Chapter 15 Ophelia
He doesn’t ask if I can walk. He doesn’t ask if I want to.
He just picks me up, one arm under my knees, the other wrapped under my arms, so tight I feel the grind of his fingertips against my ribs.
It’s supposed to be bridal, but there’s nothing sweet about it.
I’m filthy—blood, mud, and the charred stink of fear all over me.
My dress is pulp, plastered to my chest in some places, hanging loose in others, and I’m exhausted by the time we hit the path up to the Academy.
In the empty quad, our shadows stretch ahead of us, his a single block of muscle and violence, mine trailing behind like the afterimage of a girl who should have gotten away.
Inside, the Feral Boys’ wing has been vacated.
No one is here. No one lines the hall to jeer or catcall.
I guess The Board loves a spectacle, but the end of the Hunt is sacred.
The corridor echoes with our footfalls, Caius’s bare, mine dangling.
I keep my face turned to the wall, refuse to look at the smeared handprints and the old posters advertising parties no one remembers.
I hate how relieved I am.
Caius doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to.
His hand on my thigh is white-knuckled, probably to keep me tight against him, maybe just to remind himself I’m real, not a trophy or a fever dream.
Every twenty seconds, he looks down at my face, checks the flutter at my jaw, the twitch of my eyelid, the way my mouth is set.
He’s covered in my blood. Not just mine—his knuckles are split, knotted with pink and red, and there’s a band of dirt under every fingernail from the way he braced me to the tree, dirt on his legs from the way he scraped the back of my thigh to keep me from kicking.
I could break his nose with the right headbutt. I could bite his hand until he lets go, maybe scream loud enough to wake the dead.
But I don’t.
I let him carry me because I’m too tired to run and because some sick part of me wants to know what comes next. Maybe because this is the most anyone has ever held me without wanting to let go.
The suite at the end of the hall is exactly as it was last time. Made bed, clean, clinical, almost. The lights are low, the carpet thick enough to swallow the sound of footsteps.
Caius doesn’t even set me down on the bed. He kicks the door shut with his foot, the force rattling the hinges, and heads straight for the bathroom. The light is cool, blinding, and for a second I can’t see anything but a bloom of white behind my eyelids until he dims it, making it more manageable.
He deposits me on the marble counter, cold biting through the thin wet cotton of my ruined dress. His hands linger a moment too long, gripping my waist before he finally lets go. The door clicks behind us, locking with a soft snick.
He stands back, breathing hard, surveying his work.
My thighs are shredded, knees purpled and slick.
There’s the handprint on my chest, blood dried in the grooves.
My hair is a mat of twigs and sweat. His own body is a violent work of art—scratches across his arms, a bite mark at his jaw, black eye already blooming on the left side.
No idea where he got that, but I smile. Hopefully it was me.
For a second, we just stare at each other. Me, trying not to shiver, him trying not to smile.
Then he leans over, voice low and even. “You good?”
I want to cry, to kiss him, to claw his eyes out for asking, but the words stick to the roof of my mouth. Instead, I swallow, hard, and nod.
He nods back, and then—just for a split second—his hand cups my cheek, thumb brushing the corner of my lip, wiping away a streak of red.
He doesn’t say another word. He just turns to the oversized jaccuzi bathtub, flicks the tap on, and lets the roar of water fill the silence.
I watch him in the mirror. He’s methodical, peeling off his t-shirt, careful not to brush any surface with his bloody hands. There’s a first aid kit on the counter, a stack of white towels folded into perfect squares, and a bottle of something expensive next to the sink.
I should be planning. I should be plotting. But all I can do is watch the way his body moves, how nothing about him is accidental, how every twitch is calculated down to the angle of his jaw and the arch of his brow.
The room steams up fast. My skin goes clammy, the sweat from the Hunt mixing with the sickly-sweet tang of lavender from the bottle he dumps in the tub.
He turns back to me, eyes soft, and says, “Let’s get you clean.”
I almost laugh.
I almost scream.
Instead, I sit very still, back pressed to the mirror, and wait for him to make the next move.
He checks the temperature with his hand, once, twice, then turns and surveys me like a project that’s gotten out of control. The steam curls over the edge of the tub, and the smell relaxes me.
“Come here,” he says, voice soft but absolute.
I stare at the pattern of veins on the back of my hand, count them to five, then slide off the counter. My knees almost buckle, but he’s there before I hit the tile, catching my ribs with one arm and steadying me on my feet.
Up close, the damage is obvious. There’s a line of dried blood down my shin, a constellation of bruises blossoming on my thigh, a chunk of bark still embedded in the cut just above my knee. My hair is a nest, stiff with sweat and resin. I smell like something that’s already been buried.
He sighs, and tugs at the shoulder of my dress. It rips with no resistance, what’s left of the seam going in a single, brutal line from my collarbone to my navel. His hands are careful, almost reverent, as he peels the fabric away from my chest, inch by inch, checking for new wounds underneath.
The scrutiny makes me want to fold in on myself, hide behind my hands, but I force them to stay at my sides, fingers curling hard enough to dig moons into my palms. I won’t give him the satisfaction of flinching.
He crouches to slide the dress down my legs. His fingers brush my calves, feather-light where they hover above the worst of the scrapes. I feel his gaze crawl up my body, lingering on the torn skin at my hips, the gooseflesh at my arms, the spatter of blood across my stomach.
“Damn, baby girl. You look like you’ve seen better days,” he smirks.
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Thanks to you, dick wad.”
He chuckles. “Fair.”
I step over the dress, plant my feet on the bath mat, and brace for the next move. He hooks his thumbs under the band of my underwear, shredded as it is, the elastic held, hesitates, and then pulls them down slow, careful not to catch on any scrapes. The intimacy of it makes my ears ring.
He helps me into the tub, steadying my elbows as I climb over the edge. The water is hot, hotter than I’m ready for, and I jerk back, hissing.
He holds me until the convulsion passes. “Easy.”
“Jesus,” I gasp. “You trying to cook me alive?”
He doesn’t answer, just settles me into the water, then kneels on the tile beside the tub. His knees creak, the sound almost humanizing. I sink until the heat buries my shins, my thighs, my hips. Every scratch and cut burns, but it’s a good burn, the kind that tells me I’m not dead yet.
He leans over, fishhooks a washcloth out of the cabinet, and plunges it into the bath. The white cloth drips as he wrings it out and starts dabbing at my arms.
The first touch makes me flinch, just a little. He notices but pretends not to.
“Lavender, huh?” I say, trying to make the word sound like an accusation instead of a gasp.
His cheeks go weirdly pink, which is almost enough to make me laugh. “I got it for you,” he says, not meeting my eyes. “Noticed you liked it that night...”
My heart does something ugly in my chest, flips over like a hooked fish. I want to mock him, but the heat and the shame and the exhaustion flatten the urge.
“Stalker,” I rasp.
He shrugs. “I prefer attentive.”
The next ten minutes pass in silence, except for the tiny sounds of cloth dragging over skin and the occasional hiss when he hits a raw patch. He works slow, cleaning each wound with the same precision he’d use to clean a knife or load a gun. The contrast makes me dizzy.
He doesn’t touch my face until the very end, and when he does, his thumb is so gentle it barely registers. He wipes the dried blood from my lip, traces the bruise blooming along my cheekbone, then moves to the back of my neck, careful of the place where his own hand left a ring of purple.
I close my eyes, let the steam soften the edges of the world.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, finally. The question is supposed to sound cold, but it comes out small.
He stops, cloth hovering above my collarbone.
“What?”
“This. You win. You’re supposed to be gloating. Or—” I swallow, “—or fucking me. Or whatever.”
He dips the cloth again, wrings it out, and presses it to the inside of my palm, where the cut from the ritual still oozes if I flex my hand. “The Board said I couldn’t damage you further. That includes infection.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He grins, teeth white and sharp. “You shouldn’t, it’s not why. But it’s also not a lie.”
He goes back to work, cleaning the rest of my arm, then moves to my legs. When he gets to my knees, he pulls a pair of tweezers from the first aid kit and flicks the bark from the wound in one quick movement.
I yelp, loud enough to bounce off the tiles.
He doesn’t apologize, just presses a clean cloth to the cut until it stops bleeding.
“You want to hate me so bad,” he says, refusing to look me in the eye, “but you like this.”
I want to scream that I don’t, that he’s wrong, but the part of me that tells the truth won’t let me.
He moves to my feet, lifts one out of the water, and cradles it in his hand while he cleans the blood from between my toes. The touch is so absurdly gentle that tears prick at my eyes, unbidden.
He sees it, of course.
“Pain’s good,” he says, “but sometimes you need something softer so you remember what you’re fighting for.”