Neve woke with a faint start when Jacqueline touched her forehead to check for fever. She blinked blearily at the younger woman, then slowly sat up.
“How’s Cameron?” were the first words that passed her lips.
“His fever broke,” Jacqueline said, “so based on what you and Phelan said, I’m thinking he’ll make it.”
Shuddering relief raced through her limbs and Neve nodded slightly. Thank all the powers that are and may become. “He needs to be more careful.”
“He’s right here and not completely asleep,” Cameron muttered, cracking one eye open blearily to peer up at her. “Light sensitivity isn’t as bad this time.”
“Good,” Neve said, brushing her hand over his sweat-dampened hair. Either he’s building some kind of tolerance or the wound wasn’t nearly as bad as the first time. Maybe both.
He smiled at her, then stretched with a slight wince. “Oof. Still feels like there’s digging into my side, though. Hate that feeling. Especially when I know there’s nothing there.” He relaxed, glancing toward Jacqueline. “What day is it? How long was I sleeping?”
She snorted humorlessly and shook her head. “Believe me, you don’t actually want to know the answer to that question.”
“Well, either we’ve already survived the Midwinter Eve show-down that they were going on about or we haven’t.”
Neve winced. “No. Tomorrow,” she said. “That’ll be tomorrow.” And my cousin will be right on the front line. At least he’ll have Thordin here to back him up. That’s something, at least. And the rest…they’re all capable enough, I guess, but that still doesn’t fill me with as much confidence as I’d hope to feel going into this kind of situation. Her lips thinned and one hand drifted down to find Cameron’s beneath the covers.
His fingers tangled in hers and squeezed. “Then there’s still time,” he murmured, looking up at her.
She swallowed hard. “Time for what?”
One corner of his mouth twitched toward a smile. “Everything. Endless possibility.”
“The fever’s scrambled your brains,” Neve said. “You’re sounding like…I don’t know who you’re sounding like.”
Jacqueline shook her head as she stood up from her position at their bedside. “Regardless of who he’s sounding like, I find the optimism refreshing. There’s been a lot of determined fatalism around here lately.”
“What, are people saying that you guys can’t win this fight?” Cameron asked, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand. Be blinked to clear the last vestiges of sleep from his vision and stretched again, a little more carefully this time.
Neve smothered a frown. Don’t you dare be thinking about getting out of bed and trying to fight tomorrow. You’ll never make it, and then where will I be?
“Not so much that as they’re saying they don’t know how we’re going to win, just that we have to.” The healer shook her head as she cleaned her hands and dried them and packed up her kit. “I’m not saying that it’s not true, but after you hear it for the nine-hundredth time, it starts to get pretty old and maybe a little trite.”
Cameron nodded, his gaze sliding toward Neve. “What do you think?”
“I think we’re here for a reason,” she said. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m pretty sure it’s not so we could get ourselves killed tomorrow.”
Jacqueline nodded. “Probably true.” She paused on her way to the door. “A couple of us will be back in a few hours to help you guys move down to the steam tunnels. That’s where you’ll be while the fighting’s going on, just in case something violates the wards and makes a run at the housing.” Her eyes drifted toward Neve. “You should probably get something off your chest,” she said to her, then disappeared out the door and into the hall.
Cameron blinked. “What did she mean by that?”
“You can’t possibly expect to fight tomorrow,” Neve said, pointedly ignoring Jacqueline’s comment about unburdening herself. He doesn’t need to know yet. How does she know? Did Phelan tell her?
He wouldn’t, would he?
Oh yes he would. If he thought it was important for her to know—and I guess that it was—he’d tell her.
Neve closed her eyes for a moment.
Cameron snorted and shook his head. “That’s not what I was talking about, but since you brought it up…”
Her eyes snapped open. “Cam, you can’t. Please.”
“You’re right, I probably can’t,” he said, gingerly pushing himself on an elbow. His body trembled slightly with the effort, but he was still much, much better off than he’d been the last time something like this had happened. “But even if I could, would you let me?”
A lump built in her throat as she reached down and brushed her fingertips along his hairline, down the side of his face and along the curve of his cheek to his jaw. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Part of me would help you armor up for it. Another part of me just wants to wrap myself around you and not let go. I don’t know which part would win if you were going to take the field tomorrow.”
He nodded slightly, his gaze steady. “What was she talking about when she said that you needed to get something off your chest, Neve? What’s going on?”
She looked away, biting her lip. The covers rasped and he grunted in pain as he sat up next to her. One of his arms slid around her, shaky but still strong, and drew her against his side.
“Neve, come on. Whatever it is, you can tell me. How bad could it be?”
Phelan seems to think it’s the end of the bloody world.
“I’m pregnant, Cam,” she whispered. “And the baby is definitely yours.”
