it. She’d saved his life and stitched a wound for him after he failed an errand a few months prior. He owed her, though she kept no record. Tomas gave her a nod, so Seren responded to Erik.

“The physician is with Lord Henry, and I’ve always tended to wounds in his absence. Unknown to Lord Henry, of course.” Seren leaned against the door, waiting for Margot to come closer.

“You heal warriors, too?” he asked, his eyes lit.

“My grandmother was a healer,” Seren said. “She healed many and taught me everything I know.” Her heart filled with memories of the gray-haired woman whose wrinkled fingers pressed the bronze cross pendant into her young hands.

“My father taught me,” he said, but immediately his face fell. “My son will know nothing.”

“He knows his father loves him and sees him any chance he can,” Seren said, only imagining the guilt he must feel not being able to comfort his son after the whipping and being sent away for so long. “That is all that is important.”

His brow furrowed. “And I’m thankful for your time with him,” he whispered.

“You do not need to thank me. He needs a mother, and I’m happy to call him my son, though Lord Henry will never know it either.”

Seren’s gaze faltered at the look of gratitude that crossed Erik’s face. It was the same light and smile she’d seen on him in the garden when he spoke of Astrid. Perhaps he remembered his late wife at that moment, and it had nothing to do with her. Isolde’s footsteps echoed down the corridor.