Filthy Rich Fae

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I waited for the guilt to come, waited to feel some pity or remorse for the redcaps who had attacked me. It didn’t. Even though I had glimpsed only a sliver of the merciless justice being meted out. It bothered me even less when I braved the mirror and saw proof of their intentions. The bluish hint of fingerprints bruised my neck, sore but not nearly as painful as the cut on my collarbone. It had clotted, but there was a patch of raw pink where my flesh… I looked away. But not before acid burned up my throat and I lurched over the sink. After, I scrubbed my teeth until my gums were raw, until I tasted only mint.

I peeled my filthy dress off and turned the shower on to its hottest setting. I was dimly aware of the sting as water hit my fresh wound, but I didn’t care. I needed to wash this away. I scrubbed at my skin under the blistering water until even the hotel’s boiler failed and the shower turned cold. My heart had calmed a little by the time I slipped into a silk robe, but I knew it wouldn’t settle until he returned, until I saw him for myself.

It was past three when the door to his wing opened. Light spilled in from the foyer, haloing his massive frame as he stalked inside. For a moment, I didn’t breathe, didn’t move, as I took him in.

He was covered in blood. Black, oily patches of it stained his white shirt, practically dripping off its bloody cuffs. It coated his hands, his neck. I scanned him, looking for signs of injury. There were none. He didn’t say hello, didn’t even acknowledge my existence as he headed toward his room. I was right behind him, following closely as he continued into the attached bath. He walked to the sink, turned on the faucet, and began to wash his hands, the water running red on the stark porcelain. His palms grated the soap, his head hanging, black hair falling around his face and glamour fading as he scoured. But darkness clung to him, his tattoos reeling across his skin like they were being chased by those shadows.

“That’s a lot of blood.” The words were barely a whisper. I wasn’t certain he could hear them over the running water.

He shrugged. “Don’t worry, princess. It’s not mine.”

There was no hint of amusement. Only flat, endless rage.

“Because that makes me feel so much better.” I settled against the wall, studying the blood splattered on his neck, waiting for him to tell me what had happened after he’d sent me home. He kept washing long after his hands were clean, until I finally leaned over and shut off the faucet.

He still didn’t look up as he braced his hands on either side of the sink. I stepped closer like I was approaching a wild animal. A copper tang hung from him, from the wet stains on his clothes. Not his blood. Theirs. I shouldn’t feel satisfied, not when he’d done something terrible, but I nearly stumbled with relief. It should be proof of everything I’d once believed. That he was a monster. That I was nothing like him. Neither was true. And instead of that making me want to run, it made me want to reach out.

So I did.

His back stiffened as my hand found his shoulder, every muscle tensing. He drew a shuddering breath that made me take another step, bringing my body near enough to feel the heat of his own. One more step was all it would take to close the distance, to press myself against him, to soothe the jagged energy rolling off him and calm my own wicked heart.

“Are you okay?” I murmured, not daring to take that final step.

His laugh was as bitter as nightshade. “I’m not the one you should be worried about.” He shook my hand off his shoulder and reached for a towel.

I didn’t move, didn’t speak.

Lach raised his head, his eyes finding mine in the mirror. A corner of his mouth lifted into something tortured. “Go on. Ask me.”

I bit my lower lip and didn’t say anything.

His nostrils flared, and he spun around. His hands shot out, bracing against the wall behind me as he leered over me. “Ask me,” he demanded again. “Ask me what I did to the people who touched you.”

I swallowed, tears lining my eyes as I faced him, faced what he truly was, faced a part of myself I didn’t want to believe existed. I could no longer ignore any of it. Not just what he’d done but how I felt about it.

Pleased. More than that—avenged.

“Ask me!” he roared.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. “What did you do?”

He exhaled and fell back a step, his hands dropping to his sides. A muscle worked in his jaw while he looked me in the eyes. “What I’ve always done.” He sounded so tired. “Bad things. Very bad things done extremely well.”

His cold glare challenged me to question him further, seemed to demand it. He loomed over me, flooding my every sense with him. His massive body, the heat of his skin, his cedar scent mixing with the tang of blood beckoned me. Everything about him called to me from a place I’d long ago buried.

His eyes skimmed lower, lingering on the laceration on my collarbone before he turned away with disgust. Did it look that bad? He reached into his pocket and produced a blood apple. “This will help.”

I blinked as he held it out to me, but I took it.

“They’re grown with vampire venom. It will speed up healing.”

I managed a nod but set it to the side. He had saved me, but his expression told me that wasn’t enough to silence the guilt screaming inside me. It was written all over his face.

So, I reached around him for the hand towel. He froze as I lifted it to his cheek and gently wiped the blood there. He watched me warily as I cleaned his skin, not shrinking away from who he was but welcoming the shadows instead. When I paused to search for any missed blood, Lachlan caught my wrist and pulled me closer. His breath was hot on my face. The whisper of bourbon lingering on it told me he cared more than he let on. Had he been drinking before or after… I didn’t ask him.

“What are you doing?” Under the gravelly surface of his words, there was a soft edge of curiosity. Bewilderment.

I met his searching eyes, my heart beginning to pound. “Taking care of you.”

“You don’t have to do that.” His thumb stroked across the back of my wrist, igniting something low in my belly.

“Someone has to,” I said softly as I spotted more blood. He didn’t look away from me as I wiped it off, and I didn’t shy away from his stare. Finally satisfied, I dropped the bloody towel on the floor and risked looking into his eyes. “Your shirt.”

He straightened ever so slightly. He hooked his thumbs under the straps of his holster and shucked his weapons free. Dropping the holster on the towel, he raised his arms to the side and waited. Not looking away once. My throat slid as my fingers fumbled to unbutton his collar. I tried not to look at the blood. I worked my way down, his gaze boring into mine, stripping me bare as I undressed him. When I reached the final button, I slid my fingers up the seams of his undone shirt to his broad shoulders. I paused to trace a scar, the mottled and knotted skin the only blemish on his otherwise perfect torso. A nearby tattoo fled at the touch, as if his body didn’t like to remember what had happened. It must have been horrible if it had left a mark.

He glanced down at where my fingertip brushed the old wound. “As a smartass once said, even immortals bleed—and iron scars.”

I didn’t want to think about that, didn’t want to consider that he could suffer like he’d made those redcaps suffer tonight. He didn’t stop me as I shifted my hands under the fabric of his shirt instead, pushing it off his shoulders until it fell loosely around his back. He only watched.

I flushed at the sight of his bare chest, the golden skin and black ink. I wanted to run my fingertips over the dips and peaks of his muscles. His tattoos stilled, as if they were as mesmerized as he was. Instead, I tugged his rolled sleeves free one at a time and tossed the ruined shirt on top of the bloody towel and guns. He did not move as I traced a whorl of ink on his shoulder.

“They’re peaceful,” I whispered. How could his mind be quiet at a moment like this? I wanted to ask him, but my finger continued to follow the lines and swirls of that strange language. When I finally looked up, his eyes were bright, the intensity piercing through me. Every rational thought fled my brain. “Kiss me, Lach.”

Without a word, he took my face in his hands, his calloused fingertips rough on my skin. He paused for a delicious, agonizing second to savor my surrender before his lips crushed into mine, coaxing and dominant as he claimed me. My body curved, softening against his hardness, as I parted my lips to offer more. His tongue swept over mine, licking across the roof of my mouth and along my teeth. Each stroke stoked the smoldering need in my blood toward combustion until my fingers dug into his shoulders to keep me from falling.

I knew then that, bargain or not, I would never be fully free of him.

We broke apart, panting. Lach rested his sweat-slicked forehead against mine and fingered a strand of my hair. “It’s you. There’s something about you that makes me feel…calm.” It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the tattoos. “I don’t deserve that peace. Not tonight.”

He didn’t let me go, and I didn’t move away.

“You can have it anyway,” I said softly. “It’s mine to give.” I wondered for a moment how much else I might give this prince. If I might give him everything.

His eyes held mine. “I killed them.”

A test.

Not for him. For me.

“I know.” That much blood. I swallowed that truth, letting it settle into that long-buried place—and still I didn’t let him go.

A reckoning.

His thumb swept over my swollen lips, a battle waging in his green eyes. “I’m the bad guy, princess.”

I stroked a hand along the side of his face. He turned into the touch, nuzzling into my palm. “I don’t believe that.”

His dark laugh rippled through every nerve in my body. “I tricked you out of your soul, your freedom, and I may never let you go. You shouldn’t need more proof, but here I am, wearing other men’s blood.” He gripped my chin and lifted my face to his. “I will ruin you before this is over.”

I didn’t struggle in his grasp. I just held his stare. Because I didn’t want to run from Lachlan Gage anymore. Not while he was looking right into my very soul—to the loneliness and loss, to the mistakes and fear, to all the wounds and secrets I carried.

And he didn’t look away.

An awakening.

So I looked back and saw him—the darkness and the grief, the arrogance and the brokenness, all of the beautiful and damned pieces of him. I saw the blood on his hands, the blood that would be on mine—maybe already was. My soul was on the line, and I didn’t care. Not when the touch of his skin seared me to the bone. Not when I only felt alive kissing him.

Because if ruin was the price of having him, let him destroy me.

“Then ruin me,” I breathed.

His eyes sparked, the words snapping his control. One moment, I was daring him; the next, he had me against the wall. My legs coiled around his waist, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my hips as he pinned me against it. I gasped when his teeth nipped the corner of my mouth, and he chuckled before his tongue invaded. Savage. Brutal. I yielded to that kiss as his hips rolled against mine, pressing the hard length of him over the wet heat there.

I reached between us to find his belt, but he pushed me harder to the wall, capturing my hands. He drew back, his lips brushing over mine. “We need to stop.”

“We do,” I agreed, tugging his lower lip between my teeth until he was kissing me again.

His arm snaked up my back, and his hand curled around the nape of my neck. Then he spun me toward the sink and set me carefully on the edge of the counter.

“We can’t let this go too far,” he ground out, planting kisses along my jawline.

My hands were free now, and he didn’t stop me when I reached for his buckle a second time. “Agreed.”

He cursed as I slid my hand down the front of his pants and wrapped my fingers around his cock. Something clenched in my core as I stroked that considerable length, savoring him being at my mercy.

He slipped a hand under my robe and found my breast. The rough pad of his thumb circled my nipple until it peaked and throbbed. “It’s late. Maybe it’s time for bed.”

I dragged my hand to his tip and did the same. “Yours or mine?”

He cursed again as I continued stroking him, pushing my robe past my shoulders to dip his head lower—

A sharp rap on the door startled us apart.

“You in there, man?” Roark called through the door, banging on it again.

“Just a second! Fuck.” Lach set me on my feet, shoving his cock into his pants.

“Does he do this on purpose?” I grumbled.

Lach avoided my eyes as he tugged my robe over my shoulders.

I gawked. “Wait. Is he interrupting us on purpose?”

Roark’s impatient voice called through the door. Again. “We’ve got a big problem.”

Lach went to the door, opening it just far enough to glare through the crack at his penumbra. “I’m kinda busy.”

I didn’t catch the rest of what Roark said, but Lach muttered something and slammed the door shut.

“It’s your lucky day.” Lach bent and picked up the bloody shirt and his holster. He stared at the shirt for a moment before dropping it again, though he held on to the holster. “I’ve got to go.”

I cinched my robe tightly. “Right now?”

“Yes.” He opened the door and stalked into his bedroom. There was no sign of Roark. At least he was going to give us some privacy. Lach slung his holster over the armoire door.

I hung back as he riffled through the wardrobe and produced a clean shirt.

“Where?” I finally asked.

“Does it matter?” He raked his fingers through his hair and shot me a wink. “You just got saved from making the biggest mistake of your life.”

I winced as he threw my own words back at me. I deserved that, but this…

His fingers moved nimbly up his shirt buttons, leaving the top open. He reached for his holster, sliding one of the guns free. “Take this.”

I shook my head, backing up a step.

He shoved it into my palm and forced my hand to close over it. “You know how to use it now. Safety off.” He hesitated as if weighing the next bit. “If you need me, I will come. This is just insurance, princess, and it will make you feel safer.”

I inhaled sharply, but I slipped it into the pocket of my robe.

“Good girl.” He kissed my forehead. My heart stuttered as he started for the door.

“When will you be back?”

“Late.” He stopped with his hand on the knob. “Don’t wait up.”

I grabbed hold of his shirt. “What is going on? Is it the redcaps?”

“Don’t worry about them. This is nothing for you to be concerned about.” He studied me for a moment, his eyes lingering on my lips with such intensity that I flushed.

My grip on him tightened. “Don’t go.”

His hand closed over mine as he leaned in for a swift, possessive kiss. I realized it was a distraction as he pried himself free. “You hate me, remember? It’s better if it stays that way, if this thing between us…doesn’t happen.”

And then he vanished before I could tell him that I knew that.

The problem was that I didn’t fucking care.