He didn’t ask why. He didn’t ask what had happened. I didn’t know how much he had worked out the last time I visited him. I didn’t know how informed my mother kept him—what she had told him when she tasked him with going to capture Ash and dose him to get him onto unseelie land.
It was partly why I felt safe enough to come to him when I was so vulnerable. As far as I was aware, Belial had very little interest in court politics. He had no stakes. He just enjoyed his work.
“Ash—The mortal escaped,” I said quietly, because everyone would surely find out in the morning anyway. Besides, I didn’t care. I couldn’t have given a shit if my mother was humiliated by Ash escaping her grasp.
Belial paused, but didn’t look up as he knelt by my leg. “He shed his skin?”
“Yes.”
He gave a slight nod. “Good for him.”
I watched him warily. “You didn’t agree with her plan for him?”
“I don’t know what her plan for him was. None of us do except you and your brothers. But I suspected it would be unpleasant for him.”
I couldn’t tell him what my mother had planned. I couldn’t breathe a word of it to anyone, otherwise I would have told Ash everything the moment he arrived. She had ensured that he would remain in the dark so that he wouldn’t try to figure out a way to escape.
Belial cleared his throat. “You’ll have to remove your trousers, Prince Lonan. Or I can rip the leg off.”
The thought of moving even an inch made my throat tighten.
“Take them off,” I said wearily, my hands shaking as I lowered them to undo the lacing.
Lifting my hips to let him ease them down made my vision go grey for a moment. When the leather brushed against my wound, despite how careful he was being, a choked sound left me before I could stop it.
He left them bunched around my boots at my ankles and swiftly wrapped the bandage around my thigh, long, cold fingers cupping behind my knee to gently lift it. I was already shaking from the pain and blood loss, but a chill was setting in, making me tremble more as cold sweat continued to pour from me.
My trouser leg was hot from my blood as he pulled them back up and laced them briskly.
“Now the shirt,” he said, standing up.
As I fumbled to unbutton it with shaking fingers, he walked over to the water pump and filled a bucket to clean the blood from his hands. By the time he returned, my shirt was a sodden, blood-soaked heap on the floor beside me, and my skin broke out in goosebumps as the chill set in deeper.
He wrapped the bandage around my chest and under and over my arm several times, covering both wounds.
“They will continue to bleed,” he said as he stepped back. “Come back tomorrow night for a second dose. And the night after that.”
I nodded, blinking the sweat from my eyes as I gripped the chair’s armrests, preparing to stand up.
“One moment.” Belial left the room, his bare feet almost silent on the wooden floors.
I took the opportunity to stay where I was, panting weakly as the agony in my wounds worsened. It felt like hot needles stabbing into raw flesh over and over before swimming through my veins to tear my insides to shreds.
Belial reappeared carrying a neat stack of clothing, and I automatically shook my head.
“You can’t put that shirt back on. I’ll throw it in the fire.”
“It’s fine,” I got out, my voice rough.
“It’s no favour, Prince Lonan. I don’t need it. Take the shirt.”
The thought of struggling to pull the sodden fabric of my blood-soaked shirt over my cold skin was almost unbearable. Allowing myself one moment of weakness, I nodded and reached out to take it.
“I’ll return it,” I muttered as I gingerly stood on legs that threatened to buckle immediately.
“No need.” He watched as I pulled it on and fumbled with the buttons. “Try and rest as much as possible. The pain won’t fade for a while, but the poison should at least allow you to sleep through it. Drink plenty of water. Avoid wine.”
That would be no hardship. I never drank, too mistrustful of what my brothers would do if they found me even slightly inebriated. The only time I’d ever gotten drunk was that night with Ash, when we’d had our little Yule celebration. Unimaginable pain filled me at the memory, worse than the searing sting of Belial’s poison in my wounds.