Chapter 36 #2
I guess it is, though. So how else could he speak of it? What else could he do? Complaining won’t change it. Nobody wants to walk through any kind of hell like this.
Sometimes, you simply aren’t given a choice.
He pauses, clutching one hand against the edge of the counter and taking a deep, steadying breath.
Routine or not, the twisting and turning to get to the harder-to-reach spots is clearly causing him even more pain.
The realization loosens something in my clenched heart, like the first click of a lock coming undone.
I go to his side, wordlessly taking the jar from him.
I dip my fingers into the thick balm, smoothing it over the places he can’t easily get to. He recoils slightly at first, uncertainty clouding his expression. Then he slowly gives in, just as he did when I convinced him to hand his brother over to me.
He lifts his face to the ceiling as I work, so I can no longer see his expression in the mirror, or any emotions that might be welling up in his eyes—but I can still feel those emotions.
Every bit of anguish that tightens his muscles beneath my touch.
Every trembling breath he tries to smooth into something stoic and unbothered.
After a few minutes, I feel him sway a bit, and I think of the way he crumpled in the forest.
I have a strange compulsion to make sure it doesn’t happen again so long as I’m standing here. A strange, foolish urge to set the jar down and wrap my arms around him from behind.
He goes very still as I do this, so tense that I almost change my mind and start to back away—until I realize how tired I am of standing up myself. How he’s holding me up, too, as much as I’m holding him.
We both relax into one another before long, his hand coming to rest on mine, pressing it to the center of his chest.
Breathing in deeply, he says, “He doesn’t even know he’s doing it. He doesn’t remember most of it. He just wakes up feeling sick, and drained, and with bruises that usually concentrate around his wrists and hands.”
“That’s why he’s always wearing gloves.”
“Yes. We haven’t told him the real reason he loses consciousness. The flashes he does occasionally remember are like nothing more than feverish nightmares to him, so that’s what we let him believe they are. Though it’s getting harder to fool him.”
I lean back, studying his reflection in the mirror. His eyes are narrowed, hard and unrelenting. As if he’s assessing himself, even now, wondering if he’s done enough, what he has to do next, if he could ever, ever do enough to fix all of these things.
It undoes me a little, seeing his doubt, his vulnerability…and how willing he is to carry every nightmare, every hurt, every burden of the ones he loves.
I wonder if anyone has ever offered to carry his.
If he would even let me, if I dared to try.
Another slow, exasperated exhale escapes me, followed by a ragged attempt at a deep inhale. I feel as if I’m standing on the edge of a sea, debating whether or not to dive in. I don’t know how deep it goes. How dangerous the current underneath is, how sharp any hidden rocks might be.
But there’s only one thing I can think to say in that moment, even if it means plunging into a cold, drowning death.
“I want to help you, Reave. To help him.”
He doesn’t reply for a long moment. Then he lifts my hand from his chest, wrapping it up in his as he slowly turns around to face me.
“I mean, I at least want to try,” I say softly.
His fingers gently trace the contours of my hand as he tilts his head, as if he’s not sure he heard me properly. “It wasn’t fair of me to bring you here and expect you to fix all of this,” he says.
“No. It wasn’t.”
“I don’t have any right to ask it of you.”
“I don’t care.” I take another deep breath. “I still want to do this. Maybe I can’t heal the whole world, or bring peace, or whatever else, but if I could at least heal him…that would be a start, wouldn’t it?”
He studies me for several more seconds before giving the barest of nods, the motion still oddly vulnerable and uncertain for him. “It would,” he agrees.
His gaze holds mine. I again have the feeling that the walls we put up are cracking under the growing weight of me and him—of us—little bits of stone chipping away until I can finally catch a glimpse of the actual man on the other side.
It’s the first time I’ve ever allowed myself to truly look at him without being blinded by hatred and anger, and it’s both exhilarating and terrifying to see him through this clearer lens.
“I should probably go so you can get some sleep,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
“No you shouldn’t.” The reply is so quick, so certain—especially after seeing his more vulnerable side—that it freezes me in place and renders me speechless.
“Stay with me tonight,” he says.
Last time he told me to stay in here, it was a command. This time…this time it sounds more like a plea. A question wrapped in desire and need and a fragile, budding hope, and he’s looking at me as if nothing else that’s happened tonight matters, so long as I don’t crush that hope.
I manage to keep breathing, somehow. To speak in a somewhat steady voice. “Only if you promise to actually sleep,” I counter. “Because I am not facing the wrath of your sister if she finds out you didn’t.”
A corner of his lips quirks. “I’ll do my best.”
I look down at the clothes the servants brought earlier—ones more suited for a training session than resting—and try to keep my voice casual as I add, “You should have had actual sleeping attire brought up for me, if this was your master plan all along.”
“We’ll manage,” he says, picking up his own clean shirt and offering it to me.
He turns away at this point, gathering up the supplies he used to treat his wounds and putting them away with methodical, neat precision.
He seems lost in thought, fully distracted, so I think nothing of sliding out of my other clothes and slipping into his looser, more comfortable shirt, which falls to the middle of my thighs and hangs more like a nightgown on me.
It somehow feels more intimate than if he’d stood there and stared at me while I stripped down naked—the way he moves so easily in my presence, as if I’m simply a part of this private space. A part of him.
As I fasten the last of the shirt’s buttons, he finishes what he’s doing and turns my way again, stopping short at the sight of me.
Heat floods me as I look down at myself. “What?”
“Nothing. I just like the way my clothes look on you, that’s all. They suit you.”
“Like the colors of the Mouren banner suit me?” I ask, brows lifting as I recall our conversation about the dress I wore to the Sun Harvest Feast.
He raises one shoulder and lets it drop, his smile unapologetic.
“And yet you aren’t claiming me, you say.”
“Politically speaking, I’m not. Not as my property, as decreed by any ancient laws or rituals sanctioned by any gods.” He steps closer, taking my hand again.
I let him draw me toward his chest, heart racing as his other hand curls under my chin, lifting my mouth and aligning it better with his.
“But my mind is not on politics at the moment.” His face tilts closer to mine. “Or on anything particularly godly, for that matter.”
“What is it on, I wonder?” I tease, as though I couldn’t guess.
His smile turns crooked. “You need only ask, and I’ll likely tell you; apparently, I’m determined to spill all of my secrets to you before the night is over.”
“I have that effect on men, I’ve been told.”
“I don’t want to think about you affecting other men right now, thank you.”
“Jealous, even now, when you clearly have me in your hold?”
“But do I?” A pause, then: “Do I have you?”
My thoughts rush to a stop. Everything seems to stop as his gaze drops to my mouth and lingers there for a moment.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He lifts his eyes back to mine, and the look shining in them sends one final, massive crack splitting through the wall between us.
A soft curse slips out of him—a declaration of defeat—before he gives in and presses his mouth against mine.