His Lesbian Luna

Chapter8

Sera’s POV

It was Percy who came to my door the next morning.

“The King needs you,” he said sternly with a serious expression on his face.

I followed him without asking why. Down two corridors, past the east staircase, through a door I hadn’t been through before into a part of the wing that smelled like woodsmoke and something sharp underneath it. Medicine, maybe. Or herbs.

He stopped outside a door and looked at me.

“He was attacked last night,” he said quietly. “After the gathering. Coming back through the north training ground.” His jaw was tight. “Three of them. They got close enough to do damage before the guard reached him.”

My stomach dropped straight to the floor.

“How bad?” I said.

“He won’t let the healer near him,” Percy said. “He dismissed everyone an hour ago.” He looked at me steadily. “But he asked for you.”

I stared at him.

“He asked for me,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Why.”

Percy looked at me for a moment with those eyes that saw too much. “I think,” he said carefully, “that’s a question you should ask him.”

He opened the door.

Damon was sitting on the edge of the bath with his shirt off and his back to the door.

I understood immediately why he had dismissed the healer.

His back looked like something had tried to take it apart. Four long gashes across the left shoulder blade, deep and angry, the kind of wounds that came from claws. Around them his skin had gone dark — not bruising. Something worse. Thin black lines spreading out from the edges like cracks in stone.

I had seen that once before. A warrior in Ashwood, after a border fight with a rogue who had been running with a poisoned pack.

“Shut the door,” he said without turning around.

I shut it.

I crossed the room and crouched behind him and looked at the wounds up close and kept my face completely neutral.

“Who did this?” I said.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said.

“It matters.”

“Not tonight.”

I stood up. Found the basin on the side table, the cloth beside it, the jar of dark herbs that the healer had clearly left before being dismissed. I brought them over and crouched behind him again.

“This will hurt,” I said.

I pressed the cloth to the first wound.

He didn’t make a sound. Not one. His back went rigid and every muscle in it pulled tight but he sat completely still and made no sound and I found myself thinking — how many times has he done this. Sat somewhere alone and been hurt and made no sound.

“Talk to me,” he said. His voice was controlled. Tight around the edges.

“About what?” I said.

“Anything.” A sharp breath as I pressed harder. “Distract me.”

I wrung the cloth out and moved to the second wound.

“Voss staged that scene last night,” I said. “The wine. She planned it before she walked in.”

“I know,” he said.

“You watched it happen.”

“I watched you handle it,” he said.

I pressed the herb paste to the wound and felt him flinch just slightly, just for a second and then go still again.

“You sent soup,” I said.

A pause.

“The dresses,” I continued. “The soup. The light food.” I moved to the third wound. “You heard me last night and you sent soup in the morning.”

He said nothing.

“Why?” I said.

“You needed to eat,” he said.

“I had food.”

“You had too much food,” he said. “And no one had thought to tell you that a stomach that has been running on rationed meals for weeks can’t handle a full tray in one sitting.” His voice was flat. “It wasn’t your fault.”

The room was very quiet.

I sat back on my heels and looked at his back. At the black lines still spreading faintly at the edges of the wounds.

“I need to clean these again,” I said. “Closer.”

“Then do it,” he said.

“I need to get to the other side.” I hesitated. “I need to—”

“Sit in front of me,” he said. “It’s fine.”

I moved around to face him and the moment I did I immediately found something very interesting to look at just past his left ear. Because Damon without his shirt facing me at close range was, he was —

‘Say it,’ Sienna said.

‘I will not,’ I told her.

‘You were going to say—’

‘I was going to say nothing,’ I told her firmly. ‘I am a professional.’

‘You are a twenty two year old woman who—’

‘Sienna so help me—’

“You’re not breathing,” Damon said.

I looked at him. He was watching my face with those dark eyes and something in them that I had not seen before. Something almost amused.

“I’m breathing,” I said.

“You stopped for a moment,” he said.

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“I was concentrating,” I said and pressed the cloth to the wound on his collarbone and he hissed sharply and gripped the edge of the bath with one hand and I felt it — the shake in his arm, the effort of staying upright.

“Damon,” I said.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re not fine,” I said. “You’re going to fall off this bath.”

“I’m not going to—”

“Get in the water,” I said.

He looked at me.

“The herbs need to soak into the wounds properly,” I said. “That’s what the healer left them for. Get in the water and I’ll do this properly.”

A long silence.

“Sera,” he said.

“Yes?”

“You understand what you’re suggesting.”

“I understand that you are injured and too stubborn to let anyone help you and the infection is spreading and someone needs to do something about it before Percy comes back and finds you face down on the floor.” I held his gaze. “Get in the water.”

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then, slowly, carefully, with the controlled movement of a man managing serious pain, he got in.

I kept my eyes on the wall.

I heard the water move. Heard him settle. Heard the low rough sound he made when the herb water hit the wounds.

“You can look,” he said.

I looked.

He was submerged to the waist, arms resting on the edges, head back slightly. Eyes on me. The black lines on his back were visible just below the waterline and I focused on those instead of the rest of him and absolutely did not notice anything else.

‘Liar,’ Sienna said pleasantly.

‘One more word,’ I told her, ‘and I will find a way to evict you from my body.’

I rolled up my sleeves.

Knelt at the edge of the bath.

And got to work.