Chapter 10
TEN
ALLERIA
I wake slowly, drifting up through layers of warmth.
Real warmth, and not the memory of it I’ve been clinging to for days.
Heat soaks through my clothes, seeps into my bones, and melts the cold that’s lived inside me since the clearing.
I burrow closer to the source, press my back against it, and something tightens around my waist, pulling me in.
Warm. So warm.
Then my mind catches up to my body, and I stiffen.
There’s someone behind me. On the bed. Chest against my spine, arm heavy across my ribs. Breath stirs my hair. A heartbeat that isn’t mine beats slow and steady against my back. I can feel the length of a body pressed along mine, and against my backside, unmistakable and hard—
Oh gods. It’s him. The fae. The creature who dragged me across the countryside, who broke my ribs and healed them … who pinned me to the floor last night.
I’m lying in his arms like we’re lovers, and he’s … he’s—
Panic floods through me, ice-cold despite the heat of his body. My heart slams so hard I can feel it in my throat, my temples, at the pulse point in my wrist where his hand rests over it. His chest rises and falls against my back in a slow, steady rhythm.
Maybe he’s asleep. Maybe if I’m careful, if I’m quiet, I can slide out from under his arm before he—
“The last time a human female had me in her bed,” his voice is low and rough, a rumble against my back, breath hot against my ear, “the last thing she wanted to do was run away.”
I throw myself forward, scrambling off the mattress so fast my hip catches the wooden frame. Pain blooms outward. I don’t care. I need distance, space. I need to not be touching him. I need to not feel the ghost of his body imprinted along my back.
My shoulders hit the wall, and I stand there gasping, skin hot. My clothes feel too thin, too revealing, even though I’m fully dressed in the same hunting gear I set out in days ago.
But I can still feel him, the weight of his arm, the heat of his chest, the press of his hips, and—
No! I can’t think about that. I can’t.
He’s still in the bed, propped up on one elbow now.
In my mad dash to escape, I took the bedsheet with me, leaving him uncovered.
The rags he’s wearing—can it even be called a tunic?
—has ridden up past his hips and I can see …
I swallow … I can see he isn’t wearing anything underneath.
Just pale skin and lean muscle, and shadows between his thighs that I shouldn’t be looking at …
that I can’t stop looking at … that make my face burn and my stomach muscles tighten.
I wrench my gaze up to his face, which isn’t any better. Those gold eyes are fixed on mine, and one corner of his mouth has curled up slightly. He’s watching my panic, the way my chest heaves with each breath … and he’s enjoying it.
“I was asleep.” The words come out strangled. “I didn’t mean to … I didn’t know I was—”
My eyes betray me, flicking down before I can stop them.
“Don’t flatter yourself. It’s nothing more than reflex. Conditioning.” There’s a pause, then softer, but no less cold, he adds, “It stopped meaning anything a long time ago.”
I open my mouth. Close it. There’s nothing I can say to that.
He sits up, and the tunic falls back into place. Barely. “You were cold. Humans run colder than fae.” It doesn’t seem to be an accusation. Just a flat statement.
But I can’t escape the fact that I wrapped myself around him in my sleep. I pressed against him like he was safety instead of danger, comfort instead of threat. I burrowed into his warmth, and he let me. He lay there with my body curled into his, and he didn’t push me away.
Animals seek out warmth too. Dogs curl up with their masters. It doesn’t mean anything.
But dogs don’t speak. Dogs don’t look at you with eyes that make you feel like prey. Dogs don’t make your pulse race and your skin burn and your thoughts turn in directions they shouldn’t be going.
“How long have you been awake?”
“Long enough.”
Long enough for what? Long enough to decide whether to snap my neck while I slept? Or long enough for his body to react to the closeness of mine?
He rises to his feet, the movement fluid and unhurried. Even standing, the tunic barely covers his thighs. Why have I never noticed that before? I keep my eyes fixed on the wall above his head.
“We need supplies. Clothes and food.”
It’s an order, not a discussion. My hand moves to my waist where, by some miracle, my purse is still tucked into my belt. I have some money in there. But I don’t know how much it will buy.
“When?”
“Now. Come.” He drags a hand through his hair—it catches in the snarled mess of thick ropes that look like they haven’t seen a comb in years.
He grimaces, then his features blank, as though allowing any expression to show is a crime of its own.
His glamour settles back into place between one blink and the next.
The transformation is instant and nauseating. Because I know what is underneath it now. And it isn’t the mindless beast I’ve been taught to believe.
The square is busy with morning traffic. Farmers, merchants, servants with baskets. Normal people living their lives, with no idea that death is walking among them. Because he is death. I have to remember that. He is dangerous. He’s still fae. He’s still the thing that broke my ribs with two kicks.
The seamstress’s shop is on a quiet side street. A woman looks up from behind the counter when we enter, her eyes moving over my dirty clothes and then shifting to the fae behind me.
“I need clothes for travel. For both of us,” I say.
She comes around the counter and circles him. “That’s a tall one, isn’t it? Has a good build.” She reaches out and tilts his chin up, turning his head from side to side. “Very nice coloring. Pretty eyes. Where did you get it?”
“A gift from my father.”
“Lucky. What kind of clothes are you thinking for it? Something that displays its …” Her eyes drop to below his waist, and she smiles. “Its best assets?”
I have to force myself not to gape at her. “N-no. We’re traveling. I need clothes that will protect hi—it from the weather.”
She nods and lets go of his face. “Tell it to strip. I will need to measure everything.”
My stomach drops. “That’s not—”
She frowns at me. “Do you want clothes that fit it properly or not?”
She’s right. By every rule I know, she’s right.
Fae are animals. Property. You wouldn’t worry about a horse’s decency while you measured it for a new saddle.
But I’ve seen more than I wanted to see of his body already.
And the thought of watching him strip in the middle of this shop while she circles him with her measuring tape …
“Strip!” Her tone is sharp and impatient.
He obeys. The tunic goes over his head, and for just a moment—so brief I almost miss it—his jaw tightens and his eyes flash. Then it’s gone. By the time the fabric hits the floor, his expression is blank again.
I should look away. I know I should … but I don’t.
He’s all lean muscle and pale skin. Scars criss-cross his ribs.
They look like old wounds, long healed, the kind you get from blades, or claws, and things that want to kill you.
My eyes follow the lines of one scar, tracking it down his hip, along his thigh, and …
I force my eyes to lift, and look over his shoulder at the row of shelves.
Is this another layer of glamour, one illusion replaced by another? Can he reshape his whole body as easily as he made the collar appear, and changed my face? Or is this real? Every scar, every line, every inch of him?
There are statues in the palace gardens, carved from cold marble into the shapes of heroes and gods. He looks like that. Like a sculpture brought to life. But those statues don’t have scars that hint at a history of violence written across their skin.
The seamstress circles him, eyes moving over every inch of his body, pulling his arms out at angles, checking proportions. She runs her hands across his shoulders, and down his chest. When she cups him between his legs and lightly squeezes, my cheeks burn in mortification and horror.
His fingers curl into fists, knuckles white, tendons standing out along his wrists.
His head stays bowed and his face remains a blank mask.
Those fists, though, tell a different story.
Yet he stands there, letting her touch him as she pleases.
Because that’s what he’s supposed to do. What he’s been trained to do.
Bile rises in my throat, shame and guilt twisting in a tangled mess inside me.
Three days ago, I would have seen this and thought nothing was wrong. I’d have seen a beast being prepared for new trappings. That’s what fae are, aren’t they? That’s what I was raised to believe.
But I’ve heard him speak now. I’ve seen him think and plan. I’ve watched him look at me with eyes that hold years of fury, and I can’t unsee it. I can’t go back to believing he’s just an animal.
The seamstress finishes and moves to pull clothes from the shelves. Dark shirt, brown pants, belt, boots. She tosses them at him, and he catches them.
“Try those.” He dresses right there in the middle of the store. The fabric slides over his skin, covering what I shouldn’t have been looking at in the first place. With one final glance at him, she comes to me and measures my waist, height, arms, breasts, then pulls more clothing from shelves.
“Thirty silvers will cover everything. There’s a curtain in the back.” She hands me a bundle of clothes, more carefully than she did with his. “Take that with you if you need help dressing.” She jerks her chin toward the fae.
Take that with you. Like having him dress me is the most natural thing in the world.
Is this normal? Do people just … have fae? Use them for things other than hunting?
I think of the palace, and the servants who move through the halls. Nella and the other handmaidens. The stable boys and kitchen girls, and gardeners. All human. All of them.