Malin – The Past Comes Calling
Malin
The Past Comes Calling
The heavy door to their suite shut behind Malin with a final, sealing thud.
She was bone-tired, her nerves scoured raw by the double dose of public pageantry and private ambush.
She fully expected the room to be dark and to find Will already asleep on the couch where he had exiled himself for the past few weeks.
Instead, he was waiting.
Perched on the edge of the cushions, stripped of his rigid ceremonial black, he was shirtless, wearing only a simple pair of linen pants.
His hair, no longer pulled back, curled slightly at his ears.
The guarded, desperate warmth in his hazel eyes made her ache to run to him, but the invisible wall that had grown between them over the last month kept her feet planted.
He stood as she entered. “Hey, Sparks.”
She tried to smile, but her mouth was too exhausted to make it work. “Hey, yourself.”
She shrugged off the stifling velveteen cape, draping it over a chair. Then, the scent hit her. It was the sharp, citrusy smell of mineral salts. Steam billowed softly from the open bathroom door. A glass of chilled white drink rested on the edge of the massive marble tub.
She looked back at him, the ice around her heart cracking. “Did you…?”
Will offered a sheepish, hesitant grin. “I thought you might need it. Go ahead. I will come help you with those pins in a minute, if you want company.”
“I would like that,” she answered softly.
It was a peace offering. A cautious truce.
A spark of genuine hope ignited in her chest. She had done nothing but give him space since he escaped his torturers, waiting for him to heal.
Seeing that familiar, gentle grin made her want to weep with relief.
Maybe she was getting the man she loved back.
But the hesitation lingered, settling like a cold knot in her stomach.
The trauma had permanently changed him, and their marriage might never truly be the same again.
In the bathroom, Malin stripped, leaving the heavy silks and suffocating corset in a heap.
The scalding water was a revelation, instantly melting the agonizing stiffness in her spine.
She took a sip of the drink and found that he had remembered and poured her the sweet nectar Anariel had recommended as healthy for her during her pregnancy.
She closed her eyes, letting her mind drift into the steam.
He entered silently. The familiar, comforting warmth of his fingers brushed the nape of her neck.
He took a seat on a low stool behind the tub. With infinite, painstaking gentleness, he began extracting the dozens of heavy sapphire pins from her elaborate Elven braids, finally freeing her aching scalp.
“Rough night?” he asked quietly.
“You could say that,” she breathed, letting her eyes flutter shut. “Thank you. For this.” She didn’t just mean the bath.
His hands moved to her shoulders, kneading the locked muscles with a healer’s precision. “You do not have to say anything if you do not want to.”
She wanted to tell him, but speaking aloud was simply too heavy a burden for her throat. Instead, she reached across the frayed, static-filled space of their soul-bond, bridging the distance that had plagued them for weeks to whisper directly into his thoughts.
He listened to her mental voice in complete silence, answering only with the steady rhythm of his massage and light kisses pressed to her forehead.
She confessed the startling comfort of the Basat’s familiar, the suffocating whispers of the court, and the ice-cold shock of seeing Victor’s face. She gave him the entire story.
As her silent confessions transferred, his reciprocal surge of anger, fierce protectiveness, and profound guilt for leaving her alone bled warmly through the connection.
He didn’t pull away. He didn’t offer suffocating rules or demands.
He simply absorbed her burden, his thumbs tracing slow, deliberate circles over her wet skin.
It was not magic that settled her racing heart, but the simple, undeniable weight of his devotion.
She leaned back against the porcelain, finally letting herself rest in the absolute safety of his touch.
The heavy, suffocating wall between them vanished, and for the first time in weeks, she felt the man she loved returning to her.
Then, Will’s touch trailed lower. The spark of hope from earlier became a jolt, flaring in Malin’s chest. His comfort crossed from healer and husband to lover.
His fingers slid past her collarbone, brushing the swell of her chest just beneath the water.
Malin’s breath caught. After weeks of agonizing distance and avoiding her touch, the air in the room suddenly shifted, thick with a different kind of heat.
A deep, neglected hunger stirred in her belly, her nipples pebbling instantly at the thought of what his hands could offer next.
As upset as she was about the day, her touch-starved body was desperately hoping this peace offering was about to become something much more.
She covered his hand with her own, gently pulling it down beneath the scalding water to rest flat against her chest. He didn’t resist, but the immediate, wired tension locked his fingers. For a fraction of a second, his entire body went rigid as stone.
She turned to look over her shoulder at him. “Will,” she said, keeping her voice as soft as the steam rising around them. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”
His restraint had to be tied to the physical torture he endured at the pirate encampment, but since he had spent the last month refusing to talk about it, it was only a guess.
Offering a self-deprecating laugh that seemed to catch bitterly in his throat, he said, “I want to. I just...” He took a ragged breath, his hazel eyes dropping to the water.
“I cannot stop my own head. I keep thinking about them. Nemilos. Lydia. Sometimes it feels like they are standing right behind me.”
Will swallowed hard, the horrifying truth finally tearing loose.
“The illusion magic they used was so flawless, Sparks. They would make me think I was finally with you. I would be holding you, I would be happy, and then your face would shift into hers. Or they would make me watch as Nemilos did unspeakable things to what looked exactly like you. Other times, they made you do awful things to me. I know it was Lydia the whole time. I know it was a lie. But my mind cannot unsee it.”
He hadn’t spoken of his captivity with this level of agonizing specificity. It had to be a sign of healing; a sign he was finally coming back to her.
Letting the heavy silence stretch, Malin’s heart shattered for him.
She gently squeezed his submerged hand. “You do not have to explain. We do not have to do anything you do not want to. But I want to hear it, Will. I want to help you carry it. I want to hold you and connect with you, even if we do not go any further. Avoiding me all the time simply makes me feel like you do not want to try.”
Shaking his head as he carefully pulled his hand free from her grasp, he said.
“Talking does not fix it. My brain just gets stuck. I know they are dead. I watched you burn them to ash. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I can still hear him laughing. Or I see Lydia walking down the hall, and I freeze, thinking if I turn around, she will be right there.”
Pulling her knees to her chest, Malin shifted. A sudden chill gripped her despite the scalding bath. “They weaponized your love for me. You cannot just turn that off.”
Will looked away, a muscle jumping in his clenched jaw.
“With all the death and destruction I have delivered in my life, I thought I could. I am a warrior, and I’ve been tortured many times before.
Never did it leave this kind of impact. I should be able to block it out.
I want to be better for you.” His voice dropped to a broken whisper.
“But it is as if I let myself be happy, really happy, then the illusion will drop, and something awful will happen. I feel like I do not deserve it.”
“Will, look at me.” Malin leaned forward, reaching up with wet hands to pull his face down toward hers, then turning toward him. “You do deserve it. We do. And if I have to say it a thousand times until you believe me, I will.”
She slid her hands up his chest, anchoring herself against his shoulders as she drew his mouth down to hers. The first touch was a breathless, soft graze. Desperate to ground him, she wove her fingers into his hair and pulled him into a deep, bruising kiss, silently begging him to let go.
His lips parted under hers, but the surrender was a lie. Beneath her hands, his muscles were locked with agonizing tension. His arms remained rigidly at his sides, acting as a physical, unyielding barricade against her affection.
After a moment, he gently pulled away. The hollow, terrifying space between them instantly returned.
He was shutting her out all over again, retreating into a dark place where she could not reach him.
He stood up, brushed a wet strand of hair from her eyes with a trembling hand, and left her sitting alone in the water.
“Let me get you a towel,” he said, his voice thick.
He was gone before she could even protest.