Chapter 101 Blood Given
"I know," I whispered, opening my eyes. "I know it hurts. I have you."
I worked with impossible gentleness, cleaning the grit and the acid from his torn flesh. I washed his arms, running the cloth over the heavy, jagged iron cuffs still locked around his wrists. The broken chain links clinked softly against the mattress. I hated them. I hated the Emperor for putting him in chains. I hated the entire, rotting Citadel.
By the time I finished, the water in the basin was entirely black, smelling of rust and dead sea.
Klaus’s skin was clean, stark and pale against the dark blankets. I draped a heavy wool throw over his lower half, leaving his chest exposed so the wounds could breathe.
I sat back on my heels, exhausted, the shared pain leaving me trembling.
Klaus’s chest hitched. His head turned toward me, his brow furrowing.
Through the bond, I felt the heavy, dragging weight of his sleep begin to lift, replaced by a sudden, frantic spike of disorientation. He was looking for me. His mind was reaching out in the dark, panicked and desperate.
I'm here, I pushed the thought toward him, placing my clean hand flat against the uninjured side of his chest.
His sapphire eyes fluttered open.
The vibrant, unnatural blue was back, clear of the grey haze that had nearly consumed him in the arena. He stared up at the dark canopy of the bed for a fraction of a second before his gaze snapped to me.
"Nerissa," he breathed. The sound was a harsh, broken croak.
He tried to sit up. The muscles in his abdomen contracted, and an immediate, blinding flash of agony ripped through our shared connection. He collapsed back against the pillows with a sharp hiss, his eyes squeezing shut.
"Don't move," I rasped, leaning over him. I pressed my hand against his shoulder, holding him down. "You’re torn to pieces. Stay still."
He opened his eyes, looking at me with a bewildered, raw intensity. He blinked, his gaze dropping to the damp cloth in my hand, to the basin of dirty water, and finally to his own clean skin.
"You washed me," he whispered.
"You sat by my bed when I was choking on the dry air," I said, my voice barely more than a scratch in the quiet room. "Let me sit by yours."
He reached up. His movements were slow, weighted with a crushing fatigue. His cold, calloused fingers brushed against the side of my face, pushing a tangled lock of dark hair behind my ear.
As his skin met mine, the blood-bond flared.
It was a profound, overwhelming loop of emotion. I felt his absolute awe. I felt the staggering, devastating realization hitting his mind that he was not dead, that the curse had not consumed him, and that I was sitting beside him. In return, I knew he could feel my terror.
He felt the rawness in my throat. He knew what it had cost me to use the Voice.
"You sang," he murmured, his thumb stroking my cheekbone. The guilt radiating from him was a heavy, suffocating wave. "I told you to let me die. I told you not to open your mouth."
"You don't get to command me, Admiral," I whispered, leaning my face into his palm. "I chose. I chose you over the silence."
"The rot..." He swallowed hard, his eyes darting to the black veins sitting dormant over his heart. "The shockwave... it should have stopped my heart permanently."
"My blood," I said, turning my left hand over to show him the crude, dark line sliced across my palm. "I fed you my blood. It pushed the rot back. It anchored you."
Klaus stared at the cut on my hand. The realization crashed through our tether, a chaotic storm of shock, horror, and a dark, undeniable possessiveness. He knew the laws of his kind. He knew what a blood-bond meant.
"You bound us," he said, his voice turning thick, vibrating with an emotion that made my own heart race.
"We were already bound," I replied, tracing the line of his jaw with my fingertips. "Ligeia chained you to the ocean. I am just chaining you to me."
Klaus let out a shuddering breath. He shifted his weight, ignoring the flare of pain from his ribs, and pulled me down.
I went willingly, collapsing carefully against his uninjured side. I rested my head on his shoulder, right above the iron cuff on his wrist. He wrapped his heavy arm around me, holding me tight against his side. The heat of his body soaked through the damp, ruined fabric of my charcoal dress.
"They will kill us for this," he murmured into my hair. I felt the grim certainty in his mind. He knew the Emperor would not let the destruction of the arena go unpunished. The High Council would demand our heads.
"Let them try," I rasped, closing my eyes.
I felt his heartbeat against my cheek. It wasn't the sluggish, unnatural thrum of the curse anymore. It was steady. It was real. It was sustained by the blood I had given him.
We lay there in the dark, the silence of the locked room wrapping around us like a fortress. Through the bond, I felt the sharp edges of his pain begin to dull, smoothed over by the quiet comfort of my presence. The exhaustion finally claimed him again, pulling his consciousness under.