The Rose & the Dagger (The Wrath and the Dawn #2) - Renee Ahdieh Page 0,22
would have added greatly to his satisfaction with a sharp quip that would have bettered yet worsened the situation all at once.
He strode from the foot of the bed to Vikram’s side. “Is there anything you need of me?”
Vikram leaned back against the pillows and eyed him with his usual uncompromising stare. “A new arm.”
At this, Khalid almost smiled. “Alas, I need both of mine.”
“For what?” Vikram grunted, affecting a look of disdain.
“To fight.”
“You lie. Like the posturing peacock you are.”
Khalid’s eyebrows rose. “I never lie.”
“A lie.” The Rajput’s mustache twitched, his gaze dark.
“Never . . . is perhaps the wrong word.”
“Seldom is better.”
“Seldom, then.” Khalid offered him the hint of a smile.
Vikram exhaled, smoothing his right hand across his short beard. “I cannot fight anymore, meraa dost.” It was a difficult admission. His eyes closed for an instant.
“Now that is a lie,” Khalid said without hesitation. “The faqir told me your shoulder would heal in time. It may not return to what—”
“I cannot feel anything in my left hand.”
Truly, Khalid hated surprises. With the fire of a thousand suns, he abhorred them.
His gaze drifted to Vikram’s left hand, lying prone atop the linen sheets. It looked the same as always. Merciless. Inveterate. Invulnerable.
Yet not.
He knew words of reassurance were unnecessary. Vikram was not a fool, nor was he in need of coddling. Nevertheless, Khalid could not ignore his inclination to state the obvious.
“It is too soon to pass judgment on the matter.” He refrained from speaking in a gentle tone, for he knew Vikram would despise it. “Feeling may return to your hand in time.”
“Even if it does, I will never fight as I once did.” There was no sentiment behind the response. Just a simple statement of fact.
Despina shifted in her seat—the second sign of discomfort Khalid had seen from the handmaiden since his arrival.
Though this puzzled him, Khalid granted Vikram’s words their requisite consideration. “Again, it is too soon to pass judgment on the matter.”
“That whelp used obsidian arrowheads.” Vikram’s fury cut dark fissures across his forehead and deep valleys down the sides of his face. “They shattered the bones. Beyond repair.”
Despite his wish to fan the flames, Khalid tamped down his ire. It would serve no purpose to fuel rage. Instead his features fell into a mask of false composure. A mask he wore well.
“I heard as much.”
“I cannot serve as your bodyguard with only one good arm,” Vikram ground out in pointed fashion.
“I disagree.”
“As I knew you would.” He frowned. “But it matters not, meraa dost.”
“And why is that?” Khalid said.
Again, the handmaiden shifted in her seat.
Vikram eased farther into his pillows, the edges of his expression smoothing. “Because I will not be less than what I am. And you will not force me to be less.” He did not even bother to challenge Khalid with his unyielding stare.
“What is it you need of me, my friend?” Khalid repeated his earlier query, though it sounded entirely different now.
The Rajput paused. “I wish to leave the city. To start a life of my own.”
“Of course.” Khalid nodded. “Whatever you need.”
“And to take a wife.”
More surprises. Would it never end?
“Is there someone you have in mind?” Khalid’s expression remained careful. Controlled.
Vikram leveled an almost mocking gaze at his king. Then his features shifted slowly to the pouting butterfly at his bedside.
To Khalid’s best spy.
Apparently, Khalid’s abhorred surprises were only beginning.
Try as he might, Khalid could not hide the look of disbelief etching its way across his face. “And are you amenable to this marriage?” he asked the handmaiden in a voice barely above a whisper.
When her pretty lips started to pucker into an amused moue and her eyes began to shimmer like wells full of unshared secrets, it took all of Khalid’s willpower not to lose his temper and turn from the room in a mindless rage.
“Very well, then. Far be it from me to understand the machinations of love.” Khalid shook his head, banishing all evidence of his incredulity. “Is there anything else?”
“There is . . . one thing more,” the Rajput grumbled, almost as an afterthought.
Khalid waited, hoping it was not another surprise.
“Despite my choice of a wife,”—the warrior eyed his future bride, who returned his look with a knowing smile—“I do not wish to become the subject of rumors.”
“I understand,” Khalid replied. “I will not discuss these matters with anyone. You have my word.”
Vikram nodded curtly. “We will depart in two days. After that, all else is in the hands of the gods.”