Archer appeared pensive about this but stood silently until everyone had left. Once the door shut, he offered me his arm as I struggled to move through the covers without hurting myself.
“Fetch my maids please. They will have to heat the water now so I can have a bath within the next hour,” I asked him, awkwardly shuffling over to the armchair he always sat in.
“I've already started heating a pot of water over the fire,” Archer explained with a gentle nod as he steered me towards an old wooden chair instead.
“A pot of water will not be enough to fill a tub,” I protested with a slight laugh. He eased me down into the sturdy chair.
“You can't have a bath, Willow. Your injury could become infected if it got wet. If you get a fever—”
“Well, then how am I going to get clean? I can't stand being like this. I was cleaner even when I was a slave. At least then I could wash up in the creek,” I shot back, aggravated right away.
Archer sighed and turned his back to me, acting like he was going to check the pot, but I could tell he was trying to hide his expression from me. His shoulders were hunched, and I could see one hand was tightly clenched in a fist. As strong and brave as he was, he always had a hard time handling his emotions.
“I can use the sponge and the warm water to clean you, but that is the best we can do at this point. The risk of fever is too high.” His words came out sharp and calculated, too precise to be spoken in calmness, and the way his shoulders were curved towards his ears gave away his large amount of anxiety.
“Oh,” I breathed, not expecting this alternative at all. My dream of soaking in a tub while my maids brushed oil through my hair and cleaned my nails vanished.
“Or I can fetch someone else,” the king blurted out too quickly, still facing the fireplace instead of me. “Almost all of the maids have gone to a local market as the last few days have been hard on us all, but I'm sure I could send a message, and they would be back in the next few hours.”
“No, no, please. I don't want to ruin anyone's fun,” I protested.
The king finally turned to face me but merely stood there awkwardly with a sponge in his hand, waiting for my next words.
“You've already seen me undressed. I suppose another time will not harm either of us,” I said in defeat.
Archer tried to remain neutral, but I could see his shoulders tighten. “I won't touch you unless you want me to.”
I stared at him, uncertain of what to say in response. I physically wanted him to touch me, and it had pained me deeply when I didn’t invite him to bed with me last night. But my heart was still aching in my chest at the way he treated me, and my mind was swarmed with images of Ella in my favorite gown and my wedding band glistening on her finger. Could I actually let this man touch me again?
“I will wash what I can without hurting myself, and you will wash the rest,” I announced, holding my hand out for the sponge.
Archer obeyed, placing the sponge in my hand then carefully removing the pot from the hook above the fire and setting it down on a cloth on the floor by my feet. When he saw that I was attempting to get undressed, he made no effort to turn around and just stared at me.
“Turn around,” I snapped.
“Some of the blood has dried into your clothing. You could rip open the wound if you aren't careful.” He automatically took a step closer and pushed my hands away from the collar of my gown. “Let me.”
“Archer,” I warned, my patience growing thin but my will power also weakening at his proximity.
There was a second of hesitation. His fingers remained on my hands, and I thought he would just continue on like he hadn't heard me at all, but he pulled his hands away from mine and took a slow step back, his head bowed down in submission. It was the first time I had seen him do such a thing, and it stunned me.
“You can undress yourself and hurt yourself. If you choose to do that then your back might be reopened, and you will be unable to move around at all for a few days, and it will take longer before you can have a real bath. Or you can wait for your maids who will take quite some time to return. Or you can just let me do it,” he reasoned.
“I don't think I should let you undress me if I'm no longer your wife,” I replied evenly despite the pain that tore through me at the words. I know I had said otherwise moments ago, but my emotions were too unsteady to be reliable at this point.
Evidently, I wasn't the only one who felt it because Archer's expression dropped. All the stubbornness and strength in his features fell away to a pitiful look of defeat and intense sorrow. His brown eyes were tortured. “You're still my wife,” he whispered. The words came out more as a a plea than a statement. Like he wanted me to confirm it.
“On paper, perhaps, but Ella replaced me rather quickly,” I retorted, not feeling sorry for him in the slightest. I only felt sorry for myself.
“No, she could never replace you. And she didn't,” Archer breathed, taking a step towards me again.
“She had my ring.”
“It was not given to her by me, I swear.” His words came out quick and unrefined. This was as honest and as desperate as I had ever seen my husband, and I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. “One of my right hand guards suggested we make her queen after you left. I protested, but my decision was overruled by my men and my father. They trusted his judgment more than mine at the time. None of us knew it would've ended like this,” he admitted, keeping his eyes on the extravagant carpet.
“How could your men overrule you? You're their king!” I exclaimed.
“When you left, I wasn't entirely well. I thought being away from you but still having you in the palace was hard. But when you were completely gone and the poiso. . . “ He just shook his head like he was trying to regain control over his thoughts. “We shouldn't discuss this now. You need to decide if you would like to wait for your maids so I can either help you back into bed or you can wash yourself before you get too exhausted.”
I sighed and toyed with the sponge in my hands. True, I didn't want the king to undress me or see me naked at this point. I knew that he had seen my bare skin many times before, but I didn't think I could handle someone looking at me with such intense desire when I was so unsure of him. I wanted to keep some distance between us because his closeness often seemed to be enough to make me go back on my word. However, I didn't wish to ruin my maids' fun nor did I want to return to my bed feeling as disgusting as I did in that moment. And the king would only wash the parts I couldn't reach anyway.
“Fine,” I agreed. “You can help me. But if I tell you to stop, you must listen,” I ordered sharply. I hoped my strength would remain as he got closer to me, but I sincerely doubted it.
The king agreed without a second of hesitation.
He took the sponge from my hands and instructed me to adjust my seating position so he could soak the back of my gown which immediately made me cringe. When the dried blood on the back had been saturated, he slowly unbuttoned the night gown and eased it off of my aching body. I caught his eye, expecting to see lust as I often did when my bare skin was exposed around him, but his face showed nothing but agony. And that expression stayed as he proceeded to clean my body.
He started at my face which I had assumed would be quite clean, but he took his time using the moist sponge to clean off whatever dirt and blood had accumulated there during the battle. Then he moved on to my neck, down to my shoulders, and over each arm, wiping away the filth then cleaning and wringing the sponge in the bucket before continuing. He cleaned the smallest creases in my skin and wiped away any grime that had settled on me. He worked slowly, taking his time so he wouldn't hurt me, but I noticed him peering up at me, making sure that I wasn't nearly asleep in the chair. Didn’t he know it would've been impossible for me to fall asleep with my husband touching me while I was naked even when I hated him at the moment?
He finished by cleaning my feet which had become quite disgusting after being in the dungeon barefoot and being dragged
around afterwards without any shoes on. But he didn't seem bothered. He just plunged the sponge into the warm water, squeezed it, then began swiping away the dirt. His movements were so tender and gentle that it made my heart quake in my chest, but I jammed my eyes shut and gave my head a slight shake. I could not give in to him. Not after everything he had done to me.
“Are you alright?” Archer asked, clearly catching the movement.
“Fine. Just exhausted. I think I need to go back to bed,” I lied.
What I truly needed was to be clothed and to be as far away from this man as I could possibly get.
Chapter Forty-Four
My physical wounds were mending at a reasonable pace, but the emotional damage was still very intense, and no amount of ointment or hot drinks could take that away. After a month, I was able to get up and move around quite freely, and I had been moved back to my old room which lifted my spirits. The constant pulling sensation was lessened as the wound had progressed through its healing quite nicely, but I was still not allowed to have full baths, to lift things, or walk too far. Though I was significantly better than I had been and the worst of it was over, I wasn't out of the woods yet. One wrong step could open up the wound, and getting it wet could still lead to a life-threatening infection. But I was never alone long enough to make those missteps.
Archer agreed that I was getting much better, but that didn't seem to matter to him all that much as his habits didn't change. He still spent the majority of his time with me, either pretending to be reading or actually reading something. I thought when I was well enough to return to my own room, he would slowly slip away, but while the doctors were seeing much less of me, Archer just read patiently in my armchair until his eyelids closed and he drifted off into sleep. I had given up on arguing with him to sleep in his own bed and just allowed him to stay at this point, but I did cringe when I saw his tired body curled in on itself and the awkward angle his neck eventually twisted into when he was no longer conscious. I tried to tell myself that I would not bring it up anymore as it was only best to avoid the fighting, but, deep down, I enjoyed his presence despite the fact that we still didn't really speak to one another.
He continued to sneak in kind subtle gestures though. When I was moved back into my old room, I instantly noticed the brighter floral wallpaper that covered the walls.My bed sheets had been changed to a bright cream colour as well, making the whole space feel lighter and more freeing. Every few days, new flowers would replace the old ones in the vases, but as fall approached, the selection quickly dwindled.
Yet, his sweet actions bothered me.
I didn't know what to think anymore, and his actions confused me more and more everyday as I battled with my feelings. I was tired of him just throwing flowers and brushes and decoration around in a wordless apology. But I loved knowing that he had listened to my words, and he was trying to make me happy in a safe and respectful way. However, it felt like it had come too late, and would he only be treating me this way until I forgave him? Did he even want my forgiveness? I was legally bound to him; he didn't need me to forgive him. I was still technically his wife, his slave, and his subject. Maybe he still saw me that way, and he was merely acting like this because he felt responsible for the wound on my back.
Regardless of all the emotions racing away within me, I never forced myself to speak to my husband unless I was spoken to. I was not the one who had to beg for forgiveness and explain myself. And I had no idea what to say to him. I wanted to ask him if he would actually kill me if I didn't conceive a child for him as there may have been some truth to Ella's words. I wanted to know why he tossed me aside so soon and made his first wife queen again. And I wanted to know if his heart had hurt as much as mine when we were separated. But I didn't dare ask any of those questions, no matter how badly I wanted the answer.
Thankfully, I had other people to talk to which helped keep me from going insane. As I got better, Andrew's visits became less frequent, but it didn't bother me as much as I had expected. Now that I was back with Archer, I realized that I could never love Andrew in the same way that I love my mate. Even though it hurt to admit it, it was true. Andrew was safe and kind, protective and thoughtful—everything I thought I wanted in a man but somehow not what I needed. And when I considered the fact that I wanted to have a life with Andrew, it stung to know that he was progressing while I was stuck where I had been nearly a year ago: with a husband I barely know and don't talk to.
To compensate for Andrew’s absence, my maids had returned. Nothing much could be said when they returned to me the first time as Archer was still quietly reading in my armchair, but our expressions said it all. Isabelle had a massive smile that made her whole face glow. She looked like she was about to hug me but thought better of it and dove to her stitching instead. Jasmine shot me a quiet grin and a cheeky wink. Lydia was the most restrained out of all of them, bowing her head to me as she entered, but I could see the subtle happiness shining away in her eyes so I beamed back at her. Their quiet support warmed the space in my bedroom, and the muscles I hadn't known were tense had relaxed.
And James also joined my team once more, but I wasn't terribly sure how I felt about him either. I had enjoyed his company so much at one point that it was hard not to be delighted when he made eye contact with me because of habit. But the cruel way he treated me echoed in my mind, and his betrayal was just as stark as Andrew's. He had followed Archer’s orders far before being concerned for my well-being. I thought our friendship had gone deeper than that.
But James knew the way to my heart.
“Shall we go see Jester, my lady?” he asked casually one evening, like we had never stopped speaking to one another. Like he hadn’t pretended my horse was dead to appease my husband. His eyes were soft, undemanding, and I almost saw him the same way I did when I met him the first time.
I slowly set down the book I was flipping through and raised my gaze to his. I couldn't gage his expression, and it made me grit my teeth.
“I suppose going by myself is still out of the option,” I said, knowing that my words were a jab.
“Entirely,” Archer stated from the armchair. “You could have a dizzy spell and faint. No one would find you for hours, and if your wound opened again, you could bleed considerably. I will not let you take that risk.”
Archer was correct, but the likelihood of that scenario happening was slim. Still, I knew better than to argue at this point so I agreed. I wanted to see my horse more than I wanted to argue with grown men who refused to be wrong. Besides, fresh air would do me a world of good.
We walked down to the barns slowly and silently. I breathed in the raw smell of earth and hay, loving being outside as it didn't happen often. When I would leave my room, I always had to be accompanied, and there were only few in the palace that Archer trusted enough to take me and fewer that I was willing to spend my time with. In addition, the mornings and evenings were getting colder with each passing day and the middle of the day was still intensely hot so it was difficult to find a time that Archer approved of. Somehow James had met all of the requirements, and I was somewhat grateful for that.
When I saw my beloved horse and he plodded towards me, I smiled and leaned against his stall door, feeling much happier already as I told myself that this was worth it. But James was looming behind me, bringing my mood down, and I was tired of walking on eggshells around him. Maybe we would never be friends again, but this silence was too much.
“Have you brought me here so you could apologize without the king's eyes on you?” I demanded, not looking at him. Jester had much kinder eyes in that moment than James did.
“No, I brought you here because I need to ask you some questions,” he said matter-of-factly.
His response surprised me enough that I turned around to face him. His voice was serious and flat and so was his expression. I couldn't read him at all, and it infuriated me because he had always been an open book. I just folded my arms over my chest and nodded my head, d
eciding this was the only option I had. It was time to let the past rest.
“Fine. Ask me whatever is weighing on your mind so heavily.”
“Who gave you that dagger?”
“Ella. You already know that.”
“Why did you agree to run away with her?” he pressed. His eyes were becoming more focused, more intent on me.
“I won't tell you that.”
I obviously knew now that I couldn't trust Ella. However, I wasn't sure what the king would do to me if I was unable to have his child as that was part of our agreement. His pity for my situation would only go so far for so long. And, I was a lady now,I would not discuss such a private matter with my former guard.
“Very well. If you refuse to give me any more clues then I will simply ask you one more question. You were informed that that blade was the most likely way to kill werewolves. If you had seen me as a wolf, would you have killed me? And what about King Archer? Would you have plunged that silver dagger into his heart?”
“I don't know what you look like as a wolf,” I protested meekly. This was not what I had been anticipating, and my heart stuttered in a panic.
“You were able to identify Archer very quickly the first time you saw him. I saw the way you looked at him. Would you have stabbed him, Willow? Would you have stabbed that massive wolf that could've torn you to pieces in seconds?”
“You can't ask me this.”
“Yes, I can. Would you have killed your husband if you had been given the chance?”
The First Queen: A Shifter Romance Page 25