“This isn’t ...” Vhalla was about to die from embarrassment. She’d bathed in group baths before, but with other women.
“I thought you weren’t a lady?” He grinned wildly. “Certainly acting like a noble flower with all this modesty.”
“I don’t know you!” she balked.
“Do you want to?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Out!” Vhalla demanded.
“If the lady commands.” Jax left, unapologetic.
Vhalla dunked her head under the water. This man was nothing like any noble she’d ever met. Any sane person she’d ever met!
But he was thoughtful as well, she discovered. The water steamed at a perfect temperature once more. There was a mostly clean drying cloth waiting for her atop two different options for shirt and pants. Both were oversized on her petite frame, which had been narrowed by a long march and lean food. The shirt wore like a tunic, and the pants needed to be rolled. But with a belt they would sit on her hips rather than slide off.
The major stood waiting for her across the hall when she exited. Vhalla’s face was instantly scarlet again, and she pursed her lips to keep in her frustration.
Jax pushed away from the wall, keenly picking up on her emotion. “What do you know, there was a woman under all that blood and grime.”
Vhalla shifted her chainmail tunic awkwardly in her hands. “Right, this way.” He turned away from the side of the hall that ended with a single door. There was a door on either side of them, and Vhalla quickly realized whose quarters these were.
“Is this Prince Baldair’s or Prince Aldrik’s room?” She paused in the doorway Jax was leading her through.
“Baldair’s. He won’t mind, and you look dead on your feet.” Vhalla stared across the hall, and Major Jax didn’t miss the obvious thoughts floating across her face. “Unless you’d rather stay in the crown prince’s room?”
“I would,” she whispered.
Jax let Vhalla wander across the hall alone. He hovered in Baldair’s doorway, watching the Windwalker as she slowly pushed up the simple wooden latch that held the crown prince’s door closed. His eyes followed her as she comfortably, almost reverently, entered the quarters of the most private man in the Empire.
There was nothing notable about it, a few chests against one wall, a bed opposite, and a desk positioned near a shuttered window. Vhalla stopped to engage in a staring contest with an empty armor stand waiting for its owner’s plate to return.
Aldrik’s mangled face flashed before her eyes, and Vhalla gripped her shirt over her stomach, willing the sickening feeling away.
“Here.” Jax placed a palm on her shoulder, causing Vhalla to nearly jump out of her skin.
She stared down at the vial in his hand. “Only one?” Every time she’d been wounded, half a cleric’s box was forced down her throat.
“Are your wounds severe enough to merit more?” Jax asked earnestly. Vhalla shook her head. “Not the physical ones at least, right?”
Vhalla pulled away from him, squaring her shoulders toward the Western man, defensive of her feelings. He was like wildfire, unpredictable, burning through one emotion and then the next. She squinted up at him and opened her mouth to speak.
A silent knowing gleamed in his eyes, a depth that both stilled and humbled her. His fingers wrapped around hers, closing them around the vial. “Drink, Vhalla Yarl, and get a good night’s sleep. From the looks of you, it’s been a while.”
Jax left her before she could respond. Vhalla stared at the vial in her hand and wondered just what the man could see in her, what the world saw in her now. Her thoughts spun like a top, faster and faster, out of control until she eagerly brought the potion to her lips, drinking it in a gluttonous gulp.
Vhalla collapsed upon the bed, his bed.
It smelled stale. The linens hadn’t been washed in a long time, if ever. They had a dry crunch and gave off a damp and earthy aroma. But somewhere under the musty scent was a musk that Vhalla knew well. She curled in on herself, clutching at the mattress, pillows, and blanket. Leather, steel, eucalyptus, fire and smoke, and a scent that was distinctly Aldrik—a combination that overwhelmed her.
When Vhalla woke next, she expected to have only slept for a few hours. The sun hung low in the sky and the room was dim with the orange light that penetrated the slats of the window shutters. She dragged her feet to the main room; it was mostly empty, save for two men having a drink at the end of one of the long tables.
“Sleeping beauty wakes.” Jax grinned, his hair was loose and it fell straight to his lower chest.
“It hasn’t been that long.” Vhalla sat a good space away from Lord Erion and across from the head major. “Only a day,” Erion mumbled over his drink. “What?”
“You were out a bit. Guess I was right about that whole sleeping thing,” Jax said proudly.
A day ... She had slept for a whole day. Vhalla quickly did the math in her head. “Any word from the riders sent?”