The voice asking about Voss's watch belonged to Rhys. Felicity recognized it when she came downstairs with clean water the next morning. There was the man who'd sat beside her and told her she mattered, waiting in the narrow space between the stair rail and the wall. He had brought his own cup. She wished, later, that he had actually wanted water.
"You've done enough nursing for Silver," he told her. "Come sit with me awhile. A woman like you could do a man more good in bed than standing around with a pitcher."
She almost laughed from sheer surprise. He'd listened to her talk about the things she'd done as a child to keep a place at somebody's table. He'd heard all that and decided he'd paid enough for the next course by giving her some bread.
"I liked you better last night, Rhys. I want to get by, and I'm carrying enough cold water to make that a truly unpleasant experience for you." He took half a step. It cleared space for the pitcher and left his hip in the way of hers.
Voss came through the delivery entrance behind him with Kai and their muddy patrol boots. He took one look at the angle of Rhys's body. "Give her the whole damn staircase," he said. That got Rhys moving. Felicity carried her own pitcher past him without spilling a drop, although she regretted that last part a little.
"Thanks for noticing," she told Voss. "I was going to be furious if I had to turn sideways to spare his feelings."
"I heard him ask about my watch last night. Thought he wanted to trade a shift. I'll be correcting that mistake once I've got these boots off." He looked down at the water. "I hope you'll still sit with somebody who offers you bread."
She let him drink from her cup. "I suppose that depends what he's hoping I'll do with it." The wolf choked, and she got to take one nice thing away from that conversation after all.
She spent the afternoon checking dressings. Most of the survivors accepted a clean bandage or a place on tomorrow's list. When a young rat beastman slid off his seat, shaking with fever, she remembered exactly what she'd said yesterday about being the one who decided. She set the pitcher down and caught him before his head hit the floor, banging her hip on the stair rail as she lowered him. She cooled him a little at a time while Victor cleaned an angry cut on his leg. The man opened his eyes and asked where his brother was. Once he could take water, she stopped.
When she tried to get up, her legs weren't ready. Victor caught her under the arms. He carried her to the quiet landing on the service stairs and sat her down with her back to the warm brick. "I wish you'd save that for people I could count on to carry you back," he said. It came out rough. His hands had gone cold around hers.
"I wanted him to get to ask for his brother. I got what I wanted." She drank half the cup before she gave it back. "If I'd left him down there so you wouldn't worry, we'd both have had a pretty poor opinion of me afterward."
Victor sat with his wings folded awkwardly against the rail. "I can be scared and still be glad you did it. Give me a minute to get both those things going at once."
She rested with him until the cup was empty and her hands were steady enough to button his shirt where she'd caught it on the way up. Instead she undid the next button. They'd hardly had a private minute since they came to the bank. Last night he'd sat through her last patient's complaints and brought her water without once mentioning that his own dinner had gone cold.
"Now that we've got a minute, where does this stairwell vent go?" she asked. It took a second for the question to land. Then he stood, shut the heavy fire door, and slid the bolt. Only the short flight up to their own landing remained open.
"Solid brick on every side. I'd have brought you here earlier if I'd known a polite tour of the air ducts was all it took."
Felicity drew him back by the open shirt. She wanted his mouth, the weight of him against her, and a few minutes when nobody needed the use of her hands for anything quite so noble. He gathered her up as she asked, settling her hips against the wall with a folded jacket behind her back. His mouth found the sensitive fur inside her ear. When he asked what she wanted, she could tell him with her whole body steady in his hands.
She had changed into a soft dress from the clothes they'd brought to the bank, and she thanked whoever had donated it for having the good sense to hate buttons. His fingers slipped under the hem and moved her underwear aside. She opened his belt, drew him inside her and wrapped her legs around his hips. The first slow stroke wrung a sound from him that she'd been too shy to ask for the first time they'd slept together. She wanted to hear it again. This time she told him so.
When her legs tired, he lowered her to the jacket. She braced her palms against the step above it while his warm hand steadied her hip. He stroked the base of her tail, found the angle that made her press back against him, and bent over her shoulder. "Keep doing that, little fox. At this rate we'll end up practicing for a whole clutch of eggs."
She had one wild second to picture what the hell she'd tell a pharmacist before pleasure caught up with her and took the words straight out of her mouth. She came with his name against her wrist. He bit down lightly on her shoulder as he finished inside her, then stayed with her until she was ready to stand. She let him straighten her dress. The two buttons she'd undone on his shirt stayed that way.
They slept in the vault that night. Before dawn Victor took her up the service stairs, past the cubs' quiet door, and asked if she wanted to stay at the bank after the way she'd been treated. He'd take her out himself if she wanted to leave. She told him she wanted to stay. There was one other thing she wanted, and he deserved to hear it first.
"Remember what I said I'd do if I wanted Voss to come through that door?" she asked. Victor's eyes held hers as she put her hand on the latch to the roof. "I'm ready to open it."