Page 21 of Bound By Valor

“Uh, I can shack up in the command center,” Kabir suggested, already heading towards one of the rooms.

Zarek, silent until now, approached me from behind and took my hand, leading me toward two adjacent rooms. “This one is yours. I’m right next door if you need anything,” he offered, his tone softening just slightly.

“If I need anything, I’ll ask someone else,” I retorted, my voice cold, as I forcefully opened the door to my room and hurried inside.

I threw my bag onto the bed and collapsed beside it, a move I instantly regretted. Pain shot through my ribs like a bolt of lightning, forcing a sharp yelp from my lips. Damn, my ribs weren’t healed yet. I lay there for a few minutes, hoping the pain would ebb away, but it clung stubbornly.

Leaving my room, I knocked on a door I was certain wasn’t Zarek’s. Logan answered.

“Hey Leo!” He chirped.

“No one has ever called me Leo, Logan,” I retorted with a roll of my eyes.

“Well, get used to it. What’s up?”

“Do you have a painkiller?”

Before Logan could respond, Zarek’s voice interrupted from behind me, “Why do you need a painkiller?”

“My ribs,” I answered, directing my gaze solely at Logan, trying to avoid Zarek’s probing eyes.

“Follow me,” Zarek commanded, brushing past the awkwardness I was weaving around him. Logan gave a sympathetic shrug and closed his door.

???

In Zarek’s bedroom, he rifled through his shelf, returning with an ointment and a bottle of painkillers.

“You’ve been sparring while you were in pain?”

“Nope. Just landed on the bed wrong.” I said, my response curt.

“You’re upset with me.” He concluded from the sharpness in my tone.

“No, I’m not.”

“You can cuss me out, Leora. What I did—stalking you—was beyond wrong. I shouldn’t have…fuck. I just knew that if something happened, it’d be my fault.”

“I’m not upset about that. I understand why you did what you did.” I blurted out.

He frowned in confusion. “So, youareupset about something.”

“You want the truth, or the watered-down version of my anger?”

“Anger, huh? I want the truth. Always.”

He gently lifted my shirt to apply the ointment on the bruising ribs that had turned a mottled blue-green. I tensed, not just from the cool ointment but from the contrasting heat of his touch.

“No one has seen my breasts in two years and three months. And then the one person who did was unaffected by them,” I whispered, the words slipping out before I could catch them, my cheeks flushing with a mix of embarrassment and hurt. I closed my eyes, partly to hide my discomfort, partly because the cool touch of the ointment soothed the physical pain.

“Two years?” His tone was a mixture of curiosity and something else I couldn’t quite place.

I bit my lip, opening my eyes to meet his. “Yes. It’s been a long time.”

“I wasn’t… It’s not that—”

“Please stop. You wanted the truth, I gave it.” I cut him off, not ready to hear excuses or rationalizations.

He nodded and continued applying the ointment. His hand slightly slipped towards the edge of my breasts and I involuntarily gasped.

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