Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: May I Stay

She woke in Maud's bed with a wet cloth on her forehead and Dorian in the chair beside it.

He had not shaved.

His bandaged back was turned away from the lamp, and he sat very straight, because leaning back hurt too much.

He had been watching her breathe.

"How long?" she said. Her voice was a rasp.

"Two nights. Maud says the poison was a weak dose. She says you'll cough for a week and then you'll be fine."

"A week."

"She says the Stone is holding the worst of it off."

Rosalind turned her head on the pillow.

There was a basin on the floor with red water in it, and a stack of clean cloths.

"Who did that?"

"Me."

"You can't even lie flat."

"I can wring out a cloth."

She laughed, and it turned into coughing.

He was at her side before she finished.

He held a cup of Maud's tea to her mouth with one hand and rubbed her back with the other, slowly, between her shoulder blades.

His palm was so warm that she let her eyes close.

"You went in there alone," he said quietly.

"Yes."

"I stood on the porch for nine hours. I watched the path down to the ford." He swallowed. "I did not follow you. I want you to know it was the hardest thing I have ever done."

"I know. Perrin told me."

"Perrin tells you everything."

"Perrin's my Beta."

"I know," Dorian said. "He should be."

She opened her eyes and looked at him.

His were still flat, grey and tired, with no Alpha light in them.

But they were the eyes of a man who was looking only at her.

"Say what you came to say," she said.

"I didn't come to say anything."

"Dorian."

"I'm not allowed to say it."

"Which one?"

"The one I want to say most."

She understood.

Her heart began to knock against her ribs.

"Come home," she said.

He went rigid.

"I'm the one saying it," Rosalind said. "Not you. I'm telling you to say it back. To ask me. Properly, with no voice behind it, as a man who knows what he's asking."

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