Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 76583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
A nice thought, but I like my life on Akara’s back…and I think Vali would prefer it to being with the flotilla. What she wants matters to me.
“Balo is very nice. I like him. It’s impossible not to.” She smiles. “He took me under his wing and was showing me around. He’s going to give me swimming lessons, too.”
Hearing that makes me bristle. I think of Vali, with her wet clothing clinging to her breasts, rubbing up against me when I’d tried to give her lessons. Balo is not interested in women, but it does not mean I am not jealous that he’s going to spend so much time with my wife. “It should be me teaching you.”
She eyes me warily. “It should, but I am pleasing myself.”
Her words wound me. They are my words, and I hate them as much as she does. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“You say that a lot, Ranan, yet you still keep hurting me. At some point I need to learn not to put my hand into the fire, right?” Her smile is bright but unnatural. “I can’t trust that the things that slip out are the truth or not. You say they are not, but it keeps happening. How can I believe you?”
“You judge me on my actions instead.” I hold a hand out to her.
She doesn’t take it. Her own hands remain on her thighs, curled into fists. “I need to think, Ranan.”
Her shoulders tense as she says it, as if she expects me to strike her, and I have to remind myself that she was a slave before she was my wife. She has to learn that she is safe even if she disagrees with me. “Take all the time you need, my Vali. I understand.”
She eases a bit at that, glancing around the tent. “Where is the healer? Do you need him?”
I grunt. “He’s probably preparing another foul potion to shove down my throat.”
Her lips twitch. “But are the foul potions working?”
“Aye, they are.” I sound woeful, even to my own ears. “Which means I’ll have to drink more of them.”
She chuckles and gestures at the dish forgotten in my hands. “Eat. You need your strength. You’ve been weak ever since you were injured.”
I take another large bite.
“A sea dragon, hm?” Vali asks. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Sea dragons sound fearsome but they are not dangerous unless you wander into their territory. I didn’t want you afraid because there was no chance you would stumble across it. You cannot swim deep enough.”
“But you can.”
“Aye.” I sigh. “My grotto will have to be moved. One does not fight a sea dragon for its territory.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It happens. I am glad I made it out alive and whole. Moving some trinkets is nothing. I might just leave them behind.”
She sputters. “No you’re not! There’s so much money there! You can’t abandon it.”
“If you want me to keep it, I will.”
“I do. Absolutely. You robbed a lot of selfish pricks to get all that loot.”
I bite back a chuckle. Why is it so easy for us to sit here and talk, even when things are bad between us? I want to grab her hand and beg her to understand, to swear that I never meant any of it, and yet I suspect she will not listen. She needs to think on it, as she says. And I need to show her my truth with my actions.
Not an easy thing to do when I’m bedridden.
I finish eating and she brings me a drink, and I hate that even now she waits on me. “Thank you, Vali. For everything. I have not said it enough, but you saved my life. And you keep saving it by taking care of me. I know it has not been easy.”
My words make her pause. She studies my face and a small smile creeps onto hers. “I am doing what any wife would do for her husband. Even if they’re mad at each other.” Then her expression falls as she remembers something. “But you didn’t want a wife, did you?”
“I might not have started out wanting one, but now I cannot imagine my life without one.”
Her smile seems a little more forced, a little sadder. “Do you need anything else? Balo has offered to set up a bed in an empty tent for me to sleep in. Are you sleeping in here?”
Again, I want to throttle Balo and his helpfulness. “Aye, the healer wants me where he can keep an eye on me. And one tent is the same as another…but I would like it if you stayed with me. I like waking up with you.”
“I can sleep here,” she agrees easily.
I expected her to argue. Her easy capitulation surprises me. “I am glad.”
Vali moves in close to me, settling on the blankets. I shift my body, mindful of my leg, and make room for her. She squeezes in next to me and then relaxes at my side, and it feels so familiar and so right that I automatically put my arm around her shoulders, tucking her against me.