Chapter 69: Volume 1- [ - 70 ]
Voices. In the darkness.
“Is the Lord all right?”
“He seems — is he just exhausted?”
“He is breathing. His pulse is steady. Let me check—”
“Heal him. Both of you. Now.”
The world was moving. Not metaphorically — literally. The floor beneath me was shifting, the rhythm uneven, the motion of something carried rather than something walked. My body was vertical, my arms draped over something warm, something strong, something that smelled of sweat and steel and — faintly — of lavender.
I opened my eyes.
Seraphine was giving me a piggyback.
She walked with the steady, powerful stride of a woman whose body had been healed by two healers and whose guilt had been reinforced by the sight of a man lying unconscious on a dead monster’s chest. Her blonde hair — loose, tangled — fell across my arm. Her shoulders — bare, the under-tunic the only covering, her armor gone — were broad, muscular, the shoulders of a warrior who carried weight for a living.
My arm was draped over her neck. My hand — the non-gauntleted one, the gauntlets having vanished when the duration expired — hung against her chest.
I moved it. Down. Over the slope of her breast. My fingers found the curve — the full, heavy curve that the under-tunic did nothing to conceal — and settled there. The flesh was warm. Soft. The nipple — even through the fabric — stiff against my palm.
‘It is due to you, bitch, that I am exhausted,’ I thought, and the bitterness was real, but the hand was gentle. I kneaded. Slowly, carefully, the way one strokes a cat — proprietary, appreciative, the touch of a man who was cataloguing the softness and filing it for future reference.
‘Her tits are softer than the sisters’. Fuller. Heavier. The kind that would overflow both hands. Three hundred points each. I am holding three hundred points in my palm right now, and she does not even know it.’
Seraphine’s body stiffened. A small, involuntary intake of breath. Her internal voice:
‘His hand — on my — is he — he must be asleep — he is unconscious — he does not know — his hand—’
She trembled. But did not stop walking. Did not adjust my arm. Did not remove my hand.
‘It does not matter. He is asleep. He does not know what he is doing. It is — it is an involuntary movement. The hand of an unconscious man. It means nothing.’
She kept walking. My hand kept kneading.
The others walked behind us — Elwen and Mirra, their faces drawn, their energy spent from the healing. The sisters followed, Sera supporting Lira, both of them carrying the bags of loot that the healers had collected from the dungeon’s chambers. Lira’s wooden crutch — the one I had fashioned — supported her weight, and the bag of loot was slung over her other shoulder.
‘She is carrying loot,’ I thought, watching the sisters from my perch on Seraphine’s back. ‘On one leg. With a crutch. They are useful, in their way. At least they can carry things.’
The procession left the dungeon. The morning light — grey, pale, the light of an overcast day — hit us as we emerged, and I closed my eyes again, letting the warmth settle on my face. Seraphine adjusted her grip, her arms hooking under my knees, her stride steady.
The town appeared after an hour of walking. Oren’s Hollow — the small, countryside town Mirra had described. A cluster of stone and timber buildings around a central square, the Adventurer’s Guild flying a faded banner, the market stalls mostly empty, the few townspeople watching the strange procession with the guarded curiosity of rural folk.
A blonde woman in a torn under-tunic carrying an unconscious man on her back. Two elves — one green-haired, one mousy-brown — flanking them. Two commoner women — one missing a leg — carrying bags of loot.
The townspeople stared. At Seraphine. They recognized her — the silver armor was gone, but the blonde hair, the yellow eyes, the bearing were unmistakable.
“Is that the Iron Aegis?” a merchant whispered.
“What happened to her armor?”
“Who is the man?”
They noticed my hand. On her breast. The fingers curled around the full curve, the kneading motion still — I had stopped when we entered the town, but the hand remained, resting there, proprietary.
Seraphine’s face went red. Her internal voice was a mortified whisper:
‘His hand — everyone is looking — they can see — they know who I am — the Iron Aegis — carrying a man who is — his hand is on my—’
But she did not remove it. Did not drop me. Did not stop walking. Because removing my hand would wake me, and if I woke, I would know I had been groping her, and the embarrassment of that — of being caught knowing — was worse than the embarrassment of being seen.
‘He is asleep. He does not know. It is involuntary. It means nothing.’
The inn was called the Stone Hearth. Three rooms were booked — one for the sisters and Mirra, one for me, one for Seraphine and Elwen. The innkeeper — a round woman with sharp eyes — took the coins without comment, her gaze lingering on my hand for a moment before she turned away.
Seraphine carried me to the second room. Kicked the door open. The room was small — a bed, a table, a washbasin, the window looking out over the square. She walked to the bed and bent, trying to lower me onto the mattress.
I twisted. My arms — which had been limp, which had been the arms of an unconscious man — wrapped around her neck. I pulled. She stumbled. Her balance — the balance of a woman carrying a man’s weight — shifted, and she fell.
We hit the bed together. My body on top of hers. My arms around her neck. My face in her hair.
“Please do not leave me,” I whispered, and my voice was raw, broken, the voice of a man who had been beaten and was clinging to the only thing keeping him upright.
Seraphine froze. Her internal voice was a cascade of confusion and guilt and the physical awareness of my body — my chest against hers, my hips against her hips, my weight pressing her into the mattress.
‘He is — he is awake? No — his eyes are closed — he is dreaming — he does not know what he is saying — please do not leave me — he said please do not leave me — why would he — is he afraid? Is he—’
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered, and her voice cracked. “I hurt you. It is my fault. I — the boss — I rushed in — I was not thinking — I—”
Her tears fell. I felt them — hot, wet, landing on my arm, on the pillow, on the bed. She was crying. The Iron Aegis, the Unbroken Shield, the woman who had taken a Taurus Demon’s punch and survived — was crying because she thought she had gotten a man killed.
The door was open. The others stood in the hallway, watching. Elwen. Mirra. The sisters. All of them seeing the same thing — a lord, clinging to a warrior woman, whispering ‘please do not leave me’ while she wept.
They looked at each other. The scene was — intimate. Vulnerable. The kind of scene that demanded privacy, that demanded retreat.
They left. The door closed.
I held her. Let her cry. Let the tears soak into my shirt. Let her body — strong, muscular, the body of a warrior — tremble beneath mine with the shaking that came not from fear but from guilt.
“It is my fault,” she whispered. “All of it. If I had not — if I had not rushed — if I had worn my armor—”