Page 39 of The Rebel's Prize

He groaned and flopped back on the bed. "Chloe, I don't want to talk about this just now. You heard Silya. I need to rest."

"And if I believed youwouldrest, I would leave this alone. But you have a simple solution, one that could help you. We did it once before, and we could do it again. You did it partially to save me back then, so why won't you let me help you now?"

"Because there's no need. I will be fine."

If he hadn't been flat on his back in the bed, she would have been tempted to throw something at him.

Idiot stubbornstupidman.

Then a thought struck her. "If Domina Francis was worried about you, she wouldn't have let you leave the city unprepared. She must have known you would have to use your magic at some point. Did she give you something? In case this happened?"

He grimaced.

"Truth," she said. "Did she send you with anything? Don't be an idiot. I can get Silya back here. I'm sure she has a bag full of strange Andalyssian remedies. Wouldn't you rather take something prepared by Domina Francis?"

He grimaced again. "If you put it that way, yes."

"I take it that she did give you something, then? Where is it?"

"In my trunk. The smaller one. There's a small bag with some pouches of pills. One with a blue cord. I was meant to take that if I had another spell like this."

CHAPTER9

"Another?" Chloe said, trying not to sputter. "You said it wasn't bad in Lumia." She swept a hand at him in exasperation. "This is bad, Lucien."

"I told you the first day or so was bad," he retorted. "Do you want to do a blow-by-blow description, or do you want to get me my damn medicine?"

She backed away from the bed, shooting him a scowl. "What I really want to do right now is possibly throttle you for being an idiot."

"Well, that feeling might be mutual," he growled.

She stopped midstep. "I left to follow Deandra. I didn't have a choice."

His fingers strayed to the bridge of his nose and pressed hard. "There's always a choice, Chloe. You chose not to trust me to help you."

That stopped her in her tracks. There was an unmistakable tone of hurt underneath his words. One that required none of his power for her to recognize. Or to feel the answering sting of guilt and shame all over again.

"I was panicked. Not thinking straight. But I cannot change my choice now. I can only say, once again, that it wasn't you I was running from. And none of that changes the fact that you chose not to tell me that you'd been unwell. "

"I wasn't sure you'd care."

"What? I—"

He winced and waved her off. "Can we have this fight later, please? Just get the goddess-damned pills."

Reluctantly, she crossed the room. Sure enough, when she opened his trunk, a leather pouch stamped with the quartered circle of the goddess lay on the top of the neatly piled clothes. Almost as though he'd thought he might need it.

She gritted her teeth against a renewed flash of irritation as she unwound the braided ocher cord holding the pouch closed. There were four smaller pouches inside but only one tied with a blue cord. She opened it and peered at the contents. Pills. Just as he'd said.

She carried the pouch back to the bed, stopping only to retrieve the water glass. "Here."

He took the pills and gulped them down, then lay back down. He still looked dreadful, so hopefully whatever was in the pills would work fast.

"Will you at least let me try sharing some energy with you?"

One of his eyebrows lifted. "You can do that without the bond?"

She huffed in exasperation. "Why do you always forget that I'm an earth witch? I trained at the Academe just like you." The fact that she was more familiar with theory than practice was one she was going to ignore. And hope he wouldn’t remember.

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