Page 82 of Until the End of Ever
34
KLEOS
Over the last week, the word got around that a healer resided at The Royal Manor, and I ended up receiving four polite requests.
One mother of twins had struggled with lower back pain since giving birth—hardly surprising. I knew it’d go away on its own, but it was something I could fix in half a minute, so I wrote back immediately.
One of Sessona’s friends contacted me about her hip; she’d had a replacement a few years ago but was still not a hundred percent. Like Sessona, I advised exercise.
The other two came directly from healers up at the Frejr House, sending me chronic patients in order to try my method. The polite missive was a stark difference from the way healers treated me up in the vale. I couldn’t say no.
Those occasional distractions aside, most of the week was torture. I dodged Mother’s phone calls, compulsively checked with Silver in case she got news from Demetria—but I knew that could take days, if not weeks—and the rest of the time, I spent reading. Except no book was going to tell me who cursed me or who created me. Having to wait for Friday for the answer madeeach passing day endless. I baked. I read. I let Lucian distract me against every flat surface in his wing of the manor.
He had his own set of distractions as well. Every night, when I finally fell asleep, I knew he snuck out of his—our—room to return to his lab downstairs. I wasn’t sure he slept more than an hour or two. I woke up several times at night, haunted by dreadful dreams, and almost every time, I was alone in his huge bed.
The hypocrite had the gall to tell me, “You’re not sleeping enough,” spotting the bags under my eyes on Thursday night.
I narrowed mine. “You literally have not slept more than a couple of hours since Monday.”
“Yeah, well, unlike you, I’m used to it.” He smirked, as gorgeous as usual, no dark bruises marringhiseyes. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. You drink a sleeping potion tonight, and I will, too. We both need to be rested tomorrow.”
I could agree to that. Until he summoned the ready brew in two of his fancy mugs.
I grimaced. “It looks like mud.”
“Passionflower powder does that. It works though,” he assured me, taking a sip of his own cup.
I dipped my lip in the grayish substance. “Yuck! It kinda tastes like mud too.”
Lucian crooked a brow. “Do you want to sleep?”
“Not that much,” I grumbled, downing the rest anyway.
The week had been endless, and I’d felt barely awake most of it.
“How long do we have?” I asked, sliding underneath the covers.
“A half hour or so,” he replied, removing his clothes.
As usual, he immediately folded the items he could wear again, and put everything else away in his laundry basket. I was the kind of person who shoved everything on the armchair in acorner and sorted it out in the morning, but he didn’t seem to mind.
Lucian slept naked, or in boxer briefs. I had a tendency to get into bed while wearing PJs, and frankly, by this point, I wondered why I bothered. He peeled everything off me in any case.
“I wonder what we could do to pass the time for half an hour or so,” I drawled sleepily.
I could feel I was about to crash, but he’d just uncovered his washboard abs.
“I don’t know,” he teased. “Kore sent along a text with your next outfit. It’s a bit of a statement. Perhaps you’d like to review that.”
The name Kore, followed by “a statement,” was truly a daunting prospect, but right now, I didn’t give much of a fuck. “Approved. Oh, and there’s something else I wouldn’t mind reviewing.”
“What would that be, Valesco?” Lucian asked, hopping on top of me.
“The size of your cock,” I replied, without so much as cracking a smile. “I’ve heard it’s over the legal limit. I’m a concerned citizen, you see. I should absolutely check.”
“And what would you do if it’s too big, love?” he asked, all the while running the hard length right against my core, grinding into me.
My hips moved of their own accord to meet him. “I don’t know. It probably would involve handcuffs. Call it a citizen’s arrest.”
