Queen of Death

Dean

“Honey, I’m home,” I wheeze before a coughing fit slams through my already bruised lungs. The side of my head burns where her knife scalped me. That’s going to scar.

Solana is by my side in an instant, her hands roaming my body and assessing my injuries, particularly the one she just gave me.

“I don’t think anything is broken but I’ll need to get a better look later.” In a surprising move, she throws herself on top of me, arms squeezing me in a hug.

Her warmth distracts me from the ache in my wings that refuse to fold in. It helps me relax enough for the first time in over 48 hours that I finally feel just how tired my body is. Every muscle and every joint is protesting against me, refusing to move anymore now that they’ve gotten a taste of respite.

But even that is short lived because in the next moment she throws a weak punch at my chest. “Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been worried sick!”

She throws herself on top of me again in another overly comforting hug. If I could move any part of my body at all I’d lift my hand and rub her back. It kills me that I can’t comfort her the way she’s comforting me, especially after she’s admitted that she’s been worrying about me all this time.

“You’ve been worrying about me, Sunshine?” I manage to hold enough air in my lungs to tease her a little.

She jumps off of me like she’s been electrified and sniffles twice trying her best to not let me see. “We,” she sits back on her heels, "we’ve been worried.”

“You’ve been worried? How do you think I’ve felt?” I mean to tease her but by the way her face falls with obvious guilt I realize my tone may be harsher than I intended. So I smile to the best of my ability and breathe out a small laugh, “I mean, none of the guys can cook for shit. I was worried you’d all starve without me.”

She hits me again in the chest before once again laying on me. I can’t see her face but I can feel the way her body trembles against mine with relieved laughter.

She sits up abruptly and breathes in a shaky breath, “come on let’s get you up and into a hot bath.”

Slowly I manage to sit up, but it’s like moving through wet concrete. Every muscle, joint, and bone in my body wants to stay spread out on this floor. Solana must see my struggle because she walks behind me, tucks her arms under mine, and like a human forklift she hoists me up to my feet.

She wraps one of my arms around her shoulders and snakes her other arm around my waist.

“Solana, I’m fine. I can manage getting up the stairs.”

Her eyes pin me with laser point focus, her mouth pressed into a thin, angry slash of red, an expression that undoubtedly means she’s not to be argued with right now.

I sigh deeply, looking down at the floor because I won’t survive seeing pity in her eyes, “are you trying to completely emasculate me?”

Her response is gentle and filled with as much warmth as her body radiates, “I’m trying to take care of you.”

I simply nod and allow her to walk with me up the stairs to my room, but she stops short and starts leading me into the master suite where Ace normally stays.

“My room is a little further down,” I inform her but she is set on her path.

“I didn’t know you had assigned rooms,” she says softly. “We’ve all just been staying in here.”

“All of you? Even Eli?” I can’t keep the surprise out of my voice.

“Even Eli. He doesn’t come to bed until after I’m asleep and he’s gone before I wake up, but his scent is always in the room when I do so I know he slept there.” She says it as a simple fact, not trying to make anything out of it or implicate meaning.

Once we’re in the master bathroom she sets about filling the giant tub with water giving me time to get a look at myself in the mirror for the first time in days. I look even worse than I feel. I’m caked in mud and dirt, scratches litter my skin like confetti, the bags under my eyes have bags of their own, and blood trails down the side of my head where she cut me.

Hands tearing at my clothes break me from my grim self-assessment. “Sol, honestly, I can take it from here.” I say half-heartedly. I don’t want her to feel like she has to take care of me, it should be the other way around.

“Can you fold in your wings?” She rubs the muscles and any further argument dies an immediate death in my throat. The only sounds I’m capable of are groans from how fucking good it feels when she kneads my aching muscles.

“Oh Gods,” I groan. “Please do that again.”

“What, this?” She drags her thumb firmly over a cord of muscles in my wing making my eyes roll all the way back. She continues her ministrations while the tub fills. The muscles relax more with each pass of her expert fingers.

Now is absolutely not the time to be wondering what her fingers would feel like on other muscles, what they might feel like wrapped around my length.

“Ah!” I curse loudly when she presses against a large knot.

“Got it,” she says triumphantly. “You were hit with a paralytic. The head of the dart was still embedded in your wing like a splinter, it’s why you weren’t able to move them.” She rubs the spot where the dart had been. “The poison affects its target locally so it should fade out in a minute or so now that the dart is out. Tell me what happened while I get you out of the rest of your clothes.”

I raise a curious brow at her and she shoots back a don’t-even-think-about-it look of her own.

“I was with Hunter heading for the windows. He was going to blow one of them with a sticky bomb but you blew through it like a torpedo. We followed you and Tate, I covered Hunter and once he was clear I turned and jumped through the window too.” I explain to her as she drops my tattered shirt into the trash and begins unbuckling my jeans.

“I spread my wings to lift off but I was hit in the back. There was no way I could fly so I ran like hell for the tree line. The guards didn’t chase me far into the forest but by then I had lost all sight of you guys and I was all turned around.” She throws my jeans into the trash along with my shirt and hooks her thumbs into the waistband of my briefs.

I grab her wrists and hold them in place at my hips. “Solana, please,” I implore her to let me handle things from here. Having her this close to me, making my body feel this good, and denying myself from reaching out and doing anything about it is driving me even crazier.

Denial is a positive feedback loop. The more I deny myself the more worked up I get.

“Dean,” her voice cracks with emotion. “Please, let me.”

I nod my consent and she slowly peels my briefs down my bruised and tired legs, letting me step out of them and kick them to the side on my own. Her hands are back on me as soon as she stands, roaming over every inch of skin.

“You’ve bruised 8 ribs, your wing is swollen pretty badly where the dart was embedded, and you probably won’t grow hair along this line on your head ever again — sorry about that by the way. But other than that it’s little cuts and scrapes that will heal in a day now that you’re home.”

Her fingertips skate across my body with a featherlight touch leaving a trail of sparks on my skin in their wake.

I have to put some distance between us. If her hands stay on me any longer I’m going to combust. The water prickles and stings my skin as I ease myself down into the tub. Sol has warmed it to near boiling and my muscles love her for it.

With my wings tucked away at last, I sit down and stretch my legs, laying back against the tub and letting my eyes close.

“I couldn’t fly,” my voice sounds loud echoing through the cavernous bathroom even though it feels like I’m only whispering. “And I couldn’t fold my wings in so I had no choice but to move at night when I couldn’t be spotted as easily. I ran due south until I got closer to Alec’s packlands so I could orient myself. Then I was able to find my way back to the city.”

“And then you thought you’d just walk in here after two days without so much as a text?”

“Phone died. I climbed up the service elevator shaft and figured Ace would have scented me.”

“Ace isn’t here,” she says hastily. “He took the guys out before they went stir crazy with worry. Eli is downstairs in the gym working himself to death.”

“And Tate? How is he?” I swallow down a thick lump in my throat. I wasn’t lying when I told her I worried about who was taking care of them. Thinking about Tate regressing back into a recluse without me there almost broke me more than once in the last two days.

She gives me a heartbreaking smile, “he’s doing okay. I can’t read him as well as you obviously can but he’s been keeping to himself. He lets me in...”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner. You shouldn’t have been burdened with filling in for me. But I’m here now so feel free to go relax. I’ll come down soon.”

Her brows dip with indignance and her head cocks back like I slapped her. “They’re not a burden and neither are you.”

“Sol, I’m fine. I can take care of myself. I know you feel guilty or obligated or whatever but I’m fine. I’ve suffered worse.”

“Don’t tell me how I’m feeling. You have no idea what I’m thinking or feeling —”

“Yeah? And whose fault is that?” I snap in a moment of weakness, instantly regretting how harsh I sound. Not so much what I said but how I said it. “I’ve tried to read you a thousand times but you have your heart and your mind sealed in an ironclad tomb. I haven’t forgotten why and I respect that but...”

“But what?” She presses me.

“But I can’t take care of you if you don’t show me how.”

She’s silent for a while, looking off to the side over her shoulder. Then slowly she stands, and just as slowly she begins to strip off her clothes.

“What are you —” I cut myself off when she climbs into the tub in nothing but her bra and panties and straddles my legs. She grabs a washcloth, pours a generous amount of body wash onto it, and lathers it up in her hands.

With patient and tender ceremony, she drags the washcloth over my chest, erasing the last two days with every pass. When she reaches my shoulders something slams into me, reaching out to me to acknowledge. It’s an emotion, a bittersweet emotion tainted with regret. But it’s not mine.

I look at her with wide eyes but I dare not breathe a word lest she shut me out again. Because these emotions can only be coming from her. She’s finally letting me in.

Rage, uncertainty, determination, hope, guilt, regret.

It’s all there, filling her heart and pouring out of those flaming, green eyes of hers.

“You...you’re letting me in,” I say, awestruck.

She nods, sincerity and relief bleeds off of her. “Now let me take care of you.”