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“Are you alright?” he asks, his voice barely audible over the roar of the shower.
Swallowing, I nod and lean against his larger body for support. For the hundredth time, my mind runs through my encounter with Dolly and all the things I learned from Locke.
“Do you think I could have saved her?” The words escape my lips before I can stop them, laden with the weight of regret.
“You know the answer to that.” Xero wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me into his side.
“I don’t know… You were a child assassin, and you turned out okay?”
“What I went through was a picnic compared to the years Dolly suffered under Father,” he says. “No amount of reasoning can compete with fourteen years of trauma, manipulation, and abuse.”
“Yeah,” I reply with a sigh.
“My father had her channeling all her anger and resentment onto you for a reason.”
I open my eyes and gaze up into Xero’s face. The blood encrusted in his hair and skin has gone, leaving him as starkly beautiful as ever, with his pale-blue eyes and chiseled features.
He runs gentle fingers through my curls. “They built you up as a scapegoat to make her cooperative. Maybe that was the onlyway she could survive. If you had hesitated for a minute with Dolly, you would be dead.”
My throat tightens. “Maybe,” I reply. “But the animosity started before we even went to Three Fates.”
Xero slips his fingers beneath the collar of my robe. By now, the fabric has loosened its hold on my skin, and he peels it down my arms, letting the water wash over my shoulders.
“How was she before your stepfather started framing you for breaking her things?”
“We weren’t close before then. She had her friends. I had my books.”
“Those men took an innocent girl and twisted her into the type of person who relished other people’s pain. They tried to do the same to you, but failed.”
I dip my head. They turned me into a killer, but at least I have a moral code.
“Maybe,” I say again.
“Let me take care of you,” he murmurs, his voice a soothing balm to my frayed nerves.
With tender fingers, he eases off the robe, exposing me to the warm cascade. His gaze roams over my body, lingering on each bruise and scar, and his features tighten with anger. The air thickens, charged with his silent rage.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“You’re injured.”
My hands travel to the finger marks on my neck. “It’s nothing.”
“I did that.”
“Xero—” I place my fingers over his lips, silencing his protest. “It was the drugs. You were half-crazed.”
“Did I hurt you?”
Shaking my head, I smile. “I’ve trained with you at your best. It was easy enough to dodge.”
His gaze pierces mine, desperate to uncover any trace of concealed pain. “You can’t have been successful with those bruises.”
“I took a risk and let you grab me to get through to you.”
He squeezes his eyes shut. “That was dangerous.”
“You thought I was Dolly. I was safe when you realized it was me.”
