Chapter 19 Scars
SCARS
RAE
The sound of the shower woke me. I groaned and rubbed my face. Though last night started rough, I woke up feeling well-rested. Having Ash in the same bed comforted me in ways I couldn’t explain.
At some point we must have drifted apart, because when the humidity woke me up, we were on opposite sides of the bed. Even without touching, his nearness finally let me sleep. Wearing pants was a small price to pay for having someone around when I needed them.
I rolled over and buried my face in the pillow Ash used, inhaling the cinnamon and bay rum scent he’d left behind.
I needed to get up and get ready. My bereavement days were over, and I needed work to keep my mind busy.
The water shut off, and I sighed.
I’d never been in my room when the guys showered. They always waited until I went to work. With Ash sleeping with me last night, I suspected he’d decided to take his turn now.
I nodded off until I heard the bathroom door open.
Ash stood in the doorway, watching me with an uncertain look on his face, like he wasn’t sure how to face me in the light of day.
“Good morning,” I whispered, sitting up.
He smiled, shoulders relaxing. “Morning.”
His fitted T-shirt allowed me to appreciate the tattoos covering both arms. A full sleeve depicting a forest scene adorned his left arm.
It reminded me of the forests on Earth. I didn’t recognize the imagery on his right arm.
A gradient background filled with symbols tangled in decaying vines and chains covered it.
If I looked hard enough, I could see ghostly faces hidden in the vines.
“Sleep well?”
My gaze shifted to his face. “Better than I have since Grandma passed.”
In truth, I hadn’t slept this well in months. The demonic sightings had wrecked my sleep, worsening around the anniversary of my parents’ death. I thought they’d ease afterward, but instead they grew worse—until the princes appeared.
He smiled again and put his finger beneath my chin, tilting my face up. “I’m always downstairs if you need an ear.”
Until you go back to Elyrdin and leave me alone again.
Wanting to stop the swelling emotions in my chest, I made a joke. “Or an oversized teddy bear with a man bun?” I laughed when he removed his hair tie, letting his long locks and braids fall over his shoulders.
“Didn’t want to wash my hair today,” he said, putting the hairband on his wrist. He leaned over me, and I sucked in a sharp breath as memories of last night’s kiss filled my mind. Pausing, he shifted his attention to me, hovering mere inches from my face. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “I’m fine. I need to get ready for work.”
He stood upright, holding up a small hair tie he’d retrieved from the bed. “I need to get more. This one keeps coming off in my sleep.”
Oh. He wasn’t trying to kiss me again.
I willed my heart to calm down. A short and gentle kiss wasn’t something to get so worked up over. I hadn’t intended to kiss him last night, but then the strangest sensation hit me after our conversation about Cyn.
His agitation and distress last night resonated within me, like a living entity writhing inside me, manipulating my emotions. There was no other way to explain the alien emotions that latched onto me. Maybe it was an infernal thing, and our proximity triggered a strange connection.
Either way, I’d known I needed to help him, so when he reached for me, I didn’t stop him. I wanted to ease his distress because he’d been there for mine. But last night turned into something so much more than I expected.
Maybe he forgot—or maybe it meant something different for him.
Wrapping the hairband around the end of one of his smaller braids, he asked, “Work? You don’t get more time off?”
“I used it all. Besides, I need to keep moving or I’ll get depressed.”
He hummed. “I get that. I volunteered for everything the council would let me do when my parents died. Not much work for a seven-year-old, but I made do.”
“You were only seven? What happened?” I pressed my lips together and added, “If you don’t mind me asking.”
A shadow passed over his face, and I wondered if I’d overstepped.
The strange bonding last night had my mind jumbled. I needed to take a step back.
“I’d wanted to see my dad off when the men loaded up for an expedition out to Moicae. There’d been reports of a bluskol manipulated by dark magic en route to Elyrdin. They were to catch and subdue it, and if they couldn’t remove the spell controlling it… slay the beast.”
I wanted to ask what a bluskol was, but he looked so lost that I knew the timing wasn’t appropriate.
“My mom made me do chores that morning, so I missed my chance to say goodbye before they headed for the city’s wall. But I was determined.” He shook his head. “I had a gift for him—a good luck charm the council’s spirit guide gave me. Nothing was going to stop me from giving it to him.”
I reached for his hand as he swallowed hard.
“They’d already left the city by the time I reached the gates, but I could still see them in the distance.
I didn’t think it’d hurt anything.” He looked at the window across the room, clearly not here with me anymore.
“I thought the walls around Elyrdin were just to protect us from lesser infernals and beasts from Moicae, not Feranzis too. I should have known better. I found out that day why no one uses cars outside the walls.”
I squeezed his hand when he paused, encouraging him to talk. He seemed like he needed to. My heart thumped hard in my chest, and I rubbed my sternum with my other hand.
“Didn’t know Mom followed me to make me go home.
So when I reached the caravan and heard a woman’s scream, it scared me.
Dad and his men all rushed to her aid, but it was too late.
A horde of ixrian tore Mom to shreds, then turned their fury on Dad and his men.
” His jaw worked as he fought his emotions.
That same alien sensation from last night uncoiled low in my belly, and I wondered if it came from our joined hands. Still, I clenched his hand in mine.
“Before I could run away, a juvenile ixrian broke from the pack and came after me. One of Dad’s men killed the creature before it could kill me, but not before it left its mark.”
He turned, lifting his shirt just enough to reveal a jagged scar slashing across his tanned skin, faded but still raised, stretching across his lower back from the hem of his jeans to his hipbone.
When I touched the scar gently, he flinched, and I pulled my hand back.
I knew it didn’t hurt, but he likely didn’t want someone touching something so personal. I didn’t know what compelled me to touch him—I’d done it without thinking—but before I could apologize for overstepping, he turned to me, continuing his story.
“After I collapsed to the ground, another one of Dad’s men grabbed me and ran for Elyrdin’s gates, while the others kept the frenzied horde distracted.”
I noticed his fingers tremble, so I took his hand again as his eyes took on that same faraway look, fixed on the sunlight streaming through the bedroom window. He’d gone back to that place again.
“He wasn’t fast enough, though. Not fast enough to keep me from seeing an adult ixrian garrote Dad, hoisting him into the air on the end of its massive limb that doubled as a blade—a larger version of the blade that sliced my back.”
His hand clutched mine in a punishing grip, but I didn’t make a sound even when my stomach roiled at the visual he painted with his words.
“There was so much terror in Dad’s eyes when they met mine.
Then his body split into two halves when the ixrian’s arm sliced clean through him.
” He ground his teeth. “Dad hadn’t even fully transformed, too focused on Mom.
He didn’t stand a chance, but he died a true Shyrlivi warrior, protecting his Nyrith. ”
Nyrith? Where had I heard that word before?
Shaking the thought, I shifted to my knees on the bed and wrapped my arms around Ash’s waist. I wasn’t tall enough to hold him the way he held me in the graveyard, but I could give him this.
His arms wrapped around my shoulders, his head resting on top of mine.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
I wouldn’t insult him by using words I hadn’t wanted to hear when my own parents died. He deserved comfort and acknowledgment. Not empty words.
He said nothing, but something deep in my stomach shifted as the foreign feeling affecting me receded.
I jumped when a throat cleared.
Ash let go of me and turned.
Ezra stood in the doorway, his gaze locking on mine. The vicious look made me stiffen. I’d never felt threatened by him—not like this.
Had he heard Ash’s story?
Ash hadn’t revealed secrets about their kind or said anything inappropriate. Maybe finding Ash in my room was the problem. Was he annoyed that Ash slept upstairs? Nothing happened… sort of.
Oblivious to the rising tension, Ash asked, “What’s up?”
“Breakfast.” With that simple word, Ezra turned and left the room.
“Want to eat before you get ready?”
And face more of whatever had Ezra’s underwear in a twist? Not likely.
I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and checked the time. “Can’t. I’m running behind. Still gotta pick up Maya since I have her car.”
He frowned. “You need to eat more.”
“I’ll probably grab something at the food court when I get to the mall.”
“That’s not enough,” he said, brushing a few messy strands of hair from my face with his fingers. All traces of the pain from his past disappeared from his eyes. “It isn’t good for you.”
I smiled, appreciating that someone cared about my well-being.
From the moment we met, I pegged Ash as the caregiver type. Strange that despite losing his parents so young, he still watched out for others.
I wasn’t much older when my parents died, and I cared about people too, but I didn’t worry about others to the degree Ash seemed to.
“I promise I’ll eat something nutritious.”
Right after a sugary coffee.