Page 74 of Kiss of Ice

“I’ll do it,” she said. “Leave them and go.”

“Go?” The healer was bewildered. “But my Lady, I must monitor his temperature. We must bring it down before there’s any permanent damage to his organs.”

“That’s what I intend to do. But I need privacy.”

“This is most irregular! I must insist on staying, my Lady. He is the Emperor. We cannot take any chances with his health.”

“Healer, lis… listen to me.” Kam was sweating uncontrollably. “D… do what she says. I tru… trust her. Leave us.”

Ren bundled the healer out of the room and locked the bedchamber door. Outside she could hear him complaining loudly to her maids.

“Jaina!” she called out. There was a sound on the other side of the door.

“Yes, my Lady?”

“I’m not to be disturbed. Do you understand? Not by anybody.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

Ren turned back to the bed. Kam smiled faintly.

“The lengths you’ll g… go to, to be alone with m… me.”

Ren didn’t return the smile.

“Kam, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

“I’m the one who l… let that bull… bullhead catch me with his fil… filthy knife,” he rasped out.

Ren unpeeled the towel from his seeping wound. Crimson lines snaked from it, all curved at one end to resemble a series of question marks. The symptom that gave sickle fever its name.

Carefully she smeared it with panacea, wincing as Kam gasped in pain.

“It’ll take time for the inflammation to ease. In the meantime let’s take care of your temperature. Here, swallow this.”

She helped him to raise his head and swallow a calora pill. He was pale and clammy, his skin slick with sweat. She knew the calora would work eventually, but there was a quicker way.

“I need you to remove your clothes, Kam,” she told him. “I need to break your fever.”

“And you n… need me n… naked for that?”

“I need us both naked. It’s the only way I can cool you down.”

“I sh… should have fe… fevers more often.”

With a thought he dissolved his clothing. She tried not to stare at his perfect physique. At his pecs and his abs and his… she couldn’t help herself. She’d never seen a naked male before and even now, ill and as far from aroused as he could possibly be, he was impressive.

His head fell to one side and she realised he was losing consciousness. She undressed down to her slip, hesitated for the barest moment, then removed that as well. This would work better if she was entirely nude.

And anyway, Kam had already seen her. She had no secrets from him.

She slid onto the bed next to him.

“Just hold on, Kam. You’ll feel better soon.”

Carefully, she folded her arms and legs around him and pushed her face into the crook of his hot neck. Then she cooled her whole body down to zero and waited.

Thirty

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