28. The Scent that Betrayed #3
My legs wobble as I force myself to my feet and lean my weight against the stone wall.
It’s cool against my heated skin. The wall sconce is right there, and I grip it weakly, groaning as I tug it to the side.
The panel whispers open, exposing Eric’s room.
I’m too exhausted to catch myself and fall forward onto the rug.
For a breath, I just lay there, motionless, searching for him.
He’s on the couch by the fire, a tumbler of something dark held loosely in one hand, and he watches the news with vague irritation.
The glasses are gone, and he’s cleaned his hands, but the same half-unbuttoned shirt still adorns his chest. As soon as he realises I haven’t spoken yet, he glances over. Not the way I usually enter.
His face changes instantly. The boredom slips from his features, and I see the moment he realises his quiet evening in is gone. The glass drops onto the table, spilling everywhere, and he crosses the room.
“Francesca—” his voice is rough with something I haven’t heard from him before. Fear. He’s kneeling beside me before I can even attempt to speak. “What—who did this to you?”
His hands hover, like he’s unsure where to touch.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing, one arm under my knees and the other braced against my back.
Once I’m settled in his bed, he tries to move back slightly, but I cling.
The material of his shirt is so soft, nothing like the rough gloves that were wrapped around my neck.
I’m trembling again, and a new wave of tears rushes down my face.
“Look at me.” His voice is low. Deadly. I lift my head, but just barely. Quick as lightning, he takes stock of my injuries, and I practically feel the rage beneath his skin. His throat bobs. “Where the fuck is he?”
My throat burns as I try to force myself to speak. His fingers ghost over my temple and brush a lock of hair behind my ear. I watch his pupils dilate and catalogue every bruise it comes across. His breathing comes too steady, like he’s counting them to keep himself from spiralling.
“Francesca, listen to me. If he’s still in the castle, I need to know. Now.”
I can feel him thinking, working with my silence when I refuse to answer.
Running through exit points, names and security, trying to figure out who had access to me.
When his hand drifts over my back and I flinch, he pauses.
There’s a shift in the way he breathes, in the way he hovers his hand, holding himself perfectly still.
He waits. I give him the smallest of nods, and that’s all he needs.
The motion is smooth as he lowers each strap of my nightdress until the fabric pools at my waist. The care in his touch makes my heart ache.
I fold my arms over my chest instinctively, shielding what little dignity I have left.
But he doesn’t stare. Doesn’t let his eyes linger and doesn’t touch me needlessly.
He moves behind me to get a better view of my back.
And when he sees the bruises there ( really sees them), I focus on the breath he lets out through his nose.
The bruise where I hit the dresser must be the worst. I can feel it, like fire ants dancing beneath my skin.
My blood ignites within my veins when— oh —his forehead comes to rest against my shoulder. The entire room contracts around that single point of contact. Warmth from his breath seeps through my skin and down my spine. I want to lean into him.
Don’t. Stay still…
“Just tell me what to do.” His tone of voice is almost profane. “I can’t fix this if you won’t let me. So let me in. Just a little. Please .”
That one word undoes me. I shift. The sheets rustle, and my arms are still wrapped tightly around my breasts as I move, but Eric lifts his head, eyes locking with mine, and I see it.
The desperation. The heat. So I lower my arms even as my elbows lock for a moment, fighting against such vulnerability.
Air hits completely bare skin, and the room feels colder for it.
Eric looks exactly where I knew he would.
That gaze heads straight for the bruises that ring my throat, as though told to land there.
His hand is heavier than expected when I reach for it, or maybe that’s just my muscles surrendering after the fight they had.
I take it and bring it up, placing it there at the damage report marking my skin.
His fingers span the whole of it. And then nothing. Neither of us moves.
The truth remains pressed between us as his thumb makes one pass across my windpipe. I nod because it’s the only thing I can do right now.
“You can’t talk,” he murmurs, gutted. “ Fuck .”
Tears sting my eyes before I can stop them.
The memory hits me like a train, the way I couldn’t scream.
The way I still can’t. I remember the dresser.
The glass. The scratchy gloves against my skin.
Eric, probably sensing my panic, moves his hand from my throat to the back of my neck.
I feel his fingers brush through the dried blood that’s crusted there and tangled in my hair.
He doesn’t comment on it. Just rubs over the area, like he’s memorising the injuries he wasn’t there to stop.
Then he leans forward until his forehead touches mine. “Tell me what to do, baby.”
Greedily, I bury myself in the warmth of his arms, and for a heartbeat I’m not in this room, not even in my skin but living inside his voice as he tries his damndest to soothe me.
And so help me, it works; tonight’s events snap against the fortress of his spine because they can’t pass him. Can’t reach me.
“Do I get the staff? Your grandmother?” I shake my head before he can finish. No. No. No . “Then what?” he asks quietly. “You want to stay here? With me?”
I nod, but it’s not enough. All my life has been the haunting—curses, ghosts and nightmares wearing familiar faces—but all I need in this moment is the holding .
I’m clumsy with wanting it, unable to even voice it, and the worries are needless because Eric doesn’t make me ask.
He draws me in, his fingers brushing against my bare back, mapping the flesh.
There’s no space left; my breasts pressed against the fabric of his shirt, knees locked around his hips and nightdress bunched high on my thighs.
“Alright,” he murmurs into my hair. “Okay. You can stay with me. You’re safe now. I promise.”
That promise fills the empty space inside me, and it’s empty because I should’ve been safe in the first place.
My windows aren’t supposed to be fully open from the outside, and yet it was open tonight.
Wide. Waiting. Like somebody prepared it.
Whoever came into my room wasn’t guessing.
They bloody knew. Knew that I’d be alone, brushing my hair.
Knew that I’d be all barefooted and soft, draped in silk and easy to hurt.
And the candle…
I can still taste the dust and how it made my throat swell. The window. The guards not coming despite needing to be on patrol every half hour in this part of the castle. This night smells so strongly of a faceless man’s intimacy with my home that I can’t quite pin ‘coincidence’ to it.
Yet here I am, clutching the man whose bloodline is the reason I’m in this mess in the first place. Clutching him as though I can hide in the empty space where his heart should be, praying Godwyn can’t find me there.