Page 68 of Even Robots Die
“I’m far from little,” she bites back before adding super low. “Especially if you keep feeding me like this.”
She doesn’t contest the bossy part, though.
I do as she asks, and she eats the cake so fast it makes me feel like she thought I was going to steal some for myself.
When she’s done, I realize that she’s still shivering, even when her arm is back under the blankets.
She lets me pat her forehead and sure enough, she’s still awfully hot.
“Scoot,” I tell her as I stand and remove my pants.
“What are you doing?” she asks in a panic.
“You’re shivering even if your head is burning. We’ll share body heat.”
“Can’t you raise the temperature of the room? Put the thermostat on a higher temperature?” she asks, and she sounds outraged.
“This isn’t a normal house, Miss Furious, and you can be pissy all you want, but it’s already a blessing thiscastlehas all the amenities necessary, knowing no one ever lived here and what it was used for until now,” I tell her.
And it’s true. Knowing this castle was used as a prison and some kind of experimental lab all at the same time by the bird-shifters, it’s a miracle that there were rooms that could be lived in when we arrived.
We’re also lucky it’s just the beginning of fall because the castle is bound to get very cold when the temperature drops.
Hopefully by then, we will be back in Paris and I won’t want to kill my best friend every time I see him.
“Because you think I’m going to be able to sleep with you next to me?” she grumbles.
I almost want to laugh.
If she knew what I wanted to do to her body, she would know that it’s probably going to be harder for me to slip under her blankets. Pun intended.
But I don’t see any other way. The medicine should kick in any time now, but I won’t let her be cold for another minute.
“Scoot,” I repeat.
“And you say I’m the bossy one?” she asks as she moves a bit to the side and gives me room to slip behind her.
She’s still wrapped in the blankets, though.
“How about you release the blankets a bit? You’re wrapped like a burrito,” I tell her with a chuckle.
“I’m the bossy one, my ass,” she mumbles as she rolls on her other side, releasing the blanket from under her.
I slip under the blanket and tuck her to me so her back is flushed to my front and my arm is against her belly.
“No funny business,” she tells me before I hear her breathing slow and feel her shivering slowly reduce to nothing.
And just like that, Florentine is fast asleep in my arms.
40
Florentine
Isleep like the dead.
I have a fuzzy memory of Brice tucking me to him in my bed, but I’m not sure if I dreamed that or if it was reality.
If it was reality—and I’m doubtful it was—in any case, I’m the only one in the bed now.
