Chapter 15 Isolde
At first it’s black, then the red behind my eyelids, then sunlight bleeding in. My body is one giant gash, the pain echoing in every finger, every toe, every inch of skin that got sanded raw in the hunt.
I don’t remember falling asleep. The last thing I remember is the feel of his arm around my waist, the weight of his chin on the top of my head, his breath warm against my scalp, hot then cold, then just there, refusing to leave. Then: lights out.
Now I wake, full and present, the kind of awake where your first thought is “am I dead?” and your second is “am I still me?”
The bed is not mine. The room is not mine. I don’t even have the right to call this body mine, not with the way it feels, like someone borrowed it and gave it back broken.
The first thing I register is the size of the bed—too big for just one monster.
Heavy, carved headboard, the sort of thing you see in palace documentaries, all angular wood, no softness.
It’s all white. The sheets are expensive, but the pillowcases smell like boy sweat and cigarette smoke, the after-scent of bourbon and whatever soap he uses to burn the stink out of his own hands.
It’s familiar, and not in a good way. Like all men in this town, he covers the animal with expensive chemical fragrance.
But the animal is still here, somewhere.
I move my head, careful, and the view widens: the bedroom is massive, ceilings so high the lightbulb is a tiny angry star overhead.
The windows are swaddled in blackout drapes, the sunlight leaking in only where the fabric has pulled loose.
The furniture is modern, black, low. There’s a desk covered in unread letters, a glass decanter and four matching tumblers, an antique chess set arranged as if mid-war.
There’s a single armchair by the window, a blanket thrown over it, and a stack of books beside it, all spines creased and battered.
I catalog everything because it’s easier than cataloging myself.
But there’s no getting around it. My feet are the first thing I check—both wrapped in gauze, toes sticking out, nails torn.
The pain is white-hot, a fire lit under the bone.
I wiggle them and nearly scream. Next, my hands: palms bandaged, one thumb taped.
Knuckles swollen and scraped to the meat.
My elbows and knees are raw. My ribs ache with every breath.
There’s a tightness to my chest like I’ve been body-checked by a truck.
The cuts on my neck and shoulders, which I can’t see but can feel, burn under the sweat and the wrap.
My mouth tastes like iron. My eyes burn from lack of sleep, or maybe from the leftover crying, the evidence of which I’m determined to forget.
I’m propped on my side, one cheek pressed to a pillow that smells like him. My left arm is trapped, heavy, and when I look down I realize why: he’s still here, curled up beside me, his hand flat on my stomach, fingers splayed like he’s trying to keep my guts from spilling out.
His face is inches from mine. Eyes closed, but his breathing is not slow. He’s faking sleep or on the edge of it, waiting for me to twitch.
I lie still. Every nerve is a lit fuse. I focus on the details—his hair is a wreck, the usual careful style gone, chunks sticking up or plastered to his temple with sweat and blood.
There’s a bruise along his jaw, a raw split in his lip where my teeth must have landed.
His shirt is gone. His chest is all muscle and old scars and fresh marks from my fingernails.
He looks so young like this. Not like a monster, but like the fucked-up boy I always suspected lived under the demonic skin suit.
I want to hate him, but that would mean giving him a power I’m not ready to hand over.
I look at his hand on my stomach, the way he’s curled around me, his body’s tension set not to keep me close, but to be the first to react if I bolt. Like he’s waiting for my next move.
I try to slip his hand off my waist, but the moment my fingers touch his wrist, his eyes open. Green, alive, burning through me with the intensity of someone who’s spent his whole life hunting things and doesn’t know how to stop.
He doesn’t speak at first. Just watches me, letting the silence do the work. I can’t stand it.
“What?” I say, voice rough, maybe a little scared.
“You’re awake.” He says it like a statement, not a question, then lifts his hand off my stomach and lays back, putting it on his own. “How do you feel?”
“Like I went through a wood chipper.” I try to sit up, but my ribs say fuck you.
“Don’t.” He puts a hand on my shoulder and gently pushes me back down. “You need to rest. I’ll run you a bath. I tended the worst of your wounds last night, but I missed a few, clearly.”
“You did a shit job. I feel like death.”
“Would you rather be dead?” he asks, and for a second there’s a softness in it, a real question.
“Is that an option?”
He huffs a laugh. “Not anymore. You’re mine now, Greenwood. Death is the only thing that gets you out and I have no intention of ever letting that happen.”
He rolls out of bed, careful not to jostle me.
He’s wearing boxers and nothing else. He stretches, winces, then walks barefoot to the window.
He pulls the blackout curtain open a crack, and the room floods with light.
He stands there, staring out at the snow-covered quad, back muscles tight, hands braced against the glass.
“Do you always watch people sleep?” I ask.
“Only the ones I’m afraid will kill me in my sleep.”
“Afraid?”
He glances over his shoulder, lips twisted. “You’re unpredictable, Isolde. You gave them quite a show last night and it was rather unexpected. Turned the game right on it’s head.”
I wiggle the fingers on my good hand, pleased. “Good.”
He turns, arms crossed, and looks at me like he’s reading an x-ray. “How do you actually feel?”
I tell the truth, because lies are wasted on him: “My feet are fucked, my hands are worse, and my ribs feel like someone tried to squeeze the secrets out of me. And I’m hungry. Starving.”
He nods, like he expected this answer, then heads to the sideboard and pours water from a carafe into a crystal glass. He brings it to me, sits on the edge of the bed, and waits while I sip it. The water is luke-warm. The glass is heavy, stupidly fancy for a dorm suite.
But I guess that’s what money allows. Stupid shit.
When I finish, he sets the glass aside. “I’ll go run your bath.”
I weigh my options.
“I’ll do it myself.”
“Nah.” He shrugs, stands, and walks to the bathroom, leaving the door wide open. I hear him running water, the sound of the tub filling. He returns, hands up on the doorframe, showing off all those muscles that make my core clench, and says, “You need help getting there, unless you want to crawl.”
He’s right. I can barely move my legs, and the thought of walking on my shredded feet is enough to make me want to puke.
“Fine,” I snap. “Carry me.”
He grins, and for a moment the monster is back.
He scoops me up bridal style, and carries me to the bathroom.
The tub is enormous, white, with claws for feet.
Steam rises off the surface, and the smell of mint and eucalyptus hits me.
He sets me on the edge, then crouches and unwinds the bandages from my feet.
They look worse than they feel: skin raw, purple, toes swollen and fleshy, nails black. He hisses through his teeth.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
I say nothing. He peels the rest of the tape from my palms, exposing angry red skin and three new blisters.
“You were running like your life depended on it,” he says with a hint of pride.
“It did, moron.”
He tests the water with his hand, then slides his arm under my knees and lowers me into the tub. The heat is instant agony, then relief. I sink down, bite my lip, and refuse to make a sound.
He sits on the closed toilet lid, arms folded, watching me.
I glare at him. “You can leave now.”
“I’ll stay,” he smiles, and doesn’t elaborate.
The water stings, but I scrub anyway, watching the brown and red swirl away from my skin. I lift my foot, examine the cut across the arch, then let it drop with a splash. My hands are shaking.
He watches, and after a minute, says, “If you want, I can help.”
I want to say “fuck you.” But I want the pain gone more.
“Fine. But you don’t get to touch my tits.”
He laughs and grabs a washcloth from the counter. He dips it in the water, then kneels beside the tub and starts with my shoulder. His touch is gentle, precise. Not clinical, but not sexual either. He works the cuts, dabs at the scrapes, checks every inch of skin for infection.
He’s focused, mouth set, brow furrowed.
I watch his face. It’s different now. The arrogance is gone. There’s no trace of the predator, just the bone-deep concentration of someone trying not to fuck up again.
I want to talk to him, really talk, about everything. The Hunt, his past, my sister. Where I fit into all of it. The words don’t come and I’m not sure how to form them.
He moves to my back, fingers careful over the bruised ribs. He winces when he sees the purple and yellow bloom over my side.
He rinses the cloth and moves to my thighs, scrubbing out the pain, massaging the muscle.
I try not to squirm, but the pain is sharp and clean, like it’s burning away everything that came before.
Washing my hair is a ritual in and of itself, but he takes his time, working out the knots and dirt until my hair squeaks under his fingers.
By the time he finishes, the water is the color of weak tea, and my skin feels new, as if I’ve shed the last layer of the old me.
His hands grasp my forearms as he helps me stand, then wraps me in a towel, patting my hair dry with another. He carries me back to the bed, sets me down, and leaves to get the first-aid kit.
When he returns, he kneels by the bed and starts dabbing ointment onto my feet. He wraps them with fresh gauze, tapes my hands, checks the swelling on my ankle.