Page 165 of Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales

She wanted to remember.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Roremar

Not being allowed to kiss her was the sweetest torture derived just for him. A vice he never knew he needed until it was denied.

But that was her boundary, and Roremar would never force Emmeline across a line she wasn’t comfortable with. It would ruin them both. Even as the thought crossed his mind, a soft laugh echoed it, hardening his resolve.

“You’ll stay?” he asked again to be sure. He could see the instinct to bolt in her eyes, the gentle clench of her fingers through his. She wanted to be here, but there was a part of her—the little girl who had everyone close to her ripped away—that told her she couldn’t.

“I will,” she repeated, and Fates be damned, Roremar’s spirit lit up. For one night, he could have her. Not all of her, but he’d take what she offered.

He led her across the room, each step heavy with intimacy that ran deeper than anything they’d just done in the bathing chamber.

When they stopped beside the bed, the top layers of blankets rumpled, Emmeline’s eyes tracked over him. His sculpted shoulders, the line of his jaw. Every inch, as if she was truly letting herself look after denying that desire for so long.

It budded in the air, a crackle of a newly lit flame, a star threatening to fall from the sky.

She wanted him as desperately as he wanted her. But they couldn’t.

Still, that didn’t stop her from reaching out and lifting the hem of his tunic. From tugging it over his head so he stood before her in nothing but his unbuttoned pants, hastily pulled over his ass after he’d made a mess in his damn hand. And she stood with only a thin silk robe pulled around her, so undone as she looked him over.

“What are you doing, Huntress?” His voice was gravelly as she pressed a hand to his chest.

“Studying.”

He laughed. “Of course.”

He’d be her eternal subject if the Fates deemed him so lucky.

They won’t, he reminded himself. The Fates were never kind to him.

Gently, she dragged her nails over his tattoos. The letters down his ribs, the sigils on his forearm, the numerals and wings. Every one of them. She took her time, studying the delicate lines and intricate imagery.

And every time her fingers stroked his skin, he tried not to shiver. Forced himself not to lean into her touch. Though her hands on his body were fucking temptation, an act that would drive him to ruin, he’d gladly take that end to relish in her touch in a way he feared he never would again.

He wished he could see into her mind, could gather those pieces no one got and finish building his understanding of her. He was so close, he was sure of it. After the Snake Charmer and everything she’d confessed—her mother and sister and past—and after the walls they’d obliterated tonight, the image of the woman before him was nearly complete. There was just a little more she was holding back. He wanted to taste those truths off her lips so desperately, the thought threatened to strangle him.

Fingers drifting over the letters stretching down the side of his ribs, she asked, “Will you tell me about them?” She blinked those wide hazel eyes up at him, every range of color visible in hesitant streaks. With the moonlight from the window spilling over her, she was an ethereal kind of beautiful. Something unreal and untouchable.

Roremar lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the tips of her fingers. If he couldn’t touch her how he ached to, at least he could do that.

Against her skin, he whispered, “Of course.”

Taking her hand, Roremar pulled her down to the bed. He leaned his back against the wall beside the window, pulling Emmeline into his lap so she was as close as possible. Moonlight spilled across the comforter, music and shouts drifting up from the street below.

Roremar started simple, holding his arm out before her. “The sigils are for my siblings.”

Her eyes lit up as they drank in each, the five designs spread across his arms, some entwined. “Aevollon and Serchus,” she recited, tracing them. “Hyllara and Anhala.” Her eyes flashed to his. “That’s Siena, isn’t it?”

“Of course.” He laughed.

“She’s fiery. You’re in trouble with her.”

“I fear it every day.” His chest tightened at the pure wonder in her voice over his siblings. Was she thinking of her own sister? Worried where she was in the world?

“If all of their Fate ties have emerged, why aren’t they at the Academy?”