They were smaller, secondary concerns.

His other hand …

Yrene’s eyes were still bright with those tears he’d caused.

One still clung to her cheek.

Chaol wiped it away. Another one he found down by her jaw.

He didn’t understand—how she could be so delicate, so small, when she had overturned his life entirely. Worked miracles with those hands and that soul, this woman who had crossed mountains and seas.

She was trembling. Not with fear, not as she looked up at him.

And it was only when Yrene settled her hand on his chest, not to push him away but to feel the raging, thunderous heartbeat beneath, that Chaol lowered his head and kissed her.

He was standing. He was walking.

And he was kissing her.

Yrene could barely breathe, barely keep inside her skin, as Chaol’s mouth settled over hers.

It was like waking up or being born or falling out of the sky. It was an answer and a song, and she could not think or feel fast enough.

Her hands curled into his shirt, fingers wrapping around fistfuls of fabric, tugging him closer.

His lips caressed hers in patient, unhurried movements, as if tracing the feel of her. And when his teeth grazed her lower lip … She opened her mouth to him.

He swept in, pressing her farther into the wall. She barely felt the molding digging into her spine, the sleekness of the wallpaper against her back as his tongue slid into her mouth.

Yrene moaned, not caring who heard, who might be listening. They could all go to hell for all she cared. She was burning, glowing—

Chaol laid a hand against her jaw, angling her face to better claim her mouth. She arched, silently begging him to take—

She knew he hadn’t meant what he said, knew it had been himself he’d been raging at. She’d goaded him into that fight, and even if it had hurt … She’d known the moment he stood, when her heart had stopped dead, that he hadn’t meant it.

That he would have crawled.

This man, this noble and selfless and remarkable man …

Yrene dragged her hands around his shoulders, fingers slipping into his silken brown hair. More, more, more—

But his kiss was thorough. As if he wanted to learn every taste, every angle of her.

She brushed her tongue against his, and his growl had her toes curling in her slippers—

She felt the tremor go through him before she registered what it was.

The strain.

Still he kissed her, seemed intent to do so, even if it brought him crashing to the floor.

Small steps. Small measures.

Yrene broke away, putting a hand on his chest when he made to claim her mouth again. “You should sit.”

His eyes were wholly black. “I—let me—please, Yrene.”

Each word was a broken rasp. As if he’d freed some tether on himself.

She fought to keep her breathing steady. To gather her wits. Too long on his feet and he might strain his back. And before she could encourage the walking and—more, she needed to go into his wound to look around. Perhaps it had receded enough on its own.

Chaol brushed his mouth against hers, the silken heat of his lips enough to make her willing to ignore common sense.

But she shoved back against it. Gently slid out of his reach. “Now I’ll have ways to reward you,” she said, trying for humor.

He didn’t smile back. Didn’t do anything but watch her with near-predatory intent as she backed away a step and offered her arm to him. To walk back to the chair.

To walk.

He was walking—

He did so. Pushed off the wall, and swayed—

Yrene caught him, steadied him.

“I thought you never stepped in to help me,” he said drily, raising a brow.

“In the chair, yes. You have much farther to fall now.”

Chaol huffed a laugh, then leaned in to whisper in her ear, “Will it be the bed or the couch now, Yrene?”

She swallowed, daring a sidelong look up at him. His eyes were still dark, his face flushed and lips swollen. From her.

Yrene’s blood heated, her core near-molten. How the hell would she have him nearly naked before her now?

“You are still my patient,” she managed to say primly, and guided him into his chair. Nearly shoved him onto it—and nearly leaped atop him, too. “And while there is no official vow about such things, I plan to keep things professional.”

Chaol’s answering smile was anything but. So was the way he growled, “Come here.”

Yrene’s heartbeat pounded through every inch of her as she closed the foot of space between them. As she held his burning gaze and settled into his lap.

His hand slid beneath her hair to cup the back of her neck, drawing her face to his as he brushed a kiss over the corner of her mouth. Then the other. She gripped his shoulder, fingers digging into the hard muscle beneath, her breathing turning jagged as he nipped at her bottom lip, as his other hand began to explore up her torso—

A door opened in the hallway, and Yrene was instantly up, striding across the sitting room for the desk—to the vials of oil there. Just as Kadja slipped through the door, a tray in her hands.

The servant girl had found the “ingredients” Yrene needed. Twine, goat’s milk, and vinegar.

Yrene could barely remember words to thank the servant as the girl set the tray on the desk.

Whether Kadja saw their faces, their hair and clothes, and could read the white-hot line of tension between them, she said nothing. Yrene had no doubt she might suspect, would no doubt report it to whoever held her leash, but … Yrene found herself not caring as she leaned against the desk, Kadja departing as silently as she had come.

Found Chaol still watching her, chest heaving.

“What do we do now?” Yrene asked quietly.

For she didn’t know—how to go back—

Chaol didn’t reply. He just stretched out one leg wholly in front of him. Then the other. Did it again, marveling.

“We don’t look back,” he said, meeting her stare. “It helps no one and nothing to look back.” The way he said it … It seemed as if it meant something more. To him, at least.

But Chaol’s smile grew, his eyes lighting as he added, “We can only go on.”

Yrene went to him, unable to stop herself, as if that smile were a beacon in the dark.

And when Chaol wheeled himself to the couch and peeled off his shirt, when he lay down and she set her hands on his warm, strong back … Yrene smiled as well.

40

Standing and walking a few steps wasn’t the same as being back to full capacity.

The next week proved it. Yrene still battled with whatever lurked in Chaol’s spine, still clinging—down to the very base, she explained—and still keeping him from full motion. Running, most jumping, kicking: out of the question. But thanks to the sturdy wooden cane she procured for him, he could stand, and he could walk.

And it was a gods-damned miracle.

He brought the cane and the chair to his morning training with Hashim and the guards, for the moments when he pushed himself too hard and couldn’t manage the return trip to his rooms. Yrene joined him during the early lessons, instructing Hashim on where to focus in his legs. To rebuild more muscle. To stabilize him further. She’d done the same for Shen, Hashim had confided one morning—had come to supervise most of his initial training sessions after his injury.

So Yrene had been there, watching from the sidelines, that first day Chaol had taken up a sword against Hashim and dueled. Or did it as best he could with the cane in one hand.

His balance was shit, his legs unreliable, but he managed to get in a few good hits against the man. And a cane … not a bad weapon, if the fight called for it.

Yrene’s eyes had been wide as saucers when they stopped and Chaol approached her spot on the wall, leaning heavily on the cane as his body trembled.

The color on her face, he realized with no small amount of male satisfaction, was from far more than the heat. And when they’d eventually left, walking slowly into the cool shadows of the halls, Yrene had tugged him into a curtained-off alcove and kissed him.

Leaning against a supply shelf for support, his hands had roved all over her, the generous curves and small waist, tangling into her long, heavy hair. She’d kissed and kissed him, breathless and panting, and then licked—actually licked the sweat from his neck.