Princess by Gaelen Foley

heart.
    She thought again of the rage he had unleashed on Philippe and wondered about the firestorm inside him just beneath his armor of cool invulnerability, all his suffering concealed by his magnificent pride.
    Well, he had made up his mind to let her help him in this way, at least, she thought in determination. It was a start.
    She let the medal fall once more against his gleaming chest and rose from her knees, bending to kiss his forehead lightly.
    “I’ll be right back,” she whispered, then went to fetch the now-boiling water.
    She poured it into two basins, the steam rising to warm her face. She carried the two basins over near the chair where he waited, then she washed her hands thoroughly, wincing at her cut, swollen ring finger.
    Briefly she tried to remove the monstrous jewel from her finger, but the gold band was skewed all out of shape. There was no time to muddle with it. She turned to her patient.
    “Now, then. Let’s have a look.” Barefoot, she padded around to his left side to tally the latest damage his courage and selfless loyalty had cost him.
    His smooth, sun-browned skin twitched at the first touch of her hands as if she’d tickled him. She caressed him firmly to still the involuntary response, trying at the same time to conceal her own reaction to the beauty of his finely honed, powerful body.
    His skin was warm and smooth as velvet. His muscles were like tempered steel and she would have liked, she thought, any valid excuse to stroke him and explore him at her leisure. His hard, sculpted chest entranced her. The curve of his throat beguiled her. She could not resist the temptation of running one hand slowly, carefully over the rock-hard musculature of his arm as she approached his wounded shoulder.
    Darius sat obediently, head down. She felt him slowly relax, saw his long-lashed eyes drift closed as she began to work on him.
    As she wiped the blood away from his left shoulder, she reached over and touched the star-shaped scar just below his right shoulder blade. There, the would-be assassin’s bullet had struck him eight years ago, on her birthday. He should have died of that wound, the doctors said. The priest had given him last rites and Papa had wept, which was unheard-of. She herself had gone a little mad. She didn’t like to think about it, but what she’d seen him go through had inspired her interest in medicine as a hobby.
    She wrung out the cloth in the water basin, then examined the knife wound more closely.
    It was deep. She probed. It bled.
    “Tincture of amaranth will help slow the bleeding, but I’d feel better if we stitched you, just to be safe,” she said thoughtfully after a moment. “You’ll need about nine stitches, I think. Would you like a drink before I begin?”
    “I don’t drink spirits.”
    She rolled her eyes. “I know that. I’m not suggesting you get foxed, I just thought you might want something for the pain.”
    “No,” he said sternly.
    “Suit yourself, you wretched paragon,” she muttered, dousing one of the clean, dry cloths with the whiskey.
    She pressed the cloth to the cut, staring at his face because surely now, with alcohol dousing the wound, he would show some reaction. But he merely swallowed down the pain, then turned to her, eyes narrowed, the insolent look firmly in place. She shook her head at him in grudging admiration.
    Next she applied some of the pungent tincture from the little vial onto one of the clean hand towels. She held it to the gash for a few minutes.
    Darius and she sat in silence. She smiled when she glanced at his face, for he looked like he was falling asleep sitting up.
    I’m so damned tired, he’d said. It was the only time in her memory that he’d admitted to any kind of weakness. Frowning slightly, she decided that between his loss of weight, his indifference to his own injury, and the way he’d torn Philippe apart, she was quite worried about him.
    Checking the wound a few minutes later, she saw the amaranth