A Cruel Kindness

Chapter 32

Bellamy

I shot up in bed in a rush of panic, dragging in an inhale that felt like fire shooting into my lungs.

For a second, I thought I was still in that field. My vision was spotting with color that resembled wildflowers, but then it cleared and I realized I was in a hospital.

No, the infirmary at camp, and evening light was spilling through the windows.

“Soren,” I gasped out, starting to move even though I didn’t know where I was going.

Hands came down on my shoulders, gently pushing me into the raised bed.

“He’s okay,” Freya’s voice said as her face materialized in front of me. I had to blink a few times to fully take in her features. Her smile was soft, her eyes glowing so bright they were almost neon.

Her hand wrapped around my arm just as I was going to fight her and try to get up. “Look to your left,” she said softly.

I did, finding Soren asleep on the floor.

Too far away , the Bond shouted.

I shook my head against burgeoning tears that felt awfully childish. I made a move to reach for him, but Freya restrained me. I struggled against her hold. She didn’t know what it felt like to almost lose him.

That had been my last thought before I passed out. That I might not hold him again. And he was too far away .

“Ford!” Freya called, holding me steady even as I twisted and turned, trying to break free of her arms and flail my body onto Soren’s.

Ford strode across the infirmary floor quickly. Freya pulled me to the edge of the bed as easily as she would a child, while Ford bent and hauled Soren up with a huff of breath.

Soren was dead weight in Ford’s hold and yet he didn’t look all that strained as he lifted Soren’s body up and onto the bed next to me.

The second his form hit the mattress, I curled over him as tears sprang to my eyes.

I sobbed against his side as my hands rushed over every inch of his body, making sure his heart was beating, his breaths were even, his skin was in tact.

It wasn’t until I twisted even further, putting weight on my left leg, that I remembered what happened to me.

“Alright, please don’t tear your stitches,” Freya said, bringing her hand to my leg and lifting it over Soren’s thigh so that it was elevated and saved from being trapped between our bodies.

“What happened?” I asked through a rush of tears, uncaring that I was an emotional mess. “Why isn’t he awake?”

If Soren was just sleeping, there was no way he wouldn’t have woken up when I did.

My hands tightened over him, as if their answer would take him away from me.

“How much do you remember?” Freya said as she took a seat in the chair next to me. I realized then that she had probably been sitting there already when I woke up.

I forced myself to let go of Soren with one hand and reach it towards Freya, grabbing hers and squeezing to thank her.

She smiled, and if I wasn’t mistaken, her eyes went slightly hazy.

I swallowed, recalling what had happened. “Elijah shot me. Right after he told me the Prince was rescinding the engagement.”

Freya and Ford’s eyes slammed together before Ford dropped his head with incredulous laughter. “That fucker.”

I turned to Freya to find her expression crestfallen, but there was something close to disappointment underneath it all. “Do you want to wait for Soren to wake up?”

I looked at him, finding his expression calm. I smoothed my hand over his shorn hair, my heart pinching painfully.

God, I loved him. He was everything to me.

There wouldn’t be enough time in the world to take in every small part of him, from the way each strand of his hair was a slightly different color, to the new freckles I’d find on his face, to the way he stirred his coffee—three times to the left and once to the right.

I shook my head, answering Freya. “No. No, I think it’s best we talk now.”

I assumed Soren knew what had happened to me, save the person who did it.

“Well, Elijah ,” Ford said, drawing out his name with a note of disgust. “Clearly thinks he’s fucking hilarious. Do you remember him taking the arrow out?”

My head snapped up to look at him, my brows slamming together in confusion. “What? He took out the arrow?”

Ford nodded, his face harsh with anger. “Fixed your tourniquet, too. He somehow managed to miss all major arteries.”

“Somehow,” Freya repeated, as if she didn’t believe that was up to chance. If she was right, that demonstrated a level of skill that was almost unbelievable. Freya shook her head once in confusion. “He clearly wanted you alive. Just … hurt.”

“They sent out three different search parties for him,” Ford added. “I don’t care who the fuck he thinks he is or if he works for the Prince. That was an attempt on your life. That’s a crime of the highest order.”

Right. Because even if I was here willingly, there was just an attempt made on the Emperor’s daughter’s life. I sighed heavily. “I feel like they might have been planning this. Stringing us along with false hope of a peace treaty.”

“It would have been the smart thing to do,” Ford grumbled. “What doesn’t make any sense is why he didn’t kill you. He could have made it look like an accident, but he made sure you knew it was him then left you alive. You could use the Prince’s slight as motivation to wipe the floor with them.”

I shook my head, my eyebrows creasing together. “We can’t be rash. They might want exactly that. For us to use all our resources on retaliation. They pulled away from camps nearby anyway.”

God, even as I said it, I realized how realistic that sounded. We’d never had to deal with the full weight of Muli’s offenses yet. We’d always just been playing defense.

“You need to focus on getting better,” Freya said, her eyes dropping to my leg. Even now, the limb felt better than it should. It had barely been twenty four hours.

“What happened to him?” I asked while I looked at Soren, uncaring what the verdict was on my own health. I was clearly breathing. My leg felt more like a strained muscle than an open wound.

“Bond Madness,” someone said from across the room, and I looked up to find Esme walking in with a look on her face I’d never seen before. She was hard to read when she wanted to be secretive, but that wasn’t what was happening.

There was emotion there, but it was one I didn’t understand. It almost seemed like she was looking at something she both equally recognized as much as her own face, but that she’d never seen before.

Esme walked up to the bed, hovering closer to Ford than I think she realized. “There isn’t an official word for it, but when the Bond recognizes your Soul Mate in danger…well,” she broke off with a small chuckle, “It goes a little bananas. He carried you on Lucky’s back for two miles, keeping you off the saddle the whole time. He had a few bruised ribs and some torn tendons, but he’ll sleep it off.”

Nausea rolled through my stomach. He’d hurt himself just to protect me. “He’s going to be in so much pain,” I said, my voice breaking.

“I said had ,” Esme responded gently. “He’ll have healed by now.”

“What?” I breathed in relief, not caring how unbelievable that sounded. I just cared that he was okay.

I looked up to find Ford and Freya looking at her in confusion. Esme sighed, then looked at Freya as she explained, “It’s kept very quiet, because God knows someone would try to round us up like animals and experiment if they knew. Paranimas heal very fast.” That much was now explicitly clear. When I’d noticed soreness fleeting faster or my breath catching quicker, I had no reason to focus on it. With my leg … now it was obvious. “But when they are injured protecting their Match, they heal almost immediately.”

“How do you know that?” Ford bit out, a little too harsh. I knew him now, well enough to know that bite was from betrayal, not anger.

Esme kept her eyes on Freya as she said, “Peter told me.”

You could tell that explanation nowhere near satisfied him, but that had to wait. There were so many more questions I needed answered. “When is he going to wake up? Is Clover okay? What about Lucky? I—” I stopped to heave in a breath, and Freya took her chance to answer.

“He’s been out for about twenty hours, you for a little longer. Clover is fine. She just needed a few stitches. Lucky is snapping at everyone who comes within two feet of her. I kept him busy with carrots while I stitched her up.”

I fell forward to give her a hug, trusting she’d return it. I’d never had so many people who seemed to care about my experience before and it was extremely overwhelming.

When I regained my composure and felt the urge to touch Soren again, I leaned back and arranged myself on the bed, ignoring the bite of pain in my leg, so that I could settle myself more firmly against him.

Once I heard his heartbeat, using that to center me, I remembered what else Elijah said to me. “Right before Elijah found me, I heard a landmine. What was that?”

“Soren found it.” Freya’s hand rose up right along with my panic that he’d been hurt. “He was throwing rocks and blew one up. He’s fine.”

My confusion only rose. “Elijah told me that he couldn’t let me save them . As in plural.”

Ford laughed under his breath with a curse. “I’ll go tell Peter. We need to pull back from the search for the moment.”

With a final kiss on my head, Freya rose to follow him.

Esme remained. “He’ll be okay,” she said and when my eyes rose to meet hers, I finally understood.

I wouldn’t press it, not now, but it was clear she was speaking from experience. If she’d succumbed to the same madness Soren had, her story that the Bond hadn’t awoken wasn’t true.

“Thank you,” I said softly, hoping she knew how grateful I was that she showed a moment of honesty with me I was sure wasn’t shared with many others, if anyone.

Esme smiled somewhat sadly, then turned to go, leaving me listening to Soren’s heartbeat against my ear.

For the first time since I’d woken up, the Bond spoke. He’s okay. I’m glad he’s okay.

I let it ramble on happily, knowing that even with everything falling down around us, I wasn’t engaged anymore.

I didn’t have to fight it.

Time slipped away as I listened to Soren’s heartbeat. Steady and strong, just like him. Just like how he was in my life.

God, I was glad he was okay. If he would kindly wake up, I could tell him that, but I would take the small comfort of listening to his heart pump blood through his limbs while I waited.

“You scared the shit out of me,” came Soren’s rumbling voice not a second later.

HE’S AWAKEEEE!!!!! The Bond yelled happily.

I shot off his chest, peering down at him as he slowly blinked open his eyes. When that familiar clear blue finally met my gaze, I crumbled.

Soren’s hand came up to my face, cupping it softly. “Hey, I’m okay. We’re okay.”

I lifted my hand to grab his wrist, holding onto him for dear life. “You were really hurt.”

“You were bleeding,” Soren countered, as he slowly moved his thumb over my cheekbone.

“Well, you were passed out when I woke up.” My first thought was that he was in a coma. That was a minute of terror I never wanted to repeat.

Soren smiled so wide it broke my heart. “Yeah, well, I found you unconscious first. In a field. Alone. Covered in blood.” With each word he said, his voice went hoarser and hoarser.

“I’m sorry,” I said, thinking about how I would have felt in his position. Thank God it was me and not him. I wouldn’t have been able to carry his dead weight back.

I would have tried. And probably killed myself in the process.

Soren breathed a laugh. “Bell, baby, we’re both alive. That’s the good part.”

I realized then that Soren didn’t know what Elijah said. Or that it was him who shot me in the first place. The latter half could wait because I knew if I told him, he’d be up and out of here, taking Lucky to go find him before I could tell him no.

“Actually, I think I know the good part,” I said, lying over his chest and folding my hands right over his collarbones so I could rest my chin there. “The Prince rescinded the engagement.”

Soren’s lips were on mine before I could even finish speaking, making the end of my sentence sound garbled and mushed. His hand threaded into my hair and gripped hard, pulling me even closer to him.

He drank me in for a moment, strong pulls of his mouth that were patient and slow. Then he pulled back, resting his forehead on mine. “I love you. I should have told you that the second you came back from your father. I would have stood by you through anything, but I’m glad you’re mine.”

I planted both my hands on his face, gripping him roughly. “God, Soren, I love you. I know it makes me selfish and horrible but I’m happy we’re both here. I’m happy I got to you even if it’s in the middle of this—”

“Hey, hey,” Soren hushed me softly. “I would have found you. Whether it was when my dumbass head got screwed on straight in court and I stole you away from Ambrose Greene or a thousand different versions of this war, I would have found you.”

My heart swelled to the point of pain. “It wouldn’t have taken much to steal me from him. I had a little bit of a crush on you.”

Soren groaned deep from his chest. “You can’t tell me things like that right now. You’re hurt and I’m already losing my mind.”

“Actually,” I said, adjusting to test whether or not I could put weight on my leg. When I found that I could, the muscle simply jumping like I’d overused it, I swung my other leg over to straddle him. “I’m okay. Apparently we heal fast now.”

Soren laughed low in his throat. “I knew that cut on my forehead went away too fast.”

I frowned, remembering what had given him that cut. Soren’s next laugh was louder, ricocheting happily in my ear as he pulled my face down closer to his. “However,” he said, kissing me once. “I would sooner jump off a cliff than risk hurting you. You got shot.”

His face started to fall from the reminder, so I kissed his frown away. When he looked a lot more pleasant, I pulled back, catching his eyes. There was desire there, clear as day. I knew the emotion was matched in my own eyes.

“Bell,” Soren warned on a groan.

I turned in his hold so that his chest was to my back and curled against him so that my injured leg was on top. He was hard, but I acted like I couldn’t tell as I wiggled back to get comfortable. It took no more than three moves of my hips before Soren slipped his hand over my stomach and pulled me back against him. “You’re testing me.”

“That is the point,” I said with a lyrical lilt in my voice, before sighing further back into him.

Soren’s hand slipped below the waistband of my pants and I smiled wide. “You tell me if you’re hurting,” he commanded.

“Yes, sir,” I teased as his fingers trailed over my center, slipping easily.

That was the final nail in the coffin holding Soren’s control, because the next move of his fingers was rough and commanding, showing me exactly who was touching me.

Even though someone could walk in at any moment, neither of us cared. I was too in love with him and still too scared to consider anything but being as close to him as I possibly could.

“Soren,” I begged, knowing I was ready to take him.

After a quick fumble of clothing and pulling the bed sheets over us, Soren slipped inside me and my whole world seemed to righten.

“I love you,” I all but cried, the force of pleasure and emotion overtaking me as his hips rolled in and his fingers played maddening circles over my core.

“I am never letting you go,” Soren promised darkly. “Ever. I love you.”

That was what it took to send me crashing into pleasure, my whole body spilling with warmth that healed my heart and cut off the distant throbbing in my leg.

When Soren followed after holding back to a maddening place until I finished again, it was on a heavy sigh. Even as I looked at him over my shoulder, his color seemed more lively, more of that healthy golden hue I’d grown used to.

As the sun fled completely and the infirmary was covered in darkness, Soren and I took every chance alone we could get.

We laid together, basking in a few precious moments of having nothing to do but hold one another. Then we dressed and picked at the food left for us.

We had a small argument, mainly fueled by the Bond screaming in both our heads, over making sure the other person had enough food after sleeping for so long.

When I was two seconds away from throwing a bread roll at Soren, he got up and held out his hands, silently signaling for me to stand with him. He held on tight as I tested my stride, finding it as close to normal as I could expect.

I felt so good I bounced between either foot a little, finding no pinching nerves or screaming muscles.

“This is weird,” I said as Soren studied my movements.

“I know. I can’t be mad at it because you’re okay, but yes, this is weird.”

“And you’re okay?” I asked, looking over him for any sign of pain.

Soren nodded. “It just feels like I worked out like hell.” After a heavy breath he continued, “Which is good, because I can go after Elijah’s dumbass as soon as possible.”

“What? How did you know?” I didn’t think mind reading was among the newly discovered traits of paranima s.

Soren pulled me to his chest in a tight hug. “He’s the only one who would have delivered the news about the Prince.”

“He fixed my tourniquet.”

“He did. That might be the only thing saving him from a slow, painful death. Now I just want to punch him.”

“You can do that. But only if I can watch.”

Soren laughed, looking down at me. “Since when did you become so violent.”

My own laugh followed quickly. “You’re rubbing off on me.”

Soren was about to say something else when a scream cut through the infirmary. The sounds of yelling and sharp commands hit us first. The smell of smoke followed soon after.

After a pause to look at one another, we both took off out the doors.

When we broke through them, the entire camp was up in flames.