Chapter 23 #2
Guilt flickered through her. “You must be starving.” She hesitated to suggest he follow her into the kitchen; the thought of him leaving the basement terrified her, but not because she didn’t trust him.
In truth, she trusted him more than she would ever admit—she had trusted him before there was breath in his lungs.
She didn’t trust herself not to cross a line that was forbidden.
A line she could never, ever cross. Despite how her heart longed for him, he wasn’t even really a man; he was a beautiful monster, created by her own two hands.
“I was mostly worried about you. I couldn’t hear you, and you’re never out this late,” he said, gazing toward the parlor window.
“How would you know when I’m here?” she asked, collecting the clothing from the floor.
He turned his gaze back to her, scanning her to make sure she was all right. “There’s a shortage of entertainment in the basement. Your footsteps provide a fair portion of it.”
Victoria had no words. The weight she struggled to ignore pressed down in front of her, suffocating. A high-pitched gurgle echoed from her stomach.
“I need you to put these clothes on—wait.” Her head fell back, eyes closing. “You are filthy. We must bathe you first, or you will dirty the fabric.”
“Bathe?” he asked with a tilt of his handsome head.
“Please, for the love of God, tell me you remember how to bathe.” Her arms dropped to her sides in frustration. She absolutely refused to bathe him herself. Being that near his powerful, naked body would lead to nothing good. Or a lot of good. Her face heated.
His yellow eyes searched her face. There was a flash of something wicked in his eyes, but it was gone in an instant. “Bathe?” he repeated, leaning back slightly, a spark of amusement on his face.
“Yes. Bathe,” she choked out, throat tightening with each word as she realized he was joking. “Surely you bathed after a long day as the Wraith of Serbia?”
His lips pursed and his eyes squinted. “Why do you say ‘as the Wraith of Serbia’?”
She struggled for words. “Because, well, I imagine it’s quite hard to go unnoticed if you reek.
Or are covered in blood.” She shrugged. His sudden smile caught her off guard, forcing her to step back.
God, he was handsome. Her stomach made another sound.
Thoughts of seeing the body she had crafted naked again swirled distractingly in her head.
“So you haven’t fed yourself either. Why?” he asked.
Victoria’s mouth fell open. It wasn’t true, but she was too embarrassed to admit to him that she had eaten quite well at her friend’s, and the sound he heard from her stomach was not from hunger.
“It’s been a very busy day. I spent the entire evening sewing this for you with Helena.
I didn’t have time.” Lies. She’d eaten so many sandwiches and so much strudel that her stomach was revolting, telling her to go to the garderobe as quickly as possible.
His foot lifted, his body swaying slightly as if restraining himself from stepping forward, forcing him to remain on the top step of the basement. “You lie to me. Why?”
Victoria forced her mouth closed. “Unfortunately, as you’ve witnessed, I don’t care much for food, but I’m getting better.” She felt her cheeks heat under his scrutiny—it had been ages since anyone had truly noticed her.
His face was solid, unmoving. “So you lie to yourself also,” he said softly.
She glared at him. “Go back down to the laboratory. I’ll bring you something to eat.”
“It stinks down there,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m unsure I’d be able to keep my meal down in the case you actually provide it this time.”
Victoria bit her lip. “The ground is thawing, and my father needs to be buried. He needs to rest in peace.” Her fingers dug through her hair, searching for grounding pain.
“You both do,” Innominatus muttered.
“Go back down to the laboratory,” she pleaded. Loving him was lethal and dangerous, and the farther he was from her, the easier it would be.
“What about the bath?” he asked.
Silence filled the room. As much as she wanted him to go back out of sight where it was easier to fight against her urges, he was right. He couldn’t go to the ball smelling like death.
“Come into the dining room. I will grab you some cold meats and bread to eat and then set up the bath for you. Unfortunately, I need to see how these clothes fit before tomorrow.”
She moved toward the dining room, exhausted, bracing herself—then stopped when she realized he hadn’t followed. When she looked back, he was still standing on the top step, half swallowed by shadow, as though the darkness itself had fingers hooked into him.
“I can…leave the laboratory?”
The question wasn’t loud or demanding. But something in the careful way he said it—measured, restrained, almost reverent—sent goose bumps skating over her skin.
She hated how much she liked the thought of him out of the laboratory and loose in her space, filling all the echoes of loneliness.
The thought unsettled her in a way she refused to examine too closely.
But she was tired—bone-deep, marrow-weary—and she still needed to speak with him about the ball tomorrow and make certain that he would be able to handle it.
It had occurred to her that he might not know how to dance or make polite small talk, things that would draw unwanted attention.
“Yes,” she said, her voice tighter than she liked. She watched him carefully as she spoke, as though afraid he might test the limits, might ask for more.
He didn’t.
Instead, he stepped out of the stairwell slowly and deliberately—like a ghost unsure if it was permitted to haunt the living. The soft sound of his heavy feet against the floor sent an odd ripple through her chest.
Reluctantly, she turned and continued toward the dining room, pointing to a seat along the side of the long, empty wooden table as they walked in the room. “Sit. I will return with food after I fetch some water for your bath. It will heat while you eat.”
“I’d prefer to help you.”
The ease of the offer, the assumption made her hesitate. It would be easier. He could carry twice what she could, move faster, spare her shaking arms. But the thought of him wandering the house tightened something sharp and unreasonable in her chest.
“No,” she said too quickly. “Stay here. I will return shortly.”
His jaw tightened, but he obeyed, lowering himself into the chair with controlled restraint.
By the time she returned—arms aching, kettle heating, platter of cold meat and bread balanced precariously—Victoria looked on the verge of collapse.
Half her hair had come loose from its pins, dark strands clinging to her damp temples.
Water and sweat stained the front of her dress.
She set the platter in front of him with trembling arms.
“Here.” She sat at her usual place at the end of the table, exhaling slowly. Her eyes drifted, unbidden, to her father’s empty chair.
This was the first time she had sat here since his death.
The grief rose sharp and sudden, stealing her breath. The noise her father’s throat had made before he fell. The sound of him landing. It all echoed in her mind. Flashing like thunder. Her hands moved to cover her ears, but they stilled.
The sound of a plate clanking against the table startled her back into herself.
“Here,” Innominatus said.
He had pulled the chair closest to her out and taken it, closing the distance between them. He nudged the plate toward her. “We will share.”
“No, you should have it.” She pushed the plate back, reflexive, automatic.
“No.” The word was quiet, but firm. He slid the plate back in front of her again. “You need it also. Your chains are different from mine, but it does not mean they are less bothersome.”
Her nose and eyes burned before she could stop it. He had noticed her struggle.
No one—no one—had spoken to her like that. Had seen her. Not since her father. And even he had never named her suffering so plainly. How she struggled to care for herself when the troubles in her mind took over.
Despite her stomach protesting, she took a piece of bread and ham, her fingers unsteady, stunned by his awareness. How could he see her so clearly while locked away beneath the castle, when those who passed her every day had looked straight through her—or worse, scolded her for not being like them.
They ate in silence, the air between them charged. Victoria became acutely aware of every sound: the slow movement of his jaw, the way his throat worked as he swallowed, the heat radiating from his body so close to hers.
She couldn’t stop herself. “Do—do you remember—” The words lodged painfully in her throat.
Embarrassment flushed her skin, but she forced herself forward.
Being in his presence up here felt so different than in the laboratory.
“Do you remember anything from…before you were resurrected? Anything…of me?”
She held her breath. She was a fool to ask, an idiot to hope, but seeing him out of the lab forced her to look at him as she once had, before all the grief and horror had taken over.
“No.”
The word landed like a stone.
Her stomach fell. She hadn’t realized how much she’d hoped that some part of him remembered those long hours, those quiet nights when she had been the only one there. The forbidden kiss. When they had shared something they shouldn’t have been able to. When he had kept her alive.
It was foolish. Of course it was.
Still, in this moment, she knew the truth of herself: she would have chosen him anyway. She would have kept his brain, spoken to him, cared for him, even knowing it went against her father’s wishes—knowing it would be her ruin.
Then he spoke again. “I do not remember your face or your voice from before I woke,” he said slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. “But I remember the feeling of you. When I woke and saw your face, I knew who you were. When you are near or touch me, my entire being remembers you.”
Her breath caught.