Chapter Twenty-Six
SANORA
I was sitting on the couch closest to the front door, thumb tapping my phone awake for the hundredth time, watching the glow of the screen as it taunted me with numbers that crawled forward one reluctant minute at a time, when the door finally clicked open.
The sound jolted through me like lightning.
Thrax stepped inside, filling the doorway with the electrifying presence only he carried, and my body reacted before my brain did. I was on my feet, heart ramming against my chest. “You’re here.”
His eyes swept over me as he stripped his gloves off, that tired, assessing look of his grazing every inch of me. “And you aren’t in bed.”
“I figured that’s when you’d sneak in again.
” My gaze caught on the faint scar marring his palm as he shut the door, the thin line of a healed cut that was definitely from today.
Why had it not healed completely? Everything should have faded considering he could heal.
Or did that type of cut usually take time?
I stepped closer, deciding against asking since there was a high chance that might lead him to realising that I knew who he was.
He had left yesterday well after midnight, returned only long enough to vanish again by morning, and here he was, walking back through the door past nine as though time bent differently for him.
“Where have you been? You look”—I reached up before I even thought about it, palm rising to his forehead, only to remember that his body temperature was always burning—“exhausted and...sick?”
Sick. The word sounded ridiculous the moment it left my mouth. With the kind of blood he had, I wasn’t sure illness was possible.
As I withdrew my hand from his forehead, his own hand shot out.
His fingers clamped around my wrist with a grip that was searing, the heat of his skin bleeding into mine until I swore it sank straight into my veins.
My breath stuttered, pulse leaping violently against his hold as his eyes locked on mine.
And when he spoke, his voice wasn’t tired anymore, it was filled with the new energy burning and thrumming through him.
“If you wanted to kill me, just say it.”
I froze, my lungs burning with a breath I couldn’t release. My lips parted. “What are you…”
He let go slowly, each second stretching as if he was reluctant to sever the contact, and then he was moving past me without looking back.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Ignore it.”
I wasn’t about to. I followed, climbing the stairs with quick, uneven steps. “I learnt the hard way not to take anything you say for granted.”
A sound rumbled in his chest—half a chuckle, half a growl. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
He pushed open his door and shrugged out of his coat, the air in his room carrying that suffocating warmth I’d come to associate with him.
I understood, now, what he’d meant when he said Nimorran’s cold wanted him dead.
He was staying close to The Crater, something he’d single handedly caused.
It was only normal that Nimorran didn’t welcome him.
He’d said the cold he was feeling would have killed a normal human, and I wondered how deep the cold was that his body was pushing out so much warmth to keep his blood from freezing.
“Why stay here?” I asked, following him inside his room. “There are plenty of places that wouldn’t try to kill you.”
He turned as he unfastened his shirt. “You forget that I’m just as ill as this town.”
My throat tightened. My gaze tried, and failed, to stay on his face as his shirt fell open, baring the expanse of his chest. Heat seared across my cheeks, a rush of dizziness spiralling through me.
“Even so. If the cold could kill you, and your body’s fighting this hard just to keep you breathing, why stay? ”
“Waiting for it to kill me.” He looked down at me with empty darkness in his eyes. “You also forget my dream is to die.”
Oh.
The word rattled in my chest. I dropped my gaze to the floor, heavy with the truth of it.
He was right. His entire existence circled one desire: his death.
And who could blame him? I would if I’d lived for fourteen hundred and twenty-three years.
Centuries had stripped the desire to live from him.
When I looked back up, his shirt was sliding from his arms, and suddenly his bare body was right there. The sight hit me like a physical blow.
Fuck.
Staring at him this way two days in a row had its own damages to the brain. And my brain wasn’t built for this kind of abuse.
“I heard that,” he said.
I blinked hard, heat crawling up my neck. “Did I say that fuck aloud?”
His only answer was the amusement darkening his features before his hands went lower, the rasp of his belt sliding through its loops sounding louder than my own pulse. Then he unbuttoned and zipped down with a motion meant to taunt me.
I was holding my breath, torn between giving him privacy by leaving or staying there to see how much he’d let me see without asking me to excuse him.
When his trousers slid down and pooled at his feet, he didn’t look away. He was watching me, every inch of me as his fingers hooked into the waistband of his boxers. The sharp lines of his hips dipped lower, and my chest squeezed so tight I thought I might break apart.
With a strangled breath, I spun around, my lungs finally dragging air back in as if I’d been drowning.
“I’ll…make dinner tonight,” I blurted. I couldn’t.
I couldn’t handle seeing the Soulless man naked.
I’d just recovered from knowing he’d lived for over a millennium, barely survived witnessing him half-naked.
But seeing his dick? I feared I might pass out from overstimulation.
Behind me, I didn’t need to see his face to know he had a shit-eating victorious smile plastered on his face.
I walked out, closing his door as though it could trap the heat in with him. My back pressed to the wood for a heartbeat, my chest heaving, before I stumbled downstairs. I got into the kitchen and immediately regretted opening my mouth. Cooking. Really?
Sure, I could cook. But just for myself. To me, sometimes, it tasted decent enough. Other times it tasted like trash. What would it taste like to the man whose meal had me ascending into the sky every time it touched my tongue? Mine would taste like mockery in comparison.
I closed my eyes as I exhaled through my nose, steeling myself.
Then, dragging strength from nowhere, I began to rummage, gathering what I could.
I had only the brief span of his shower to produce something edible with the hope that he wouldn’t choke to death on whatever I managed to scrape together.
By the time I heard Thrax’s footsteps descending the stairs, I was placing the slightly burnt side dishes onto plates, lining them neatly beside the others on the counter.
Straightening, I pressed a smile to my lips just as his steps slowed, his gaze fixed on the meal like it might lunge at him. His face flickered between horror and amusement, and my chest tightened in anticipation.
“You burnt the food?” His voice held genuine curiosity, as though the concept itself was foreign to him.
I forced brightness into my tone. “It tastes better than it looks.”
He dragged a thumb across his lower lip, watching me like a man indulging an inside joke only he understood. “I bet.”
“Besides, I made them under pressure. This turned out much better than I imagined.”
He arched a brow. “Then what you imagined wasn’t food.”
Instead of retorting like I wanted to, I widened my smile. “Sit. Our roles are reversed today.”
Thrax pulled a stool out and sat, studying the food like it might detonate in his face.
Even seated, we were still eye-level, and I realised what he always saw whenever I sat on that stool—me, framed by the living room behind.
But with him sitting, his height blocked most of the background, making it feel as though it was just the two of us, and the plates of doomed food between us.
He picked up the fork like it was a weapon and the plate his battlefield. Hesitation flickered across his features before he finally took a bite.
I leaned closer, watching for any reaction, but his face stayed unreadable. The fact that he didn’t spit it out was already a win.
“What do you think?”
He didn’t answer. He sampled the side dishes one by one, chewing slowly. Not disgusted. If anything, he was intrigued.
“Why? Is it so good?” That question was far-fetched, but I wanted to know. I wanted to reach into his mind, crack it open, and hear exactly what he was thinking.
He cleared his throat. “Who taught you how to cook?”
I shrugged. “No one. My mum prefers not having me in the kitchen at all.”
His lips twitched. “It’s quite obvious why your mum doesn’t.”
I leaned forward. “What? It’s that bad?”
He shook his head, and I exhaled, my body loosening an inch.
“I’ve never tasted anything quite like this in my life, actually.” He lifted his gaze. “It’s fascinating.”
With that sarcastic tone, I knew what was coming, but I asked still. “That?”
“That you can be so fantastic at making deadly meals.”
I glared at him. “Then eat up. You want to die anyway.”
“You’d do well cooking for death row inmates. You should apply.” His delivery was painfully serious.
I bit back laughter and reached for the plates. “Forget it.”
His hand moved quicker, pulling the plates back with ease. “I’m no better than a man on death row. I’ll consider this a punishment.”
The urge to smack him sparked hot across my palm. I scoffed instead, gripping the edge of the counter to keep still.
“Eaten?” he asked.
I nodded, eyes fixed on him, trying to read what I couldn’t.
He kept eating without the disgust I would’ve expected.
There wasn’t even the faintest twitch of a grimace on his face.
My mother had thrown my first attempt straight into the bin, gagging dramatically before running to rinse her mouth.
And she’d forbidden me from ever stepping into her kitchen again.