Chapter 31 The Bath
The Bath
Say something! my mind screamed.
But my voice was caught in my throat, completely useless as I watched Octavian strip down to absolutely nothing.
He was facing away from me, giving me a dead-on view of the rippling muscles of his back…and his hard, perfectly shaped buttocks.
Sweet jesus. My skin went from pleasantly warm to scalding, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the hot spring beneath me.
I had to say something. I couldn’t let him turn and—
Too late.
He turned, and I sank lower into the bubbles, trying to will myself to look away…
but it was an exercise in futility. And he still didn’t notice me as he stepped down into the bath, his muscled legs disappearing into the aromatic foam.
While the water had come to my belly button, he was so tall that it only reached his hips.
Meaning his junk—every glorious bit of it—was right at my eye level.
Something snapped in me then, and my body became un-petrified with a jolt. I jumped up, meaning to spring from the bath, snatch my towel, and run like hell—but instead my feet immediately slipped out from beneath me.
I only had time to let out a squeak—and glimpse Octavian’s eyes widen in shock—before I fell ass-backwards into the scented water.
As I scrambled to find my feet again, two strong hands came down through the suds and grabbed me by the arms, hauling me up to a standing position.
Which was almost worse. Because now, not only was I still staring at a very-naked Octavian, but as the suds sloughed off my dripping body, he was getting an eyeful of a very-naked me as well.
He seemed to realize it at the same moment, because he released me abruptly. I stumbled back so quickly that water sloshed over the edge of the basin. Too embarrassed to climb out and reveal even more of myself, I lowered myself back into the water so that I was covered up to my chin once more.
It wasn’t that I’d never seen a naked man before—I was a virgin, sure, but I wasn’t that innocent—but this was different.
“Don’t you look before you climb into a bath?!” I said, sweeping more bubbles closer to me so that there was no chance he’d get a peek of something beneath the water. Not that I didn’t want him to see…but in the scenarios I’d fantasized about, I’d had a little more control over the situation.
Octavian, meanwhile, had already recovered from his initial shock. He stepped back, lowering himself onto the ledge opposite mine. I let out a breath of relief as the distracting bits of him disappeared beneath the water—and I ignored the tickle of disappointment that followed.
“I apologize,” he rumbled. “I had no reason to believe this bath was occupied. I was under the impression you were taking a nap in one of the spare rooms.”
“Well, it could have been someone else in here,” I pointed out, still flustered.
“Perhaps, but in Therador, it’s not unusual for people to bathe together. True, the public bathhouses are sometimes split by gender, but even when they aren’t, it’s not considered obscene for two people to wash at the same time, especially in a large bath like this.”
“Oh.” He had a point—this was only inappropriate if we let it be.
Wasn’t Esmer always going off about how ridiculously puritan American culture was, and how we’d sexualized even the most innocent, mundane forms of nudity?
I was an adult, Octavian was an adult, and there was no reason this had to be anything more than two people bathing.
Even if it was really, really hard not to stare at his pecs right now.
“Of course,” he said, “if you’re uncomfortable—”
“I’m fine,” I assured him quickly. I was determined to pull myself together and not make things unnecessarily awkward. For once.
He didn’t look convinced. “If you’d prefer to be alone, there’s a lock on the door—”
“Really, it’s okay,” I said, silently cursing Ary for not pointing out the lock to me. Knowing her, she’d probably planned this little encounter herself.
“I’d be more convinced if you didn’t look like a terrified turtle trying to crawl into her shell,” Octavian said.
I straightened, lifting my chin from the suds. If I let myself sit up completely straight, the tops of my shoulders emerged from the water, but my breasts were still safely underneath the bubbles.
“Better?” I asked, forcing myself to look him in the eyes for the first time.
That was a mistake. Because the moment our eyes locked, a bolt of heat traveled through me, all the way down to my toes. I became very aware of the water against my bare skin, the feathery touch of bubbles against the tops of my breasts.
And I could see how dark his gaze had become, how much his pupils had dilated. He might claim that this was all perfectly innocent, but there was no doubt in my mind that he was just as aware of our nakedness as I was. The air between us was so charged my flesh practically buzzed with it.
The old me—and arguably the smarter me—would have looked away. Instead, I held his eyes, silently daring him to acknowledge his true thoughts.
But he wasn’t like his brother Radven. He wasn’t so blunt with his desire, which made this both harder and easier at the same time.
You’re a grown-ass woman, I reminded myself. There’s no reason to be afraid of a naked man. At least not an honorable one like Octavian.
But then I remembered how little I really knew about him, how he’d conveniently failed to tell me some pretty major things about himself.
“You never said you were some kind of hero,” I blurted, more accusatorially than I intended.
He blinked, the desire in his eyes disappearing briefly behind a flicker of confusion.
“Everyone out there knows who you are. You’re a legend,” I said. “I thought you were hiding under that cloak so the zhespers wouldn’t see you. Not because everyone in Ring-Around-the-Hill would recognize you.”
His face was unreadable, but his eyes had taken on that bleak, hollow look. “It’s been a long time since I was this ‘hero’ of theirs.”
“It doesn’t sound like something you can just stop being,” I said. “These people clearly still see you that way. They’ve believed in you all this time.”
“I’m not who they remember,” he said. “Too much has changed.”
He looked so lost, so broken in that moment that I was halfway across the bath to him before I remembered we were both still naked.
I lowered myself back down fully into the water, sinking onto the ledge to his right instead of returning to the opposite side of the basin. And then I found myself bringing up the thing I really wanted to know.
“Ary said you can change shape,” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to say manticore out loud, but the image flashed in my mind anyway—sharp teeth, piercing claws, feathered wings.
The shift in his expression was instant. Gone was the bleakness in his eyes, replaced instead by something fierce and terrifying and—animal.
My breath caught in my throat, and I suddenly remembered a moment back in my world, when we’d been running from the Tendrils—when he’d carried me in his arms, and I’d leaned close and breathed in the scent of him: musk and amber and blood.
And just like that, I believed it—that there was a beast in him, something wild and feral just waiting for the chance to burst free. The charming, protective Octavian was only one side of the coin—and the other side was currently staring back at me with carnal, animal hunger.
And then, just as quickly, it was gone.
“Once that was true,” he said, any wildness in him once again hidden behind a blank, emotionless mask. “But no longer.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, leaning closer despite myself. “I could have sworn I just saw—”
“I’m sure.” His voice was like a thunderclap, and I reeled back as if I’d been smacked.
Almost instantly, he was back to his normal self.
“I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing the side of his face.
“I didn’t mean…” He exhaled with a shuddering grumble, then started again.
“Forgive me, Marigold. I’m just not who—or what—these people think I am anymore.
” His eyes met mine again, those deep azure pools drawing me back in.
“There’s something my brothers and I probably should have mentioned to you before. ”
My heart thumped in my throat, making it hard to swallow. “What?”
“The curse lingers,” he said, every word heavy. “We thought our full powers would return to us when we came back to Therador, but they haven’t.”
It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. “You mean you physically can’t shift anymore.”
He shook his head. “I cannot. And my brothers can’t access their gifts, either.”
It was clear, despite the apparent rejection of his ‘hero’ title, that he truly felt the loss of that other side of himself—that it pained him.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You have nothing to apologize for. It’s the Circle who must answer for what they’ve done to us.”
“Wait, what are your brothers’ gifts?” I leaned closer in spite of myself.
He hesitated, then said, “I don’t think they will mind me telling you, given the circumstances.
Radven’s shouldn’t come as a surprise. He has—had—the ability to change his appearance at will.
One tug of his hair and he could change its color or length.
One blink of his eyes and they could become a different size or shape.
He could change his height, his weight, even the pitch of his voice.
As you can imagine, he found his talent quite useful. ”
I remembered a moment at the edge of the woods above Far Meadow—when Radven had yanked at his hair in vain before giving up and resorting to disguising himself with colored contacts and hair powder. That hair-pulling must have been an attempt to access this special ability of his.
“What about Alastor?” I asked.
“Ah, well Alastor’s is a little more complicated, and perhaps he should be the one to explain it fully,” Octavian rumbled. “But to put it simply—he was given visions of the future.”