Page 108 of A Baron of Bonds
Her face eased instantly, her head falling back to the edge of the wooden tub.
“Thank you. I’ll have to remember that one.”
“You rest here. I’ll check on Pompeii and speak to Lia. I’ll bring you some breakfast. Do you need anything before I leave?”
“Please be careful around anyone. What if you carry the illness and it just hasn’t shown up yet? It seems like it would have by now, but what if?—”
“I don’t think we can carry it. I keep thinking about what the Blightress told you. At least some of your power comes from her and unless she’s lying, a Baron’s power does as well. She made the Blight, so what if we’re too connected to it to be affected by this?” I shook my head, sighing. There were too many questions with too few answers we’d be able to find without speaking to the Blightress herself. “I’ll be careful, but I just have this gut feeling we’re immune.”
She bit her lower lip in thought. “I suppose neither of us feel ill. And we burned everything we wore in that room…” She nodded. “Please just be quick.”
“I will.” I rose and kissed the top of her head as she leaned back, closing her eyes. I picked up her nightgown, and headed to the bed to change the sheets.
“Wait, Rev, can you bring me something before you go?”
I turned back to her, stunned by her beauty. She gripped the sides of the wood, the water rippling around her shoulders, her hair floating out around her. Her cheeks were flushed red with the heat, a contrast to the bright green of her eyes in the flicker of the sconces on the wall.
I shook my head slightly. There were moments like these I still couldn’t believe she was mine, that she was back, and that I could hold her at any time.
I didn’t want to possess her.
That was a lie.
I wanted to own her as much as she owned me, and there lay the line I had crossed once before. I crossed it when I lied to her about Heimlen and what evidence of his betrayal to us both had been hidden under his gloves.
I promised myself I wouldn’t cross that line again. Not to save her, not to keep her. But in moments like these, when she took my breath away, I wondered if I was lying to myself because I would doanythingto protect her. I would cross any line I’d ever established just to save her.
I cleared my throat. “Whatever you need, it’s yours.”
Her lips rose to the side, her eyes sparkling. “How about a good book?”
Pompeii’s bruisedchest was a deep purple, verging on black. His lungs strained with each breath he took. This illness had developed quicker than I imagined it could.
I tried everything I knew. I tried every medicus magic enhancement spell I’d learned in the eleven years I’d trained my magic.
Nothing worked.
His breath strained with a rattle at his throat in each inhale. He coughed again, and I caught the phlegm from his lips with a rag already stained in pools of black.
“Revich,” he rasped, the effort to speak twisting his face. “You cannot risk?—”
His cough began again, and I pulled him up to lessen the gasping of his chest.
“That’s enough. I’m not leaving you here like this.” I ended any more question if I should be with him. “Karus and I are going to look in Heimlen’s study today. There must be something there about how he cured the Black Fever. I’d guess this illness is similar.”
He let his head fall against the headboard and squinted my way. “You haven’t been…in years.”
I clenched my jaw hearing him struggle.
This was my fault.
I should have been more careful. I should have told him before I left to avoid the laboratorium while I was away.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll find something. I’m sending a letter to Clairannia today. She might know a spell that can help you.”
He took another full, rasping breath. “Don’t want to…spread…”
More coughing, wheezing, struggling to breathe.
