Page 25 of Shadowborne: Reckoning

I caught myself, but Donavyn had already cursed and started to move. I knew I should reassure him, tell him he’d only startled me, that he didn’t have to worry. But I couldn’t push the words past my throat. And I couldn’t move.

Instead, I watched dumbly as, without another word, Donavyn clawed at his clothing, tearing everything off, heedless of buttons or laces, until he was naked, then he crawled straight into that tub with me, ignoring the cold, wrapping his arms around me, curling himself over me, placing himself under the cold stream, and holding me against his body so that I shivered against him.

“I’m n-not… It’s not c-cold—”

“I know,” he whispered, his lips next to my ear.

—Ruin’s mocking laughter fluttering on my cheek. “You have been training—”

I sucked in a breath and tensed, but couldn’t move. I was gripped. Held. Embraced. But not by Ruin.

“I’m here, Bren. You’re safe. I’m here.”

My shaking grew worse. My limbs trembling, teeth chattering. Except I wasn’t cold. I didn’t feel anything except terrified.

“You used to love it when I touched you.”

With a tiny, strangled cry, I buried my face in Donavyn’s chest, clinging to his waist, nails digging into his back as the sobs choked out of me against my will.

And he didn’t move except to stroke my spine and hair. He didn’t speak except to murmur his love. He stood still and steady as a rock, and held me there against him while my mind tumbled back over years, and the sands of life shifted under my feet. I clung like my life depended on it. Because… on some level it did.

And still we stood under that water, holding each other. And he never moved.

“I hate him!” I spat at one point, my voice high and thin. “I hate him so much!”

Donavyn nodded. “And you should.” A shudder rocked through him. But he didn’t let go.

“I don’t want to be afraid anymore!” I whispered later, when the water had warmed and the room was steamy and damp.

Donavyn stroked my wet hair back from my face, and I finally found the courage to look up and meet his eyes that were crinkled with worry and lined with grief. He stroked my hair again.

And as much as I loved him, as much as he helped soothe my fear, I made myself step back, out of his arms.

He let me go the moment I pushed, but his eyes searched mine, his forehead lined with concern.

“Bren, take a breath.”

“I did. But if he’s going to be here, I can’t fall apart every time he… if I’m reminded…”

“Take another one.”

I blinked because my eyes stung, but I wouldn’t cry again. I couldn’t. If I let myself fall into that pit, I’d never claw my way back out. I shook my head and turned from him, reaching for the soap and mindlessly rubbing it on my body and my hair, unable to think beyond the fact that I felt filthy.

When he took the half-step toward me I froze. “No, I need to—”

“Let me,” he rasped, extended an open palm between us, his eyes intent and locked on mine.

I opened my mouth to protest—I can fucking wash myself! But I felt him. I knew him. And he was here.

I reached out one trembling hand and dropped the soap into his grip.

He blew out a breath like he’d been afraid, then stepped right up to my toes and with a slow, deep breath, slipped the other hand to my shoulder, then under my hair, lifting it from where it stuck to the back of my neck, and gently rubbing the soap there.

He was so large I just stood, staring at his chest, right in front of my nose, muscles rippling and nipples tight because we’d stepped out of the water and the air felt cool on wet skin. But he didn’t complain.

Slowly, softly, tenderly—so tenderly—he laid that slick soap on me, lathering it in my hair, then leaning over me to draw it up and down my back, murmuring only to tell me when to move a limb.

‘Hold my waist and turn around me, get under the water,’ he sent gently. And even though it didn’t seem fair, I did as he said, holding onto him like a buoy in a storm, as I stepped carefully around him in the slippery enamel bath, and put my back to the stream of water still pouring from above us.