Page 46 of Galadon
“He might have my heart, but not my body,” Rayna replied, scowling.
“And I’ll be disappointed if you give that to him too easily.” She pulled the blanket back up to cover her, finished with her latest healing. “Make him beg and work for it—after you’ve both healed some more.”
Rayna sighed. “I’m still trying to process everything that happened. This week was horrible, and right now, everything seems intimidating and confusing. I don’t feel like myself at all.”
Ujala patted her shoulder as she rose to her feet. “Take all the time you need.” She moved over to Galadon’s small dining table and grabbed a tray with a steaming bowl and bread on the side. “We spooned some broth into you while you slept these last two days, but this is a hearty stew that will strengthen you a lot more.”
The female shifter set it down on the bed in front of Rayna, and the aroma wafted up to her nose. “It smells amazing.”
“Thank you. My cooking skills are almost as good as my healing abilities.”
“Then I’m sure I’ll love it,” she said, giving Ujala a smile.
“Make sure you eat all of that.” She started to walk away, then turned back. “It’s only fair I tell you that we had to give you the potion that keeps slayers from attacking dragons. Otherwise, you would have woken in a rage and made matters worse. Based on the first test subject, it lasts ten days.”
Rayna blanched. She hadn’t even thought about the fact that she felt zero urge to hunt dragons. It was so quiet in her head for the first time in years. Usually, there was this tiny voice in there that urged her to kill them, and it grew louder the longer she went without doing it. She didn’t know whether she was okay with that or not, but she couldn’t blame them for giving it toher under the circumstances. How else would she have healed properly?
“Okay. Thanks for telling me.”
Ujala nodded. “Of course.”
Rayna dug into her stew as soon as the healer left, ravenous after eating next to nothing for too long. She could feel a margin of her strength return with each bite. Galadon came in when she was halfway through the bowl, and he headed straight to his wardrobe. He pulled a black tunic from it and brought it over to her.
“Here,” he said, expression neutral now.
She took it and instinctively sniffed the camrium fabric, finding it smelled just like him. It was clean, but the washing process hadn’t entirely erased his scent. She resisted the urge to bury her face in it as he watched her with a slowly spreading grin.
She pulled the tunic over her head and frowned at him. “What?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t expect you to smell it. That’s something one would expect from a shifter, not a slayer.”
“Humans are known to do it too, under certain circumstances,” she said, adjusting the tunic as best she could since it practically swallowed her. The neck area before the buttons ran so low that some of her cleavage showed. Still, it was better than nothing.
Galadon lowered himself to the corner of the mattress, exhaustion lining his features. He was trying to hide how much his injuries still affected him, but it was there in his slowmovements, the lines of strain around his eyes, and how he never stood for long.
“Do you need more stew?” he asked.
Thankfully, she was full because she didn’t want to ask him to get up again.
“No.” Rayna pressed a hand to her tummy. “I think my stomach shrank from not eating for too long.”
He nodded with understanding in his gaze. “I’m still not consuming much, either.”
She set the tray on the floor, which wasn’t far since his mattress wasn’t elevated.
“I’m tired now,” she said, feeling awkward with him close and no hint of hostility like before. She didn’t know how to handle him.
He reached his hand out toward her slowly, and this time, she didn’t flinch as he cupped her cheek. His gaze was intense. “I’m sorry, Rayna.”
She froze. “Why?”
His thumb caressed her skin, and she couldn’t have pulled away for all the gold in the world while he looked at her like that. “I’m sorry for my cruelty, rejecting you, not trusting you, and most importantly, for being unable to save you. It never should have reached the point where you had to make an impossible choice.”
“I…” She was at a loss for words. “You mean that?”
“Yes. All of it.” Then he slowly pulled her down with him so they cuddled face to face on the bed. “The moment you held that knife over your heart, I realized what a fool I’d been. If Ihadn’t rejected you the last time you were here, you wouldn’t have been living out there, and none of the past week would have happened.”
She was still too traumatized by everything to refute him because, in her heart, she did blame him for it. So many things could have gone differently. Having said that, his admitting it took away some of her anger. Had Galadon ever apologized for anything before?
