27. A well-intended distraction #3
“Right?” Her chest heaved with a huff of a laugh that held no humor. “None of this is right, Maksym. Not a single goddess-damned thing. But you’re the one who brought me here for a distraction, remember?”
“I brought you here to distract your mind, Enora,” I said with an ample amount of caution. “Not…this.”
Already, she was easing away from me, drawing her legs up and leaving me there, my hands braced on the stone, and my head hung.
“So you don’t want this?”
It killed me to shake my head. “No.”
Enora scoffed quietly. “Well, I’ll leave you to it then. Goodnight, Maksym.”
Why I wanted to torture myself any further, I didn’t know, but I glanced up as Enora moved away. I caught a glimpse of her unmistakably wounded face before she hauled herself onto the stone ledge behind us, sending water sluicing off her nude form.
“Enora, wait a second. Please,” I fumbled out in one breath. “Stay, and we can—”
“Don’t bother,” she bit back as she stalked up the stone steps and gathered her clothing, disappearing from my immediate view.
“I won’t be the one pushing you to do something you’ll regret.
There’ll be plenty of time for that when I’m nothing more than a fucking breeding mare, and everything is on your terms, right? ”
I let my head fall back against the stone basin and swore.
There was no purpose in arguing with her, even when that was the furthest thing from the truth. Enora held more of my interest than anyone had in decades, beyond the logic of magic that should have prevented it, and that terrified me.
After pacing across my bedroom for too many minutes, I ended up in the study connecting mine and Enora’s rooms with a hefty amount of guilt weighing down my shoulders.
I never should have let her leave the cove like that.
I never should have followed her into the water, either, or fallen victim to the feeble pull of my touch-starved flesh, breaking through years of enchantments keeping it subdued.
But one goddess-damned failure at a time. First, I had to wrap my head around the sobbing my ears picked up.
Enora must have been sitting in the chair just on the other side of the wall, in front of her own hearth. Even though the access panels dampened some of it, there was no mistaking the heartbroken sound that made my chest ache a little with each passing moment.
It was the sort of crying interrupted only by ragged, choked-out breaths and lung-rattling coughs.
And, goddess below, the abrupt urge to wrap her up and tuck her away was nearly undeniable.
To tell her firmly this would all pass in time.
That she would see the other side of this seemingly endless, miserable night and make it through as a stronger being, into a life I was sure she’d find enjoyment in.
I pressed my hand to the panel between the rooms that only needed a little coaxing to open, smoothing my fingers over the soft weave of aged wallpaper, but my muscles refused any further movement.
That was probably for the best. What would I even do?
March my way in there and force comfort on the woman who rightfully and clearly wanted very little to do with me in any emotional sense? The same one I’d just dealt goddess only knew what damage to by not being able to grapple with my own damned trauma?
It had foolish written all over it.
After longer than I’d care to admit, Enora’s endless sobbing mingled with the soft chime of a bell, and I was so fucking relieved.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
I didn’t need to hear the sprite’s devastated rendition of her name to know Enora had summoned Eilir. She’d called for her own comfort, on her own terms, and that deserved its own privacy.
But as I turned, my eyes landed on the aged drawing desk countless of Grimmoria’s kings had occupied at one time or another, and a lump built in my throat.
A knot in my stomach came next, and I forced out an uneasy breath.
Well over seventy years had passed since the events that led to my mother’s execution, but listening to agonized sobs come through that wall brought me right back to those devastating days with little warning.
A much younger version of myself had stood in the same room, just paces away from where I was now anchored.
That na?ve young man tried to process the words his father was telling him—heretic, treasonous, punishable by death—while the woman who had nurtured him, who had loved him, who had birthed him fought against the guards who had flooded her chamber, made her a prisoner in her own home.
And my once soft-spoken, salt of the earth mother fought viciously like that until the day of her execution came.
So many fucking years in the past, but I could hear her crying as if she were right beside me again.
Hear the crackle of flames that engulfed her living body.
Smell the char of her flesh in the air. My legs became unsteady enough that I leaned back against the wall and slid all the way to the ground, forcing measured breaths in and out of my lungs took far more effort than they had any right to.
In all the commotion around Enora’s arrival, I’d worried so much about everyone else, I never considered my own carefully built resolve would be what fell victim to her.