Chapter 28
Theo
Nate’s body hung decapitated in front of Theo, the hint of decay wafting from it.
He’d already been dead when they’d severed it, but they’d placed his head at Theo’s feet for him to stare at for days.
No food or water, only the lifeless eyes of his friend.
He shouted a frustrated cry. An insect crawled through Nate’s sinuses.
Theo couldn’t take it anymore. He should’ve been the one to hang there and be mutilated. He should’ve been dead, not Nate.
“Theodoric!” Amaris’s scream pulled Theo from the pain, the dungeons, his head.
Theo shot up on the cot, tears running down his cheeks.
Pain instantly overcame him, and his vision faded.
Sweat dripped from his hair, soaking his sheets.
He gasped as his heart sped. He dropped to the cot, reaching his hand out for the bucket in the dark.
He gripped the rim. He coughed and gagged at each memory, sensation, and smell.
Amaris lit a candle, coming to his bedside with a blanket wrapped around her. A few more were on the floor, along with a pillow beside the empty hearth.
“It was only a dream,” she whispered as he continued to spew his guts out.
He felt his branded skin stretch with each retch. Maybe the new scars from the whip would cover the burn marks and cuts scattering his back.
Theo hadn’t known her faint whisper was what he needed to sooth his racing thoughts. He gripped the edge of the bed, waiting for the nausea to subside.
He sensed her hand hover over his cheek and leaned into her touch.
She dragged the back of her hand over his forehead. “You’re hot.”
She pulled away, and instantly, pain raced up his back. It wasn’t like what he’d first experienced, but it had his jaw clenching. She returned with a basin of water and rag. She dragged it over his face and down his arms. “The evaporation will help cool you down.”
He tried to speak but couldn’t as she pulled back his blanket and peeked beneath the bandages.
He was too exposed, but she only sighed and relinquished herself from his side.
She retreated to a small pitcher on the table and poured a glass of water.
There wasn’t a hint of fear in her eyes over his panicked outburst or the ugly scars marring his skin.
His eyes again trailed to the blanket and pillow upon the floor. Why was she sleeping in the tower?
She kneeled beside the bed, her long waves brushing his arm.
He wanted to take one of her curls and wind it around his finger.
Their eyes met as she brought the cup to his lips.
Another wave of tears burned behind his eyes.
He wanted to turn away so she wouldn’t see the anguish in his heart, but he couldn’t pull himself from her gaze.
His hand shook as he reached for it, but she batted it away.
There wasn’t pity in her eyes but understanding.
The pain from Rongstad had vanished once he’d woken, but his breaths were still labored as his body sensed the danger. He took another sip and watched her eyes linger on the jagged scar on his bicep, its contorted line, each cut and stroke.
“A reminder,” he croaked.
“Of what?” she breathed.
“My failures.” He released a shuddering sigh, his back pulsing with pain.
Her hand hovered over his twitching muscles.
He bit back a scream as she laid her gentle fingers along the muscle, and a sensation of pins and needles sprinkled through his back.
She didn’t remove her hand. He didn’t want her to.
The pain was ripped away as he focused on her and the feel of her hand against his skin.
Why did he want her near? He knew she belonged to another, even though he was a vile bastard for daring to strike her.
She pulled back, his mind fracturing as the pain surged with intensity.
He gripped the edge of the bed as she got up and grabbed more supplies.
She pulled back the bandages. The paste she began lathering onto his wounds was ice against his skin.
If she’d been the mystique to tend to him during the war, would he still have the scars?
Would his nights still be filled with the hauntings of his past?
“Why did you save me?” His voice was raspy.
Concern flashed over her features, and she withdrew. “How did you…? You mean, your back—”
“No, in the river,” he cried, a tear slipping down his face as his friend’s severed head refused to relinquish itself from his mind. “I’ve cheated death enough in my life. Why did you bring me back?” A sob rattled his chest, but she was there. Amaris slid her hand over his, and he clung to it.
“We don’t get to decide who lives or dies,” she breathed, her voice cracking. She fought back a string of her own tears.
“I should be dead, Amaris. I should have died weeks ago. I should have died years ago.”
He hid his face to shield himself. He couldn’t help it—everything was pouring out of him.
Ever since she’d come into his life, he couldn’t breathe.
He hadn’t a moment of peace. She was haunting him and forcing him to relive what he’d lost. She’d opened an endless well of emotions within him that he couldn’t contain, and her face and the beat of her pulse in her wrist were the only things that had brought him back from his nightmare within Rongstad Prison.
“Why do you taunt me with your existence? Every day I see you, I’m reminded of the second chance I’ve been given that I don’t deserve.”
“Everyone deserves a second chance.” She didn’t hide the tear staining her cheek. “You’re still alive because you were meant to be here. I’d be dead or imprisoned if it weren’t for you.”
“I failed my squad, and now I’m failing you. I can’t protect you like this.”
She wiped her tears, sucking in a breath. “I don’t need you to. Esaias is at the bottom of the steps, and Adelaide checks in. You aren’t alone.”
“I lost my entire squad, my friend! I can’t lose anyone else, no one ever again.
” Her thumb caressed the back of his hand as he sobbed into his sheets.
He didn’t care about the pain in his back.
The agony he felt in his heart was worse.
“I can’t stop it,” he whispered. “For the last two years, I’d been able to stifle it, but I can’t anymore. ”
“And you shouldn’t.” She let go of his hand, lifting her fingers to his face but hesitated.
He wanted her to brush back the strands of his hair clinging to his forehead, but her hand fell away.
“Feel, Theodoric. Don’t push it away.”
“What if it’s too much to bear?” He stifled his cries.
“Allow others to help shoulder your burden.” Her breaths faltered, and she sniffled. “Don’t stuff the feelings down.” Her gaze drifted to the candle. “I know what that’s like. I think I’m losing myself.”
Theo reached to cup her face and brush aside her tear, but she pulled away. With the single candle, the tower felt entirely too small, but she couldn’t have been farther away. He wanted to pull her closer.
“I’m not who I used to be. I wish I could blame this place, your father, or even Bennet.” She wiped the fluid threatening to drip from the tip of her nose. “But I can’t. My world has been turned upside down coming here, but I’m beginning to think it wasn’t right in the first place.”
“Amaris, you don’t—”
“I need to tell someone,” she said, raising her voice as she fought more tears.
“The night I ran away, Derek and I got into a huge argument over my work.” Her voice grew airy as she rubbed the heel of her palm against her eyes.
“But that’s how it goes now. He drinks because he’s stressed, and I fight back because I can’t help it.
” She dropped her head, breaking into a sob.
“For a whole year, it’s been nonstop fighting, and it’s all over stupid shit.
I risk my life every day, but that isn’t what scares me.
That’s what fuels me. I’m terrified every day I go home, because I don’t know which Derek I’m going to get.
I don’t know if he’ll be baking me breakfast and telling me how much he can’t live without me or if he’ll be screaming at me for leaving my shoes by the door. ”
Theo again tried to reach for her, but she fell back against the chair.
“That night, I snapped and punched the mirror because I hated who I’d become, and I ran because Derek backhanded me.
He’s gotten close or gripped me, but he’s never hit me.
I egged him on, and he hit me.” Her muffled voice turned to cries as she sobbed.
“But the scariest part of all is I’m going to go home and walk through that door and attempt to move forward as if nothing ever happened, because I’m terrified to see what else could be out there. ”
She’d escaped one prison to find herself trapped in another.
“You don’t have to go back.”
She lifted her head, her face blotchy and her eyes swollen. “What about your father? He’ll never grant me my freedom now.”
“We can find a way,” Theo said. “You don’t deserve to be with someone who treats you like that.”
“But I’ve been with Derek for six years.”
She hardly saw what anyone else did, that she was an incredible woman capable of taking on whatever the realm threw at her. She’d stood against his father and Bennet and didn’t cower.
He wiped his tears from his cheeks and said, “Amaris, you drive me absolutely insane at times, but you’re strong, capable, and stubborn.
” He pulled himself from the bed, ignoring the searing pain in his back as he sat beside her.
“Please see what I do, that you’re fierce and powerful.
You do what’s right, regardless of what others think.
You jump first to save someone. Don’t think for a second that you belong in a life where you’re trapped in your own home feeling worthless. You deserve better.”
Her puffy eyes welled with tears again. She leaned her head against his arm and sobbed. She trembled against him, but he didn’t dare move.
“It’ll be alright,” he whispered. “I’ll make sure of it.” Gods be damned if each breath she took didn’t send more pain down his back, but her single touch against his shoulder was like shooting stars along his skin. He’d find a way. For her sake, he’d find a way for her to be free.