Chapter 314: Wives Hold a War Council of Their Own (5)
Sira’s grin widened.
"We heard. We’re choosing to ignore the medical reality for the next hour."
Misha’s eyes moved over the bandages with clinical attention that did nothing to hide the heat underneath.
"The healers said the ribs are stable if you don’t do anything stupid. I’m defining ’stupid’ very carefully tonight."
Thora leaned in and bit the side of his neck, not hard enough to break skin, just hard enough to make her point.
"You left us here counting days. You came back looking like someone used you as a practice dummy for a mutated emperor. The least you can do is lie there and let us remind you what you came home to."
Kane’s good hand settled on Thora’s hip almost automatically.
His body was already reacting, heat low in his gut, the familiar pull, but every deeper breath still pulled sharp warnings across the bound ribs, and the braced arm was a useless dead weight.
"I want to," he said, voice rough. "I’m not going to pretend I don’t. But if I try anything more athletic than breathing right now, my body is going to start listing organ failure in real time."
Sira crawled higher up his legs, careful of the worst bruises, and rested her chin on his stomach, looking up at him through orange lashes.
"Then don’t be athletic. Just lie there. We’ll do the work. You can look pretty and damaged and let us take the edge off."
Misha’s hand slid across his chest, avoiding the fresh scars, fingertips tracing the line of an older one with deliberate slowness.
"She’s not wrong. We can be gentle. Relatively."
Thora snorted.
"I don’t do gentle. But I can do careful. There’s a difference."
Kane let his head fall back against the pillows and laughed once, short, pained, genuine.
"You’re all insane. I missed you."
"Obviously," Sira said, and pressed an open-mouthed kiss just above the waistband of the light sleeping trousers someone had bullied him into.
The heat of her mouth made his hips twitch before he could stop them. The movement pulled hard across the ribs.
Misha immediately pressed him flat again with one hand on his good shoulder.
"None of that. You move, I stop. Those are the rules."
Thora’s hand slid higher on his thigh, thumb brushing dangerously close to where the fabric had started to tent.
"Look at that. The spirit is willing. The body is just under temporary occupation by medical reality."
Kane’s voice came out strained.
"You’re enjoying this too much."
"We’ve had days of wine and worry and soft elves," Thora answered.
"Watching you try not to get hard while three of us are on this bed is the first real entertainment I’ve had since you left."
Sira licked a short, deliberate line up the center of his stomach and smiled when the muscles jumped.
"We could take the edge off for you. Hands only. Mouths if you’re very polite. You don’t have to do anything except stay still and not tear anything important."
Kane’s good hand found Sira’s hair and rested there, not pushing, just holding.
"If any of you start something I can’t finish without ripping half these bandages off, I am going to be very unpleasant in the morning."
Misha leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth, soft and lingering.
"Then we’ll stop before that point. Consider it a down payment. You owe us a full night once the body finishes putting you back together."
Thora’s fingers finally brushed over the hard length of him through the fabric, slow and proprietary.
"A full night," she agreed. "Maybe two. You’ve got arrears."
Kane’s breath left him in a rough exhale as Sira’s mouth moved lower and Misha’s hand joined Thora’s, the three of them coordinating with the ease of long practice.
They kept it carefully limited: friction and heat and the wet slide of mouths that never quite took him deep enough to make him forget the ribs, hands that stroked with maddening patience while he was forced to stay almost still.
Every time his hips tried to lift, Misha’s palm pressed him down. Every time a sharper sound escaped him, Thora made a low, satisfied noise against his throat.
It was explicit, frustrating, and deliberately incomplete.
After a stretch of time that felt both too long and not nearly long enough, Sira lifted her head, lips shiny, and rested her cheek against his hip.
"He’s being very good."
Misha’s voice was warm with lazy satisfaction.
"He’s being medically supervised. There’s a difference."
Thora bit his earlobe once, gently, and then spoke against the shell of it.
"Sleep. Recover. And listen carefully, Kane."
He turned his head enough to meet her eyes. T
he usual hard edge was still there, but underneath it was the same rough affection that had survived every campaign and every new name added to the bed.
"Once that recovery power of yours is back," Thora said, "you’re going to break these beds with the three of us. Properly. No braces. No ’I almost died yesterday.’ No holding back because someone is watching the door. You’re going to make up for the days and the silence and the only-two nonsense. Clear?"
Kane’s mouth curved despite the residual ache and the unfinished heat still running under his skin.
"Clear. When the body says I’m cleared for heavy activity, these beds are finished. You three first. Everything else can wait."
Sira made a happy, muffled sound against his hip.
Misha kissed the hinge of his jaw once more and then settled against his good side with the air of someone claiming territory for the night.
Thora stayed where she was, hand still resting possessively on him, and watched until his breathing started to even out under the combined weight of exhaustion, residual pain, and the deliberate, unfinished attention they had given him.
Outside in the corridor, the two elven attendants who had drawn the short straw for night watch exchanged a long look.
The older one whispered,
"They didn’t even break anything yet."
The younger one stared at the closed door with the expression of a woman recalculating every life choice that had led her to this hallway.
"Give them time. The chief is only mostly broken. Once he’s cleared, the furniture is going to start praying again."
