Chapter 58 Isi
ISI
Trew didn’t stop moving until the door to the bathing chamber closed behind us with a low thud.
His arms remained tight around me, though the battle was long over.
The room hung thick with steam, the kind that curled across my skin and coaxed the tension from my sore muscles.
Torches flickered on the stone walls, their golden light casting shadows across his face. The scent of herbs clung to the air.
Hours ago, we’d been drenched in blood and ash, our blades cutting through nightmares. Now, water shimmered in front of us as if it belonged to another world.
Trew set me on my feet, but his hand lingered on my back. His jaw still held that hard edge, and his face showed sharp lines carved deep by all we’d been through. Yet when his gaze found mine, the steel softened.
I traced the path of soot across his cheekbone.
“I fought by your side to keep our world from burning.” My voice came out a whisper. “Now, all I want is to burn for you.”
He inhaled sharply, the warrior in him warring with the man who wanted me. Then he bowed his head, pressing his forehead against mine. The warmth of his skin, the faint rasp of his breath, and the heat rising around us tangled together.
The contrast nearly undid me. The battlefield still clung to my skin in the grit under my nails, the dull ache of bruises, and the memory of screams. Here was steam and torchlight. Here was safety. Here was him.
And I was burning already.
Trew’s hand slid to the dagger strapped to my thigh.
The contrast of the warrior king touching steel one moment and my body the next made my pulse trip.
His thumb brushed my leg as he tugged the blade free, the scrape of metal against its sheath loud in the hushed chamber.
He set the weapon carefully on a stone bench.
Dropping to his knees, he pressed his lips to a sore spot above my left knee.
I shivered.
“You earned this protecting Maddox,” he said.
I nearly sagged into him. Not because of the kiss, though fates, yes, that too, but because he remembered why I might be sore there.
Another dagger came loose from the strap on my other thigh, his fingers brushing too slowly to be accidental.
This time when he kissed the spot where the leather had bitten into my skin, his voice roughened.
“Bruises will fade. Wounds will heal. My love for you will live forever. Every bruise on your body is proof of your courage, and I will kiss them all until you realize you mean everything to me.”
I had no defense against that. My lungs ached, as though I’d run farther than to the battlefield itself.
He moved up, unbuckling the straps of my armor piece by piece.
Leather peeled away with soft groans, every snap of a fastening sounding indecently loud in the steam-heavy air.
At each patch of exposed skin, his mouth found my skin.
A kiss to the hollow of my hip. Another to the bruise on the inside of my wrist. Each one undoing me more than any enemy ever could.
“You bleed, and my world tilts,” he said, tracing a purple mark on my arm with gentle fingers. His jaw clenched hard, his eyes darkening. “Do you see what you mean to me yet?”
My throat worked, but no words came out. How could I explain the emotions tearing through me? This man who ruled kingdoms and turned monsters to ash was staring at me as if I was the most important person in his world.
The last garment slid free. He dropped it with a dull clatter, then caught my hand, lifting it to his lips, kissing each knuckle.
“I will peel back every blade you carry, every wall you build,” he whispered. “Until there’s only you.”
My heart split wide open. I wanted to laugh and sob at the same time. I wanted to tell him I was more than my weapons, more than just bruises and scars, but right now I wasn’t sure I was. Not when he looked at me like this.
His fingers skimmed higher, over a raw scrape below my ribs. He stilled, fury flashing across his face. “Who dared to mark what belongs to me?”
His reverence didn’t feel like chains. This was protection. A vow.
“It was a Skathe,” I said, my voice hoarse.
He bent and kissed the scrape with devastating care. “I’ll make them choke on their own ash for daring. The fates can take my crown, my throne, my blood. But they don’t touch you.”
Every weapon I’d carried into battle lay on the bench now. Every piece of leather had been tugged away. And still, I’d never felt safer.
My body hummed from his kisses, from the way he stripped me of more than weapons. But when I looked up at the cuts along his jaw, the dark bruises blooming above his tunic, and the exhaustion in his shoulders, my chest ached.
“It’s your turn.”
His golden gaze flicked to mine, heat sparking there. “Minx—”
“No.” My voice didn’t tremble, though my fingers did as I reached for the first buckle at his shoulder. “If you undress me, you don’t get to keep your armor. I’m taking it all off.”
He stilled, staring down at me. He wasn’t the king any longer. Not the warrior. Just a man staring at the woman who dared to give him orders. His mouth curved, a wolf baring its teeth in something close to a smile.
“Do you ever take orders?” I asked, working the buckle loose.
His low laugh ghosted over me. “From you? Always.”
Fates help me, that was worse than any kiss.
“No one dares touch what’s mine but me.” My hands shook as I tugged his tunic up over his head, exposing bruised skin.
His growl was ruined by the rawness in his eyes. “Always.”
“I bled each time you were hurt.” Standing on my toes, I kissed a large bruise on his shoulder, another along his ribs.
He bent until his breath brushed my ear. “You have no idea what you do to me, Minx, but I’m going to show you.”
Heat slammed through me, scattering all thought. I reached for the fastenings that marched down the front of his pants, releasing them one by one. “You rule this kingdom, but undressing you makes me feel like I’m ruling you.”
“Oh, you are.”
Every knot undone revealed more of him—muscles, scars, skin pebbled with war. He let me strip him, though I felt the restraint in him like a bow pulled taut. He could’ve ripped the leather away in seconds. Instead, he let me command the pace.
When the last piece slid free and fell to the floor, he stood bare in the torchlight, a study of strength wrapped in bruises and scars. My throat tightened.
Before I could speak, he swept me off my feet and into his arms again. As if carrying me was as natural as breathing.
“Better,” he murmured, pressing his forehead to mine. “Now we’re both unarmed.”
Steam curled higher as Trew carried me up the stairs and down into the water. Heat lapped up my thighs, then my ribs, until the ache of battle began to ease from the warmth. He settled on the smooth stone seat, keeping me in his lap.
I rested my cheek on his chest, his heartbeat thudding steady, bringing me back from the hours of death and blood. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. We just breathed, letting the battle drain away in the hiss of steam.
Then his hand rose, cupping water, letting it trickle slowly through my hair. His fingers followed, combing careful paths down my scalp, massaging with a tenderness that unraveled me more than any kiss.
“I would scrub the blood of the world from you,” he said. “As long as it means you never have to carry its weight again.”
Sadly, the odds of that were slim. We’d won this battle, but it was just one of many we’d face until we killed them all or drove them back through the veil.
I closed my eyes, letting his touch loosen every knot of tension. “You’ll spoil me if you keep doing this.”
“That’s the idea.” He kissed my temple.
I caught the exhaustion carved into his features, the bruises I hadn’t yet kissed away.
I reached for a pitcher by the edge of the tub, dipped it into the steaming pool, and tipped it gently over his head.
Water cascaded down his dark hair, over his sharp cheekbones, and across the breadth of his chest.
“You don’t need to do this,” he said.
“I want to. Let me spoil you.”
His lips curled up, and he closed his eyes. For the first time in too long, he looked at peace.
I threaded my fingers through his wet hair, working in the soap, massaging his scalp. “You’re allowed to let someone else take care of you once in a while, you know.”
His lashes lifted, his golden eyes molten. “You think I don’t?”
I laughed. “Trew, you carry a kingdom on your shoulders. You’re terrible at sharing the load.”
His mouth twisted into a half-smirk, the other half something softer. “I’ll let you carry me. Here. Now. Always.”
My heart tripped. He wasn’t joking.
I rose onto my knees and kissed him, water dripping between us. He deepened it with a sweep of tongue that left me dizzy.
When I pulled back, my voice shook for an entirely different reason. “This was supposed to be a bath. Not an excuse for you to grope me.”
“I believe you’re groping me.” His smirk sharpened. “And I love it. Why not both?”
Heat flushed through me hotter than the water around us.
We both sobered as I brushed a line of water down his bruised jaw.
He caught my wrist and kissed the inside of it, his eyes never leaving mine. “You bleed, and my world unravels. If I could keep you from ever being harmed, I would.” The touch of sadness in his gaze was echoed in my heart. Neither of us could fully protect the other, though we’d try.
I swallowed hard, my pulse a wild rhythm in my throat. For once, I had no words, no shield. Only the truth pounding through my chest.
“I love you,” I whispered. “I’ll do and be anything to protect you.”
“Same.”
He caught my face between his hands, his calloused palms cradling me as though I was fragile when he knew damn well I was anything but. Drops trickled down his jaw and slid over his chest.
“I thought I would die today,” he said, the words as rough as gravel. “And then you came, my reckless, radiant woman, like the fates themselves heard my prayer.”