Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
Emmeline
“Emmeline,” Roremar said once they were back in the apartment. She was tucked in his lap, his voice sharp yet delicate, like the glass she’d kept around her nightmares had cracked and was being pressed softly—torturously—against her skin.
Roremar cradled her cheek with one hand, the other banding around her, and he tilted her face to his, but all Emmeline saw was blurs of fangs and blood, twinkling mystlights and devious grins. Gently, he lowered her to the bed beside him, but Emmeline flinched at the soft fabric against her skin.
“N-no,” she stuttered. “Bathtub.”
Roremar blinked at her, contemplating for only a moment before he stood again, Emmeline tight in his arms. The chains on her belt and beads dangling from her costume echoed like that glass breaking in the night, each chime making her flinch. Making her curve further into him.
“Bathtub,” she repeated as Roremar strode into the bathing chamber and the mystlight orbs flared to life, illuminating the white marble countertop and basin, the silver fixtures. It was all so pristine, unlike her.
She’d been tainted for a long, long time.
“I know. Bathtub, I promise,” Roremar whispered, propping her on the edge of the bathing tub and holding her upright with one arm as he turned on the tap.
There was barely a speck of dirt on her. He had to be confused by her demand. She would have been, too, if she didn’t feel the layer of oil coating her skin.
It isn’t real, she reminded herself.
But it felt so real.
“No,” she choked out when Roremar reached for one of the oil jars on the shelf over the bathing tub. She needed to be able to see beneath the surface and feel only pure water over her flesh. To assure herself.
It felt so real.
The thought ricocheted through her mind, and she shot to her feet, trembling hands trying to rip the clothes from her body. Her fingers snagged on her belt, and Roremar reached to help.
“I can do it,” she whispered, hurried and determined. “I can take care of it.”
“I know you can.” His voice was soft. Soothing. Enough that she paused, hands still gripping the beaded fabric around her waist. “I know you can take care of yourself, Emmeline. I know you’re able to do it all on your own. But right now, you don’t have to. Let me help.”
Those words, the gentleness of them and the desperation barely audible beneath, scratched at every scar she kept so long buried. She couldn’t fully understand what it meant to her. Not right now. But holding in a whimpering sob, she nodded.
It felt so real.
As Roremar helped her strip off the sheer scraps of fabric and threw them in the trash, it felt so real.
As he lowered her into the steaming water, eyes flicking absently around the basin, it felt so real.
As the silence stretched into something heavy and unbearable, it felt so real.
“I can leave if you need space,” Roremar finally said.
Emmeline only hugged her knees to her chest. The water swirled with the movement, shapes morphing before her blurred vision. Her hair was plastered to her back and shoulders, a shroud to cover her deepest wounds.
Somehow, she felt like Roremar could see them still.
“Em?” Roremar asked softly, hand coasting over her hair in a barely there touch.
Em, he called her. It seemed so personal coming from this brooding, reckless warrior.
From someone who had warred with the need to protect her tonight.
Who came back no matter how hard she pushed him away.
It was like touching fire when you’d already been burned, knowing how distinct that pain was but asking for it again and again.
Roremar must have been a masochist to choose her.
Beneath the water, her thumbs stroked the crescent-shaped scars along her thighs.
She dug her nails into each, as if making herself bleed would reclaim them somehow.
As if she could cancel out the wounds she’d buried deep below her armor, the scars and secrets beneath her scales so ugly and wretched and unfathomable.
Perhaps she was the masochist, needing to feel the pain when everything else felt too real.
“Em, are you okay?”
Fates, his voice rolled along her skin in such a soothing way.
But his touch—she couldn’t be touched right now.
Every brush was sharp as the scales slicing against her skin.
The way he kept the barest hint of distance between his palm and her hair told her he could tell.
That he was reading her better than she cared to admit.
I know you’re able to do it all on your own. But right now, you don’t have to. Let me help.
Too real.
And she knew if he stayed this close, she’d lean into him. But that contact would catch on her heart and rip her wide open. Shred and pierce and bleed the both of them.
She didn’t think she could handle that.
“Alone,” she muttered.
She didn’t look up to see the disappointment and concern budding in his eyes, though she knew exactly how choking it would be. Didn’t let his answering silence puncture her resolve. She couldn’t.
It all felt too real.