Page 36 of Dark Space
They were gritty, so I lifted my hand to rub them. ‘I feel …’ I broke off when I saw the being near my bed. ‘You’re new.’
A fair-haired angel, with wide green eyes. Wide green eyes –with no pupil.
Vesper’s scent of sweet woodsmoke filled my nose; I cleared my throat softly.
The being smiled. ‘I’m new. Greetings. I am Willow. He.’
‘Anna,’ I rasped, then swallowed. ‘Urgh. I don’t suppose you have any water?’
Willow passed me a full glass, then carefully helped me sit up to sip at it, avoiding my shoulder, which was sending throbs of pain down my arm with every movement. The water tasted even odder than usual, heavy and metallic, and I wondered whether something had been added to it.
‘I feel better,’ I said.
‘You are far from better. But you are improved,’ Willow said. ‘Could you manage some food? The starling – Vesper – said that you haven’t eaten for days.’
I wrinkled my nose when he offered me something that strongly resembled a protein bar. It tasted just as bad – thick and cloying and artificial – but I managed a few small bites before I went back to the water. I felt eyes on my back the entire time. I glanced behind me at the cell’s glass wall, which was transparent rather than black; beyond it stood my black-haired Roth, his massive arms crossed. ‘Hello, Tall, Dark, and Looming.’
Beside me, Willow’s full lips twitched. ‘Is he always that attentive?’
‘Always,’ I said absently. ‘I hated it at first, and now I’m afraid I have Stockholm Syndrome.’ I didn’t mention that whatever I was feeling, the same thing also applied to the Prince, and that I was feeling some variety for Vesper, too. I had no idea how long I’d been asleep, but I remembered being cradled in his arms, remembered him holding me close to his chest. I remembered how it felt to have my head nestled on his shoulder, and howwhen I’d breathed, my senses had been full of the woodsmoke warmth of him.
It had felt nice. More than nice.Safe. He’d held me not as if I was breakable, but as if I wasprecious.
Willow frowned at me in question.
‘It’s a human thing,’ I said with a sigh. ‘Never mind.’
The doctor nodded. ‘Humans have a lot ofthings.’
‘You know humans?’ I said, surprised.
‘I knowahuman,’ Willow answered. ‘Now I know two.’
‘Did your human have a nervous breakdown when you met them?’
Willow smiled, an expression full of warmth. I felt a flare of jealousy in my stomach. What Willow felt for his human was evident in that expression; I wanted to see an expression like that directed atme. Not from Willow, though, as handsome as he was.
‘My human walked on board our ship as if she owned it.’
‘How nice for her,’ I said crossly. ‘I wish I could have done that. Instead I was scared, and then I gotbitten, and then I got sick, and now …’ I bit my lip and turned to stare at Tall, Dark, and Looming.
Now what?I asked him silently.
He didn’t shift a muscle, though his eyes flickered over me, as if checking I was still all there. My chest pulled tight under that close black gaze and the evident concern in his expression. It would be so easy to get lost in those devouring eyes, so easy to feel revered, to feel cherished.
‘Were you injured anywhere else?’ Willow said carefully.
Were you injured anywhere else?
I wasn’t stupid. If the Roth doctor had managed to sedate me and give me to the King, I knew what might – whatwould– have happened. But the Prince had killed him before he had the chance.
I was still scared, and thinking about what had happened in the doctor’s lab made me feel sick. But I hadn’t been harmed – at least, not in the way Willow meant.
I cleared my throat. ‘Only my mind and spirit,’ I said lightly, ‘but unless you’re a counsellor as well as a medical doctor, I suspect I will need to work through that myself. Or with Vesper,’ I went on, giving him a small smile. ‘I don’t think we will be leaving any time soon.’
The Roth said something in his odd, growling way.
I sighed again, this time a little wistfully. ‘I wish I could understand him.’
