Free Web NovelChapter 235: Chapter 235
He was halfway back to her side when his attention snagged on something resting on the nightstand.
Circe’s journal.
It sat there abandoned, the leather cover familiar to him. Curiosity nudged him off course, urging his steps in its direction before he could stop himself. He bent and picked it up, his fingers brushing over the smooth surface as memories stirred.
He remembered the last time he had held one of her journals, how she had caught him with it in his hands and how fury had flashed in her eyes. That had been when she still hated him, when every interaction between them had been sharp-edged and brittle, limited to glares thrown from opposite ends of a room.
Things were different now.
Ill-advised as it was, he opened the journal. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
He flipped through the pages slowly, one after another, and quickly realized that nearly every page held a sketch. She rarely wrote in these particular journals; instead, she drew. Animals filled many of the pages, birds frozen in flight, horses drawn with such careful attention to detail. Inanimate objects appeared just as often: flowers, goblets, windows, the fountain in the center of the garden.
She occasionally drew faces, though those were few and far between compared to everything else. From what he could tell, she had only sketched two people repeatedly. One was her little brother, rendered from different angles. The other was a woman who bore a strong resemblance to Circe herself, same eyes, same face shape. Ragnar had no trouble guessing that this must be her mother.
There were multiple sketches of the woman scattered throughout the journal. The people she drew, Ragnar realized, were not casual subjects. They were the ones who held a special place in her life.
He reached the final page at last.
There, unfinished, was a drawing unlike the others.
Only the eyes and brows had been completed, the rest of the face left blank as though she had been interrupted. Yet Ragnar recognized it immediately. She had not included his scar but the shape of the eyes, the arch of the brows, the intensity captured in them left no doubt.
It was him. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
She had placed his likeness among those she cherished.
The feeling that surged through him was overwhelming, a heady mixture of happiness and relief that left his chest aching. Happiness, because she saw him as more. Relief, because he knew now that he mattered to her just like she mattered to him.
And love.
He loved her so fiercely, as though his heart might split under the weight of it. He glanced back toward the bed, to where she lay so still, and silently urged her to wake. To open those beautiful grey eyes and look at him again so he could finally breathe out the breath he felt trapped in his lungs.
But her eyes remained closed.
She did not stir.
Carefully, he closed the journal. After one last glance at the cover, he opened one of the drawers in the nightstand and placed it inside, as though tucking away something precious.
***
When Circe woke, she did so to a quiet, dimly lit room.
The only sound was the soft crackle of burning wood coming from the hearth, its gentle warmth seeping through the air. For a moment, she lay still, disoriented, her mind sluggish as it struggled to catch up with her body.
She became aware of pressure next, a hard body behind her, solid and warm. Strong arms were curled around her, holding her close, possessive and protective all at once. She was pressed so firmly against him that she could feel the steady rhythm of his breathing at her back.
The familiarity of it brought a strange comfort. She scarcely registered the strength of his hold at first, only the safety it conveyed, as though he feared she might be taken from him if he loosened his grip even slightly.
She shifted, attempting to move her arm.
That small movement was enough to alert him that she was awake.
Ragnar stiffened. He looked down at her, and instead of releasing her, he only tightened his hold, drawing her closer still.
Circe did not protest. She let him hold her however he wished, offering no complaint. Her throat was dry, her thoughts slow, and she focused instead on the warmth of him and the steady presence anchoring her.
"How are you feeling?" he asked quietly. The concern in his voice was unmistakable. "After the first day of you being unresponsive, I feared the worst."
Eventually, Ragnar loosened his grip just enough for her to turn her head and see his face.
He looked exhausted.
Dark shadows lingered beneath his eyes, and his features were drawn tight with strain. He looked like a man who had not known rest in far too long, and guilt stirred in her chest as she imagined the hours he must have spent watching over her.
"I’m alright," she said, though her voice came out rough from disuse.
Then his words caught up to her.
"How long has it been?" she asked.
"Tomorrow would have made it the third day," he replied. "I sent someone to fetch the physician before you woke, to check how your body was faring."
That order had been given only minutes earlier. The physician should have arrived by now.
Circe’s condition had made Ragnar not only fiercely protective but impatient as well.
He had offered the physician who had attended to her temporary room and board within the estate. It had been an easy decision, far more convenient to keep the man close at hand than to risk a nearly hour-long journey into town and back every time Circe required medical attention. Ragnar refused to take chances where her well-being was concerned.
"What about the people that attacked us?" Circe asked softly, her gaze never leaving his face.
"Dead," Ragnar replied immediately. "I killed them, so you do not have to worry."
Even as the words left his mouth, his hand lifted instinctively, his thumb smoothing over the small crease that had formed between her brows.
At first, he had assumed the ambush to be yet another of Narfor’s relentless assassination attempts. But no matter how many times Ragnar replayed the events in his mind, certain details refused to align.
