Chapter 10 #2
Koshin is still crouched beside me. Still watching. His attention hasn't moved from my face and my skin is starting to prickle—this awareness of being seen that I don't know how to handle.
"You should eat something," he says.
"I should understand what's happening."
"You were hurt. I brought you somewhere safe. You're healing. The rest can wait."
"Safe." It tastes like a joke. "I'm in the private chambers of a god who just declared war on another House. That's not what safe means."
"What does safe mean to you?"
…
I…I don't have an answer.
I've never been safe, not really—safe is a word other people use, a fairytale I stopped believing in around the same time I learned that locked doors don't keep out the people who have keys.
"I don't know," I say finally. Honest. Exhausted. Pathetic.
His jaw loosens. The intensity shifts—not softer, just different. Focused instead of sharp.
"Then we'll figure it out." His hand moves toward my face and stops before it reaches me, hovering over my cheek, close enough that I feel the heat.
"You're in my territory. In my rooms. No one touches you without my permission.
No one enters without my knowledge. For as long as you're here, nothing hurts you. "
I should argue. Point out that this is insane, that he's a god and I'm a debt payment and none of this follows any logic I understand.
Explain that I don't trust promises, don't trust protection, don't trust anyone who says they'll keep me safe because safe isn't real and promises are just words people use before they hurt you.
But I'm tired. And his hand is still hovering. Not touching. Waiting.
My face tilts toward his palm. Just barely. Just enough that I feel the ghost of contact, the promise of warmth. My whole body wants to close the gap.
I stop myself. Barely.
"Why." Fuck.
"Because you don't lie." His voice drops lower, rough in a way that does things to my stomach. "Because when you're in the room, my head goes quiet. And my head is never quiet."
I don't know what that means. Don't understand why a god would care about honesty or quiet or any of the things that make me a liability instead of an asset.
I've spent my whole life being told my mouth would get me killed.
Now a god is telling me it's the reason he tore through an enemy House to get me.
The universe has a sick sense of humor.
"You're insane," I tell him. Third time now.
"We have established."
From the wall, Renan makes a sound that might be a laugh. "She's catching on fast. I like her."
Koshin's mouth curves upwards.
"Of course you do. She has survival instincts."
"Unlike you."
"Unlike me."
I'm watching them. The way they talk to each other—easy, familiar, dry. Two dangerous people completely comfortable in each other's presence.
He came for me. Killed for me. Carried me through tunnels and put me in his own bed and he's looking at me now with those strange white eyes and I don't see what I usually see when powerful men look at me. I don't see ownership. I don't see calculation.
My chest goes warm. That's—no. What the fuck is wrong with me. I get beaten half to death and suddenly my survival instincts want to cuddle up to the first person who shows interest? Pathetic. Embarrassing. I'm better than this.
Except apparently I'm not.
"You need rest." His hand finally drops. He stands, and the distance he puts between us is worse than the closeness. My body tracks him as he moves away—the shift of muscle under his shirt, the way he carries himself. Wrong. That's backwards. Why is that backwards.
"I should understand what's happening."
"You were hurt. I brought you somewhere safe. You're healing. After that—" He stops. A muscle jumps in his jaw. "After that is your choice."
My choice. When has anything ever been my choice.
"Right." I don't believe him. Can't afford to. "And if I choose to leave."
"Then I'll watch you walk out." The words cost him—I can see it in the way his shoulders go rigid. "I won't stop you."
"But…?"
"But I'll follow you." His voice drops into that low register that makes my pulse do things it shouldn't. "Wherever you go, I'll know where you are. I'll know if someone hurts you. And I'll come for you again."
That should be terrifying. Should make me want to run.
My chest stays warm. My body stays stupid.
"You're insane," I say again. Fourth time. It's becoming a refrain. Maybe if I say it enough, one of us will start believing it matters.
"You mentioned that."
"It bears repeating."
From the wall, Renan snorts. "She's definitely staying. Anyone who talks to you like that is going to be entertaining."
Koshin shoots him a look I can't read. Then he's moving toward the door, and the distance grows, and my chest pulls after him. My whole body leans in his direction, this involuntary gravity I can't control—
No. What the fuck. Stop.
He pauses at the threshold. Turns back.
"Iowyn."
Just my name. Nothing else. But he says it the same way I said his—
"What."
"Nothing." His mouth curves, barely. Almost mortal. "I just wanted to say it."
He leaves.
Renan pushes off from his spot against the wall. "You should know," he says. "He hasn't let anyone in this room in decades. No one sleeps in that bed except him."
I don't know what to say to that. Thank you? Congratulations on being the first idiot to land in a god's bed without even trying?
"He watched you all night." Renan heads for the door. "Sat right there in that corner and didn't move. Didn't sleep. Just watched you breathe."
My throat goes tight. But underneath that, lower—warmth spreads through my belly. The image of him in the dark, those white eyes fixed on me while I slept. Watching over me. Watching me.
My skin prickles everywhere.
"Why are you telling me this."
He pauses at the threshold, looks back at me over his shoulder.
"Because someone should," he says. "And because if you hurt him, I'll kill you myself. Nothing personal. Just how it is." He shrugs his shoulders.
The door closes behind him.
I'm alone.
I lie there in the dim room, in the gaudy bed, surrounded by stone walls and the faint smell of lamp oil. His scent. His sheets. My ribs ache. My throat burns. Everything hurts.
But underneath the pain, underneath the confusion and the fear and the survival math that won't stop running—
He came for me. Made me say his name. His true name.
I stare at the ceiling and wait for any of this to make sense.
It doesn't. But that's never stopped the universe before.