I’m going to get Nemeth good and drunk so he’ll let me sew up his wing.

Chapter

Forty-Three

It takes three glasses of his mushroom wine and two chewed leaves before Nemeth loosens up. I watch him carefully, and after a while, the shine in his eyes seems to get fuzzy, and his lids get heavy. While I sit next to him, threading a needle, he reaches out for my braid and strokes a claw down it.

“So soft,” he murmurs. “Like petting a kitten.”

My brows go up. “How are you feeling, Nemeth?”

The smile he gives me is lazy and heart-stopping, his eyes closed. “Good. Except my wing. It hurts like dragon shite. But other than that, I feel good.”

Oh, is he borrowing my phrases now? Biting back a giggle, I hold three fingers up. “How many do you see?”

“I see three kitten claws,” he murmurs, taking my hand in his and kissing each fingertip as if to prove it.

All right. I think the leaves are definitely working. “I’m going to clean your wing and then sew it up, all right, love?”

He groans, the sound more reluctant than pained. “Must we?”

“We must,” I say firmly, amused. “This will be easiest if you lie on the floor next to me and I spread your wing over my lap. Can you manage that?” I get to my feet and grab one of the biggest pillows off the bed. By the time I turn around, Nemeth is on the floor already, his strange legs bent, and his head turned due to his sweeping horns. I tuck the pillow under his head and he tries to kiss my fingers again. “Not now,” I cajole. “You can kiss them after you’re stitched up.”

“Have you ever stitched up anyone before?” he asks as I make him comfortable on the floor, adjusting the pillow.

“I have not.” I’m bloody nervous about it, too. Terrified, really. What if I can’t do it? What if I’m too disgusted by the thought that I can’t pull the needle through his flesh? But if I don’t, there’s no one else that can.

“Then I am proud to be your first,” he says.

I snort. Now I know he is truly drunk. I settle in next to him, sitting on my knees, and I spread a towel in my lap. “Let’s just get you taken care of, all right? Spread your wing for me.”

He does, and I want to cry all over again at the sight of his poor mangled wing. How am I ever going to sew it so tightly that he’ll be able to fly again? I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood, determined not to panic. He needs me. He needs me.

I can do this.

“Is it very bad?” he asks in a hushed voice.

“Not so bad,” I lie, wiping more blood away and then applying a cleansing ointment sent by Riza for cuts and scrapes. “I’m trying to figure the best way to go about this. I think I can get the stitches tightest if I tack the sides together in a few spots, and then go back over to the smaller stitches to pull everything together like two pieces of fabric. All right?”

Nemeth doesn’t answer, and when I look over at him, he gives me a dreamy look. “You are so beautiful, Candra.”

I smile at that momentary distraction. “Thank you. I’m going to sew the first stitch now.”

He continues to watch me as I take the needle in hand and brace myself. Then, holding my breath, I make the first stitch. He doesn’t so much as twitch, and when I’m done, I expel a gusty sigh. All right. I can do this after all. “How are you holding up, love?”

“You called me love,” he muses. “Twice now. You must really like my knot.”

Chuckling, I make the next stitch. Flirty drunks, I can handle. “Thinking about that, are you?”

“Constantly,” he admits.

I continue stitching his wing, hoping that I’m doing this right. I tack it in several spots to hold it together, then go back to the “beginning” of the wound and wipe away blood. I make the first tiny stitch, wishing for the first time that I’d paid attention to Riza’s needlework lessons. Still, how hard can it be? You make a stitch on one side and pull the needle through. That’s all. I make a tiny cross-stitch instead, since that seems more secure, and glance over at Nemeth to see how he’s handling the pain.

He’s still watching me, his expression thoughtful.

“I’m doing the best I can,” I tell him, making another stitch. “Tell me if you need me to pause so you can handle the pain.”

The Fellian snorts. “Mere tickles.”

I wipe away more blood. “Uh huh.”

“Is it true?”

I pause, looking over at him. “Hmm?”

“You called me love. Twice now. Did you mean it?”

For a drunk, he has an amazingly sharp mind. I’m not used to being confronted on my flirting. “It’s an affectionate name. I feel affection for you. Of course I’m going to call you ‘love.’”

“You feel affection for me?”

“I said that, didn’t I?”

“And you enjoy sucking my cock. And you liked my knot. Those weren’t lies?”

I make another stitch, wincing in sympathy as I tug it through his wing. “Where are you going with this?”

“That perhaps you have feelings for me.”

I already know I do. That’s not the problem. The problem is that he’s forcing me to choose frolicking in bed with him and giving up my kingdom. “I adore you,” I confess. “Being with you makes me happy. You’re the only reason I haven’t given up a dozen times over. You’re the only reason I didn’t race out that door the moment they opened it.”

“That and the wrath of the Golden Moon Goddess, yes?”

I’m silent, because I’m not a good person. If it was up to just me? I’d probably have left. I like to think that I’d be noble and sacrificing, but I don’t think I’m strong enough for that. I’m a weak coward. “I’m just glad you’re here. You saved me down there.” I wipe the blood off his wing again and make another stitch. “Something tells me those men wouldn’t have stopped at simply taking our food. They likely would have murdered us, too.”

Well, after raping me.

The thought is a grim one, and it reminds me that those men were humans. Liosian humans. They’re supposed to be my people. Yet every time I’m contacted with my people, they’re treating me with derision. Or worse. I think about the fluffy letters that Riza and Nurse sent, letters that were sweet and thoughtful but shared no information about the outside world, because they did not trust me with it.

“You haven’t answered,” he says. “Perhaps these feelings mean we should be together after all?”

I nod absently as I stitch, focusing on the work in front of me as I think more about my people. How those men showed up early with the supplies this time. They didn’t wait for the solstice. They said they didn’t have to…and I’m reminded of how much I struggled last year, fighting to make my candles last, fighting to make every bit of wood count. They could have brought me more at any time—Riza points out in her letter that she knew I didn’t have any—and no one did.

It hurts.

Those choices, combined with the men that broke in, make me question my kingdom at all. I know King Lionel is a complete arse. If he fell off a cliff, I’d cheer. I’ve got no love for him or this war he’s started. But he’s married to my sister, and she’s everything to me. I can’t abandon her.

And yet…she wanted me to kill Nemeth. Probably still would the moment I left this tower.

The thought sickens me. She doesn’t know him. Not like I do. She doesn’t know that he takes care of me, fusses over me when I’m not feeling well. He administers my medicine to ensure that I don’t bruise myself. He’s shared his supplies and everything he has with me, simply because he’s a good person.

Erynne wouldn’t understand that, and it feels like a knife in my chest. Nemeth’s insistence upon an honorable mating between us means I would be choosing between him and my sister.

It’s a choice I cannot make.

“It’s all right,” Nemeth says in a soft voice.

I glance over at him, startled. “Hmm?”