Page 23 of Bound and Tide

Evangeline scoffed. The kind of people who had ships never gave them away. “I’m sorry, but what in the realm have you actually been up to? Where do you go when you’re not here bothering me?”

“I just said, Red, do pay attention.” Another yawn caught him, and when he leaned his head back, he lost balance despite the wall supporting his back.

She decided he was either telling the truth or was so badly injured that he couldn’t remember properly, but regardless, she couldn’t send him back out into the street like this. Thankfully, she had an entire apothecary to raid. “Look, I’ve got a shop to run, and you can’t be dripping in the middle of it, not blood or infernal water or anything else that might be leaking out of you.”

Xander pouted and whined, and he probably would have stomped his foot if he had the strength. “Don’t send me away, Red. I missed you.”

She halted gathering wound-healing and pain-relieving concoctions and looked at him sharply.

“Bothering you,” he corrected and kicked at one of the imps, though it had only been standing there silently. “Stop that!”

Evangeline hugged the salves she intended to give him to her chest as she watched him fail to look convincingly awake. There were heavy circles under his eyes and that gash was still dripping blood dangerously close to his eye. She clicked her tongue and pulled a clean linen from another pocket, crossing the shop to press it to his forehead. “I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”

Wrapping a hand about his wrist, she led him through the back of the shop, past the storage and her private sitting room, and dragged him up the stairs to her bedchamber before she could have third thoughts—she’d already had second thoughts about this being a bad idea but pushed past those.

His eyes sparked with new vitality when he spied her bed, and she told him to lie down. He stripped off his coat and tunic, but halted at his breeches when she shouted that he’d be going right out the window if he didn’t at least pretend to still be facing certain death.

Xander fell onto the bed as if he’d been shot through the heart with an arrow. Evangeline had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing when he warbled about being in excruciating pain. Shirtless, he let his arms fall away, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with his chest. In fact, it was very nice, delicately muscled if she were really paying attention, and it led to a narrow waist and a thin line of dark hair trailing down from his navel. “Mend me, oh, elven healer, with your masterful touch.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” She turned to the imps who had dutifully followed like lost pups. “Come here, the three of you. You, put this on any open wounds, and you, smear this on his bruises, and you, come with me.”

“What? Oh, no, I don’t approve of this!” But the two had already hopped themselves up onto the bed and were climbing all over Xander with the salves she’d handed off.

“Stay,” she snapped, and he fell still.

But his mouth still worked because of course it did. “I’m beginning to think you don’t like me much, Red.”

“That’s only occurring to you now?” She rolled her eyes and headed for the door with the third imp on her heels. “This one will bring you up some breakfast and tea, which I expect you to finish in its entirety and then remain here, quiet and behaving, so that I can work.”

He lifted his head slightly as an imp slathered selestrin on his forehead—not quite enough to keep one of his eyebrows from cocking. “Or what?”

She stopped abruptly on the threshold. “You won’t like it.”

But liking something was really only relative to the recipient’s taste, and both of them were keenly aware of that fact.

As the day went on, Evangeline found herself grinning while she worked. Not just when a customer came in or when she successfully mixed up a concoction, but when she straightened the shelves and updated her books and even when she cleaned up the mess in the entry.

She checked on Xander a few times, but he slept so hard that it was like his consciousness had entered some other plane, body left there on her bed only to breathe. She hadn’t thought she’d laced his tea with that much pain-reliever, but perhaps he was just extra susceptible. Luckily he was in the safety of her home and not blacked out in some alley where anyone could take advantage of him.

The gash on his forehead, however, was healing much faster than her ointment should have encouraged. She pressed a finger to the edge of the wound, making him wince in his sleep. She could feel the arcana there, so similar to when they had been at the forest’s edge with that dying hunter, a magical mending that was similar to her elven skills, but different too. Bolder, hungrier, darker.

Healing wasn’t dark though, and despite almost everything else about Xander, he didn’t seem that bad. That was a frustrating thought, though, and she gave his wound an extra press before heading back to tend to the shop.

When day turned to evening, Xander had still not woken, but a rush of customers was a good distraction from thoughts of him sprawled out amongst her linens and pillows, and she only lamented a little that she’d not let him disrobe completely. Madam Orr ate up quite a lot of time looking for a bunion remedy while a few others milled about and waited their turn to ask for her expertise. A handsome traveler passing through Bendcrest was in need of a moisturizing salve and asked after a place to spend the night with a suggestive curl to his lip. She pointed him in the direction of The Sleepy Salmon.

By the time she’d gotten through the rest of her customers and just after she accepted a delivery of new vials sent in from Eirengaard, she was ready to close up shop, but then he stepped out from behind a set of shelves. Apparently, Horace had come in during the rush, and now she was stuck with him. Alone.

“Busy,” he said with a snide grin.

“Seemed perfectly normal to me.” She took a linen from her pocket and wiped down the already clean counter.

“I’ve good news,” he said and strode up to lean in and get in the way.

She pulled back. “Good for you?”

“For both of us,” he corrected. “It seems my ship has come in.”

Evangeline bit the inside of her mouth to keep from sneering. She didn’t care about Horace’s metaphorical ship and the tidings it brought. His father’s merchant cartel was falling apart, as far as she was aware, and she wasn’t interested in whatever new scheme the Terrins were getting into, especially when everything else they’d done already stank of corruption and exploitation. “Congratulations,” she breathed and put on her best go-fuck-yourself smile.

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