My Mate Exiled Me for Being Weak, Then Couldn't Smell Me in His Dungeon novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Not Yet

"Get up," I said.

Roan lifted his head.

"Ilsa..."

"Not here, and not like this. Get up."

He rose slowly, wincing at his rib.

"Not yet," I said, quietly enough that only he could hear it. "I'm not saying no. I'm saying not yet."

His throat moved.

"I'll wait."

"You don't get to decide how long."

"No," he said. "You do."

I turned my back on him and walked across the yard to where the freed rogues stood in a huddle with their wrists raw.

I had work to do.

They put the wounded in the great hall because it was the only room big enough.

There were thirty of them by midnight, the eleven from the border, and the ones the Crown Guard had beaten at the gate, and two of the guards themselves, who had been hit by Roan.

I knelt on the flagstones with my sleeves rolled and put my hands on a boy's broken arm.

The white came up.

It hurt less each time.

The bone knit under my palms with a soft grinding feel, and the boy stared at me with his mouth open.

"You can stop looking," I told him.

"Sorry, my lady."

"Don't call me that."

"What should we call you?"

"Ilsa."

He nodded, solemn.

I went on to the next.

My father stood over me for an hour with his sword drawn, guarding a hall that no longer needed guarding.

"Papa," I said finally. "Sit down."

"I'm fine."

"You're bleeding through your sleeve."

He looked at it.

"So I am."

I healed him last of the guards, and his hand closed over mine.

"I kept your room the way you left it," he said. "Every day for three years, I dusted it myself."

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