He smiled at her. “Good idea.”
She had barely made a move to sit up when Tiago was there to slide his arms under her shoulders and knees and lift her upright. He hooked the IV bag onto a finger and carried her, still wrapped in a blanket, through the nearest bedroom and into its bathroom.
He set her on her feet with care. She turned and reached for the IV bag. He held it out of reach. “Stop it,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
Feverish color touched her cheekbones. She frowned at him. “I don’t think so. This is the end of the line for you, cowboy.” He opened his mouth to argue, and she told him, “There are some things a girl likes to do on her own.”
Amusement danced in his dark eyes. “There’s nothing you could do that I haven’t seen an army of uglier, hairier people do thousands of times before.”
“That may be,” she said with dignity, “but you haven’t seen me do any of it before. Please don’t argue with me on this one, Tiago. I’m tired and I hurt all over, and I want to go to bed.”
His mouth tightened, but he nodded. He checked the back of the bathroom door and hung the saline bag on the hook he found. “Don’t lock the door,” he told her. “I’ll be right on the other side.”
Who knew that the Wyr warlord’s real animal form was a mother hen? She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Fine. Get out.”
He shut the door.
She debated the possible merits of another shower while she used the toilet, but she simply didn’t have the energy to figure out how she might work that with the IV needle in the back of one hand. Instead she washed her face at the sink and brushed her teeth with the complimentary supplies.
There was so much to do, so much to plan for and an entire political minefield to maneuver, and the simple act of getting clean was almost too much for her. How long would Tiago stay to help? He had promised he would stay until she wasn’t sick any longer, but what did that mean? Would he leave after she slept and he had seen her into safe hands? That was the reasonable thing to expect.
She was shaking again and feeling irrational as she opened the bathroom door. Tiago was leaning against the wall just outside, arms crossed as he waited for her. He straightened when the door opened. She asked, “Can you help me get this bloody T-shirt off?”
He took one look at her distressed face, and his expression softened. “Of course I will.” He put the toilet seat down and guided her to sit. Then he knelt in front of her and stroked her hair as he looked with concern into her eyes. “Is it the T-shirt that’s got you upset?”
Her gaze fell away from his. She shook her head and her lips trembled.
“Then what is it?” He bent his head and tried to catch her eye. She wouldn’t let him. “Talk to me.”
She had to say it to somebody, at least just once. “I wanted a cousin who liked me,” she whispered. Her face crumpled.
The breath left his lungs as if she had sucker punched him. He gathered her close. She put her head on his shoulder and cried as he rocked her. He was so big he filled the bathroom. It felt so right to lean on him, to breathe in his scent and let him stroke her hair and rub her back and murmur to her. It almost made her believe in good things. She was too tired to fight it. She rested against him and let her cold, tired bones soak in his strength and warmth.
“It’s never going to happen again,” he told her. “I swear it. I wish to God I had been there to prevent it from happening the first time. It sucks that I wasn’t. But I’m telling you now, faerie—it’s never going to happen again.”
She rested her cheek in the hollow above his sturdy collarbone. The thick muscles of his chest were tight, and she could feel the ridges of his bunched biceps as he wrapped his arms around her. He spoke with all the force of a vow as he cupped the back of her head, and she hid her face in his neck. She gave up thinking that’s impossible and instead gave herself over to his keeping.
Tiago sensed a presence. He turned his head to glare daggers at the doctor, who had come to check on them. The human male raised his hand with a sympathetic wince and backed out of sight. Tiago turned his attention back to the small bundle of misery he held with such tense protectiveness.
He put his cheek to her hair. The scent of cigarette smoke had faded, leaving the soft, silky black hair smelling of herbal shampoo, rain and woman. He pressed a kiss to the delicate contour of her temple.
What was it about her that got him so messed up? He had never paid that much attention to her other than to cock an amused eyebrow at something she had said or done, or to shake his head whenever he saw yet another person fall victim to that indefinable, effervescent charm of hers.