Chapter Ten
THE FIRST THING I felt was warmth.
It pressed against me, solid, the kind of warmth I hadn’t known in so long it felt foreign. For a moment, still tangled in sleep, I let myself believe it was safe to rest there. Safe to breathe.
But when my eyes blinked open, memory crashed back. The closet. The blood. My throat torn raw on screams I hadn’t meant to give.
I froze.
Ashen.
His arm was still around me, heavy but careful, his chest rising and falling slow against my back. The scent of leather clung to him, but underneath it was something else, pine and soap, grounding. He hadn’t moved all night. He’d stayed.
Shame clawed up first, hot and suffocating. He’d heard me. He’d seen me thrash like a wild thing. And worse—he’d heard my voice.
My throat ached when I swallowed, the soreness proof enough. I wanted to curl in on myself, bury the sound back where it belonged. That was mine. My silence. The only control I had left. Now it was broken.
I shifted, testing his hold, expecting it to tighten. But it loosened immediately, his arm pulling back just enough that I could slip free if I wanted. No cage. No trap.
“Wren.” His voice was rough, still thick with sleep. Just my name. Nothing more.
And something inside me faltered.
I should’ve pulled away. Should’ve shoved him back, created the distance I’d fought for so long. Men’s touch meant pain. Their weight meant fear. Their closeness meant I disappeared into shadows I could never escape.
But this didn’t feel like disappearing.
Ashen’s arm didn’t force, it steadied. His chest at my back didn’t smother, it anchored. And against every rule I’d carved into myself, every vow I’d sworn in the dark, I didn’t want to move.
My fingers curled into the blanket, clutching it not to fight, but to stay.
That realization sent panic fluttering through me. Wanting this was dangerous. Wanting him was worse. My body shouldn’t remember how to lean into a man, how to crave safety in someone else’s arms. But it did.
And when his thumb brushed absently across my arm—barely there, just the ghost of a touch—I felt it like fire under my skin. A spark. A tremor. Something alive.
Heat coiled low in my stomach, quick and startling. My heart hammered, too loud, too frantic.
I squeezed my eyes shut, as if I could smother the reaction before it gave me away. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t see how close I was to betraying myself. To betraying the promise that no man would ever touch me again in a way that mattered.
But here I was, still in his arms.
Letting him close.
Wanting him close.
I hated it. I needed it. Both truths twisted deep inside me until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
My breath stuttered, uneven, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Because even through the fear and the shame, another truth whispered in the back of my mind, terrifying and impossible.
For the first time in forever, I felt something good.
And that unsettled me more than any nightmare ever could.
Ashen shifted then, his arm finally sliding away. The loss of his warmth was instant, sharp enough that I had to bite back the urge to reach for him. He stood, stretching the stiffness from his shoulders, and glanced down at me.
“You should rest a little longer,” he said, his voice quiet, unreadable. “I’m gonna hit the shower. Then I’ll come get you for breakfast.”
Breakfast. The word felt strange, almost ordinary in the wake of the night.
I gave the smallest nod, not trusting my voice even if I’d wanted to use it.
His gaze lingered on me for a moment longer, before he turned toward the door. He left without another word, the sound of his boots fading in the hall.
And I lay there in the quiet, tangled in blankets and shame and the faint echo of his warmth, wondering what was breaking faster, my silence, or the walls I’d built to survive.
I stayed curled in the blankets, staring at the empty space where he’d been. The mattress still held the shape of his weight, the air still faint with his scent. I hated the ache that pulled at me in his absence, the strange sense of loss.
I dragged the blanket over my head and let myself sink back for a moment, just breathing in the quiet. My throat throbbed with every swallow, a raw reminder of what I’d let slip in the night. He knew now. He’d heard me, and hiding wouldn’t undo it.
With a deep breath, I pushed the blanket aside and swung my legs to the floor. The dress Elara had left folded on the chair waited for me, simple cotton, soft from wear. A kindness, and yet even that felt foreign. I touched the fabric lightly, my fingers trembling.
Forcing myself to move, I padded into the bathroom.
The mirror caught me off guard.
My face was pale, eyes swollen from crying, hair a tangled snarl that looked more wild creature than woman. I almost turned away. Almost let myself slip back into the safety of the bed. But I didn’t.
I twisted the faucet on, splashing cold water against my skin until the sting woke me fully. My hands found the toothbrush, the cheap plastic clumsy in my grip, but I brushed until the taste of nightmares faded from my mouth.
Then my hair.
Each pull of the brush snagged, yanking at the knots, but I kept going. The bristles scraped my scalp, sharp enough to ground me. By the time it fell smooth over my shoulders, my arms ached, but the reflection in the mirror was less of a ghost.
Finally, I slipped into the dress. The fabric hung loose against my frame, soft against my skin. Too soft. My throat tightened at the feel of it—gentle, clean, nothing like the dirty t-shirts Venom had forced on me.
I pressed my palms against the sink and drew a long breath.
This was the best I could do.
I wasn’t whole. I wasn’t unshakable. But I looked less like the broken thing that had crawled from a closet in the dark.
And when Ashen came back for me, I wanted that—needed that. For him to see I wasn’t just the screams.
So I straightened my shoulders, tucked my hair behind my ears, and walked back into the room to wait.