Chapter Six
646 Words
The door clicked shut behind Zayev.
And the silence that followed wrapped around the room like gauze ,warm, heavy, expectant.
Cynrim sat close, legs folded beneath her on the floor beside the couch, fingers resting lightly on Rover's wrist to feel the faint thump of his pulse. Still steady. Still there.
Then a shift.
Barely perceptible, but real.
His hand twitched. His brow tightened. And then... his eyes opened.
Her chest squeezed. She leaned in.
"Rover?"
His eyes, clouded but alert, fixed on her face. He didn't speak, but she could see the tension flooding into him like a switch flipped inside his bones.
He tried to rise no hesitation, no consideration for the torn flesh or half-healed wound. Just instinct, muscle, survival.
"No," Cynrim said quickly, placing her palm against his chest. "Don't move."
He stilled.
Not because he was convinced, but because her touch was unfamiliar ,soft, but firm. Commanding. Not begging. Not pitying.
Just... there.
"You're safe," she said quietly, watching him. "You were shot. Twice. You lost a lot of blood."
Rover blinked. His breathing was shallow, but even. His eyes flicked across the room, reading everything exits, corners, distance between them. Always alert. Always calculating.
And then his jaw shifted.
"It's nothing."
The words were dry, iron-flat.
Of course it was nothing. For a man like him forged in blood, fire, and betrayal this was just another Tuesday.
But Cynrim wasn't built for that world. And seeing someone shrug off death like a passing fever lit a strange ache in her chest.
"It's not nothing," she said. "You were dying. I had to pull a bullet out with kitchen tongs."
A ghost of something flickered in his eyes.
"Where's Zayev?" he rasped.
"He just left," she said. "He had to. Your cousin might be looking for you and if he finds you here..."
She didn't finish the sentence. The weight of it hung thick between them.
Rover's gaze dropped to her hand still resting on his chest. Her fingers were slender, strong, stained faintly with dried blood. His blood.
No one had ever touched him like this.
Not in kindness. Not without wanting something in return.
He didn't know what to do with that.
"You should be resting," Cynrim murmured. "Your body's barely holding together."
His lips twitched in something that wasn't quite a smile. "I've been worse."
She let out a soft scoff. "That's not reassuring."
Then she hesitated.
"I'm not a hospital," she admitted, the words tasting bitter. "I don't have the right equipment. I've worked trauma for years emergency rooms, battlefield units but this..."
Her eyes searched his face. "This feels like it matters more."
The truth slipped out before she could catch it. And in it, something shifted.
Rover didn't answer. He just watched her.
His vision was still hazy, limbs heavy, pain smoldering under his ribs. But it was her presence he felt most. Not the ache. Not the wound.
Her.
And that unsettled him more than any bullet.
"Do you need anything?" she asked again, softer this time.
The question took him off guard.
He'd had people beg for his orders. Plead for mercy. Offer him things ,weapons, women, blood.
But this?
This was new.
"No," he said eventually. A beat. "Yes. Water."
She stood, graceful and quiet, and fetched the glass. He didn't touch it at first he just stared at it as if unsure whether to trust it. Then finally took a slow sip, his fingers brushing hers.
And for a split second, the room wasn't a warzone. It was a morning. A woman. A wounded man.
She helped him ease back down.
"Try to rest," she said gently.
Rover closed his eyes again, not because he trusted her, not yet. But because the weight in his chest wasn't only blood and pain.
It was something else.
Something like peace.
Something like danger.
- Writer
