Perfect Master(18)

“I’m anxious to see what they did.” He raised his hand halfway to his face then laid it at his side once more.

“I know. So am I, Master.” Just yesterday the surgeons had reconstructed his facial bones, so he was still groggy from painkillers. “We must be patient. The bandages will come off soon enough.” She looked at his head and neck, swathed in heavy dressings that left only his nostrils, mouth and eye uncovered. “I understand how annoying it must be, much like the hood you used to wear. You should be grateful that you can eat, even if the food must fit through a straw.”

“Six weeks seems a very long time. I could take the hood off to eat and sleep.” He sounded like a petulant child, but Emerald saw the way his mouth turned up in an effort at a smile.

Using one gentle finger she traced the smooth line of his lips. “Be good. Would you like another sip of broth?”

“I’d like to taste your luscious mouth, love.”

She bent and kissed him, though the dressings kept her from getting as close as she’d have liked.

* * * * *

Six weeks later Arik held his breath as the surgeon snipped away the last of the dressings from his head while he sat before a mirrored wall. “I think you will be pleased, sire.”

Pak Song had installed and adjusted the bionic arm and hand a few minutes earlier. By all the gods, it felt real, as though it were a part of him. He felt Emerald’s hand on his shoulder, inhaled the sultry, flowery scent of her as his nose was freed. Slowly, with wonder, he raised the hand across his chest and found her hand. Felt it. Small, soft and delicate—like her. A tear rolled down his cheek.

The dressings finally were gone. He closed his eye, felt both lids close. “I am afraid to look.”

Emerald squeezed his shoulder then entwined her fingers with his. “All but the deepest of the scars are gone, Master. The surgeons have performed a miracle.”

He’d never been more frightened, even when he lay in that hospital bed on Eastphalia, not knowing whether he would live or die. Clutching his mate’s hand, he made himself look closely in the mirror for the first time since he’d beheld his monstrous image soon after his maiming.

His face was symmetrical…smooth but for one faint, jagged scar that ran from his hairline to the spot where his neck met his shoulder. It wasn’t perfect, or even as near so as his undamaged left side. But he no longer had a sunken cheek or a gaping hole where his right eye had once been. His eyelid opened and closed to reveal a white sphere, though, not a working prosthetic eye. With an eye patch…

“You said you wanted to wear an eye patch, sire,” the chief surgeon said, sounding as though he thought Arik might order him punished for not having done a good enough job. “Her highness refused to allow me to do further surgeries to reconstruct muscle functionality that would have let the prosthesis move in synch with your good eye.” He stepped up, dangling a black leather eye patch from his trembling hand.

When Arik grinned he noticed his mouth no longer tightened around the right corner. “Hand it here. And stop shaking. I am very happy with what you’ve done. The king will also be pleased.”

Very pleased indeed. He will be able to look at me and not see the full result of his brutality. “Emerald, have Hikaru summon my father. He will want to see the results of Pak Song and the surgeons’ efforts.” When he let her go he tried out his bionic hand, using it along with his natural one to position the patch over the prosthetic eye and adjust the elastic band at the back of his head.

When the king burst in, Hikaru at his heels, Arik turned to face him while the members of the medical team, from chief surgeon and cyborg maker to lowliest technician, prostrated themselves. Emerald is right. There is too much obeisance going on around here. “Get up, all of you. King Gawain should be bowing to you. You have saved him from the misery of looking, for the rest of his life, on the results of his fearing a war, should he have died leaving more than one legitimate heir to the Diamond Throne.”

“My son is right. Rise. I owe you more than I can repay.” Tears flowed down the king’s cheeks as he looked at Arik’s face. “Thank you.” Grasping Arik by both shoulders, he kissed first one cheek and then the other. “I appreciate what you’ve done for me.”

Arik placed his hands on his father’s shoulders. “Not for you, Father. For our subjects. And for my princess.” At that thought, his mood softened. “Perhaps for you, a little, because you having brought her to me has given me happiness I never expected to experience when I returned from Eastphalia. Now I can begin taking over some of your duties so you can enjoy your old age.”