Page 305 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

Then I was sobbing against my knees as the water slammed into my back and neck, streaming down my spine while the hot spray stripped me bare. Every fear, every ache tore from my mouth and burned down my cheeks in a torrent of long-pent-up tears.

Eventually, I found myself lying against the marble in a puddle of water, fighting to steady my breathing. It could’ve been worse. So, so much worse. He’d gotten to me just in time. But the more I tried to anchor in that gratitude, the more numb I felt.

Eventually, the shower went cold.

I didn’t move.

Couldn’t if I wanted to. My bones were suddenly immovable steel, my muscles unresponsive, my mind burrowing deeper and deeper still until I found the radiant blue of the glacier, and I buried myself within the promise of its haunted silence.

The shower stopped.

Bare feet stepped into my vision.

I was lifted into muscular arms and enveloped in warmth.

Set upon a rug so plush, I wanted nothing more than to curl up on it.

A mammoth shirt was yanked over my head, and I was hauled to my feet, coming eye-to-eye with the rich brown eyes of my enemy.

My enemy.

My enemy.

The one that couldn’t help but save me, no matter how desperately I wanted him dead.

Gaze locked on mine, sorrow painted across his face like a second skin, his shadows skimmed over my soaked edges beneath the shirt hanging to my thighs. Those silky shadows caught the shredded dress and gently pulled it away beneath the supple fabric.

I was too trapped in the rawness of his gaze to look.

He snatched something plaid from the shelf beside us and knelt before me. Holding his evaluative stare, I let him lift one foot and then the other, his shadows doing the rest by gliding the boxer briefs up and over my hips.

How… mortal.

I blinked. “Where does one even find plaid boxer briefs?”

Surprise flashed through his eyes and he shook his head, a humorless laugh huffing from his chest. In the next breath, I was back in his arms, all my fight abandoned on the shower floor.

When he tossed back the thick onyx comforter, I let him set me on his bed, let him gingerly tuck the linens around my body.

He sat down beside me, his head falling into his hands.

Shaking. His hands were shaking.

I rolled over, not wanting to see his trembling or to think about what it meant.

He killed for me today.

He’d known I poisoned the wine that hurt so many of his people, and still he’d killed for me. Brutally. More animal than man.

Monsters, both of us, I supposed.

I curled into a ball, bowing my head against my knees as silent sobs rocked my body.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, so soft, so ragged I barely heard it. “I failed you tonight.”

When the monster crawled onto his bed beside me, the comforter between us, I let him stroke my hair, let his calloused fingers soothe me into a fitful sleep, and I dreamed of sunny beaches and spiraling shells.

I woke to an empty room, jolting upright like I’d been electrocuted.