Chapter 256: His Wife Had Better Be Bossing Someone Around

THORNE’S POV

Thorne had made it as far as sitting up before the nurse told him to stop trying to become extra work.

He stayed where he was, breathing carefully, and waited for the sharp pull in his side to settle.

"I wasn’t leaving."

The nurse looked at the trousers Thorne had dragged onto the bed.

"Then those can wait."

Across the room, Ash made a sound that might have been amusement if Thorne had liked him more.

"You can shut up too," Thorne told him.

The nurse approved of that enough to leave them alone for a few minutes.

The room had once held dental chairs. Now three beds stood behind screens, with a window looking onto the fenced yard where Ash had landed. Thorne could hear somebody filling cups outside and a man arguing quietly about the next delivery.

The clinic was still working. That mattered. He wanted it to keep working until he could walk out without collapsing in front of the nurse who had just saved his life.

He also wanted Dove.

Not the idea of being protected. Not somebody to tell him he looked strong. He wanted her stealing the better bite off his plate and pretending it was necessary for quality control. He wanted to hear her tell him to stop watching the door and come sit down.

He looked at Ash.

"Any word?"

The dragon took a folded message from the chair beside him. He had been holding it tightly enough to crease the corner.

"They reached the relief stop. She got the message."

Thorne held out his hand.

Ash gave it to him.

Delivered alive. Message received by female and bear. Traveling by outer road. The words were painfully little for something that let him breathe more easily.

He read them again anyway.

"She’ll want to know what I’m eating," he said.

Ash frowned. "What?"

"Tell her I’m eating. If she thinks I’m refusing food, she’ll spend the whole road inventing ways to make me swallow it."

"You should be more worried about the men searching for her."

Thorne looked up. "I can worry about more than one thing."

Ash’s jaw tightened. Thorne recognized the impulse to make a fight out of having nowhere useful to put fear. Under other circumstances, he might have helped him with it.

Today he needed the dragon doing something better than proving he could win.

"Edrik knows what he’s doing," Thorne said.

"So do the people looking for her."

That was a fair answer. Thorne disliked it more for being fair.

The nurse returned with a proper meal, a full bowl of stew, bread and a second bowl because the nurse had already learned Thorne’s size. He set it within reach and waited until Thorne took the spoon before leaving.

Thorne ate. The first few bites hurt to manage more than he expected. He kept eating because somewhere Dove was afraid for him, and he could at least refuse to add a stupid choice to the things she had to carry.

Ash watched the yard instead of him.

"She asked you to stay," Thorne said.

"I heard her."

"I know. You’re still here."

The dragon turned. For a moment neither spoke. Thorne was not offering friendship, and Ash seemed to understand that. A fact could stand between them without either man trying to make it prettier.

"Thank you for bringing me," Thorne said.

Ash looked away first.

The bottle beside him was nearly empty. Thorne reached for it, stopped when the movement pulled at his wound, and asked Ash to pass it. He hated how much that cost him. Ash handed it over without a comment, then moved the spare within reach too. Thorne drank and let the silence stay comfortable for once. When Dove got here, he wanted her to find him recovering, not injured twice because he had needed to prove a point to another man.

After lunch, the operator came with a pencil and a blank message sheet. Thorne dictated slowly enough for the man to write it exactly.

He was alive. He was eating. The staff were helping. She should not hurry into a trap because she thought he needed her to arrive sooner. He wanted her there with both her shoes, Edrik in one piece and all the opinions she had left with.

The operator smiled at the last part.

Thorne did not. He meant it.

When the man went to send it, Ash moved to the foot of the bed.

"She’s going to need more protection than one man on that road."

"I know."

"Then why act as if I’m wrong for saying it?"

Thorne put down the spoon.

"Because you keep saying it as if it means you get to decide what happens to her."

Ash’s hand closed around the bed rail. The metal gave a small, ugly sound.

Thorne looked at it, then at him. "That’s the clinic’s."

Ash released it.

For a moment Thorne nearly laughed. It hurt too much, so he settled for enjoying the expression on the dragon’s face.

"When she gets here," he said, "don’t turn what you’ve done into a reason she has to come closer. Let her want something. You might learn what it feels like when she chooses you for it."

Ash stared at him. Thorne could see how badly that landed, and he had not intended to be kind enough to soften it.

Then the dragon asked, rougher than before, "What if she never does?"

Thorne thought of Dove outside the Warren gate, of all the days she had needed somebody to believe her before she could offer anything back.

"Then you still brought me here," he said. "That stays true."

The operator returned before Ash could answer. He had a fresh report from the road and an expression Thorne did not like.

The faction’s notice was spreading. That was bad enough. But the relief workers had received another set of questions from men who were not using the faction’s names or orders.

They called themselves a recovery crew.

They wanted to know whether the fox woman still had more than one male traveling with her.