“No. Never.”
She set a black leather journal upon the table before lifting a brow. “Not one?”
“I believe in paying people for their work, as you do here. And I believe in a human being’s intrinsic right to freedom.”
“I’m surprised your king let you live if that is how you feel.”
“I kept such opinions to myself.”
“A wiser move. Better to save your hide through silence than speaking for the thousands enslaved.”
He went still at that. “The labor camps and slave trade have been shut down. It was one of the first decrees that my king made. I was there with him when he drafted the document.”
“New decrees for a new era, I suppose?” The words were sharper than the set of knives she carried with her—for surgery, for scraping away rotting flesh.
He held her gaze unflinchingly. “Dorian Havilliard is not his father. It was him I served these years.”
“And yet you were the former king’s honored Captain of the Guard. I’m surprised the khagan’s children aren’t clamoring to hear your secrets about how you played both so well.”
His hands clenched on the arms of the chair. “There are choices in my past,” he said tightly, “that I have come to regret. But I can only move on—and attempt to fix them. Fight to make sure they do not occur again.” He jerked his chin toward the supplies she’d set down. “Which I cannot do while in this chair.”
“You certainly could do such things from that chair,” she said tartly, and meant it. He didn’t respond. Fine. If he did not wish to talk about this … she certainly didn’t wish to, either. Yrene jerked her chin toward the long, deep golden sofa. “Get on that. Shirt off and facedown.”
“Why not the bed?”
“Captain Faliq was here yesterday. I would not enter your bedroom without her present.”
“She is not my …” He trailed off. “It would not be an issue.”
“And yet you saw last night how it might present an issue for me.”
“With—”
“Yes.” She cut him off with a sharp look toward the door. “The couch will do.”
She had seen the look Kashin had given the captain at dinner. She’d wanted to slide off her chair and hide beneath the table.
“You have no interest where that is concerned?” he said, wheeling himself the few feet to the couch, then unbuttoning his jacket.
“I have no plans to seek such a life for myself.” Not when the risks were so high.
Execution of herself, her husband, and their children if Kashin should challenge the new khagan, if he should stake a claim on the throne. Being rendered infertile by Hafiza at best—once the new khagan had produced enough heirs to ensure the continuation of the bloodline.
Kashin had waved away those concerns that night on the steppes, had refused to understand the insurmountable wall they would always present.
But Chaol nodded, likely well aware of the costs of wedding into the bloodline if your spouse was not the Heir selected. As Kashin would never be—not with Sartaq, Arghun, or Hasar likely to be chosen.
Yrene added before Chaol could inquire further, “And it is none of your concern.”
He looked her over slowly. Not in the way that men sometimes did, that Kashin did, but … as if he was sizing up an opponent.
Yrene crossed her arms, distributing her weight evenly between her feet, just as she had been taught and now instructed others to do. A steady, defensive stance. Ready to take on anyone.
Even lords from Adarlan. He seemed to note that stance, and his jaw clenched.
“Shirt,” she repeated.
With a simmering glare, he reached over his head and shucked off his shirt, setting it neatly atop where he’d folded his jacket over the rolled arm of the sofa. Then he removed his boots and socks with swift, brutal tugs.
“Pants this time,” she told him. “Leave the undershorts.”
His hands went to his belt, and hesitated.
He could not remove the pants without some degree of help—at least in the chair.
She didn’t let a flicker of pity show in her face as she waved a hand toward the couch. “Get on, and I’ll unclothe you myself.”
He hesitated again. Yrene put her hands on her hips. “While I wish I could say you were my sole patient today,” she lied, “I do have other appointments to keep. The couch, if you will.”
A muscle beat in his jaw, but he braced one hand on the couch, another on the edge of the chair, and lifted himself.
The strength in the movement alone was worthy of some admiration.
So easily, the muscles in his arms and back and chest hoisted him upward and over. As if he’d been doing it his entire life.
“You’ve kept up your exercising since … how long has it been since the injury?”
“It happened on Midsummer.” His voice was flat—hollow as he lifted his legs up onto the couch with him, grunting at the weight. “And yes. I was not idle before it happened, and I don’t see the point of being so now.”
This man was stone—rock. The injury had cracked him a bit, but not sundered him. She wondered if he knew it.
“Good,” she simply said. “Exercising—both your upper body and your legs—will be a vital part of this.”
He peered at his legs as those faint spasms rocked them. “Exercising my legs?”
“I will explain in a moment,” she said, motioning him to turn over.
He obeyed with another reproachful glare, but set himself facedown.
Yrene took a few breaths to survey the length of him. He was large enough that he nearly took up the entire couch. Well over six feet. If he stood again, he’d tower over her.
She strode to his feet and tugged his pants down in short, perfunctory bursts. His undershorts hid enough, though she could certainly see the shape of his firm backside through the thin material. But
his thighs … She’d felt the muscle still in them yesterday, but studying them now …
They were starting to atrophy. They already lacked the healthy vitality of the rest of him, the rippling muscle beneath that tan skin seeming looser—thinner.
She laid a hand on the back of one thigh, feeling the muscle beneath the crisp hairs.
Her magic seeped from her skin into his, searching and sweeping through blood and bone.
Yes—the disuse was beginning to wear on him.
Yrene withdrew her hand and found him watching, hand angled on the throw pillow he’d dragged beneath his chin. “They’re breaking down, aren’t they?”
She kept her face set in a mask of stone. “Atrophied limbs may regain their full strength. But yes. We shall have to focus on ways to keep them as strong as we can, to exercise them throughout this process, so that when you stand”—she made sure he heard the slight emphasis on when—“you will have as much support as possible in your legs.”
“So it will not just be healing, but training as well.”
“You said you liked to be kept active. There are many exercises we can do with a spinal injury that will get blood and strength flowing to your legs, which will aid in the healing process. I will oversee you.”
She avoided the alternative words—help you.
Lord Chaol Westfall was not a man who desired help from people. From anyone.
She took a few steps up the length of his body, to peer at his spine. At that pale, strange mark just beneath his nape. At that first prominent knob of his spine.
Even now, the invisible power that swirled along her palms seemed to recoil into her.
“What manner of magic gave that to you?”
“Does it matter?”
Yrene hovered her hand over it, but did not let her magic brush it. She ground her teeth. “It would help me to know what havoc it might have wreaked upon your nerves and bones.”
He didn’t answer. Typical Adarlanian bullishness.