Chapter 31
thirty-one
When Orelia awoke, the sun had almost set. She’d slept the whole day.
The fire still burned in the hearth in the main room, but Vade was nowhere in sight.
She sat up, able to see clearly out of her right eye again. She tentatively pressed her fingers to her face, finding the swelling had dissipated and the pain was gone. Orelia slid out of bed and padded into the washroom.
The mirror revealed a wild, fiery mess of hair, but her face had completely healed, and her jade eyes were clear. The pounding in her head she expected from the amount of ale she’d consumed wasn’t there, and she attributed the relief to having slept for at least ten marks.
Her eyes went to Vade’s tunic covering her body, and she smiled as she ran her fingers over the fabric. From what she could remember, he had helped dress her and doctor her wounds. Ivan’s face flashed in her mind, but she pushed the memory away before it had time to linger.
Orelia wandered through the cabin and found a note in the kitchen that looked like it’d been written quickly.
Back soon.
There was food on the counter Vade must have purchased while she’d been asleep—apples, carrots, a slab of some cut of beef, an onion, celery, and a few spice bags.
She filled a glass with water from the basin and downed it in seconds. Orelia was refilling another when a dark mass on the ground outside the back window caught her eye.
The thin layer of dirt on the window distorted the shape, making it look like a puddle of black liquid. Curious, Orelia stepped outside and descended the porch steps.
Her mouth fell open.
Plumroses littered the ground. A few hundred of them. With furrowed brows, she approached the circle of deep violet flowers with a path wide enough to walk through in the middle. Their not-too-sweet aroma carried on the cool breeze, bringing a massive smile to her face.
She’d never seen plumroses grow on the ground before, only on bushes. Orelia went to pluck one, but it came away easy. She turned it over to find the stem cut short.
She picked up another stubby rose, finding a clean cut on the black stem where a thorn was missing. Orelia knelt in the circle of roses and turned over a handful, finding more stems with missing thorns that had clearly been carved away with a knife.
A door closed, and her head snapped toward the cabin.
Orelia carried a single rose in her hand, quietly crept up the back steps, and peered into the corner window.
Vade sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, dressed in his leathers. His fingers dragged through the hair he’d left down and he stared at the tabletop without blinking. After a few seconds, he walked toward the bed, pulled a plumrose from his pocket, and set it on her pillow.
He did care.
Orelia raced around the cabin and threw open the front door. “Say it,” she said, standing on the threshold.
Vade stood perfectly still. “Say what?”
She stepped inside and shut the door. “Say you care for me.”
His face was riddled with confliction. She remembered enough from last night to know they argued in the washroom as she’d tried to get him to admit she was more than just an obligation to him.
“Say it, Vade. Say you care for me, even a little bit,” she demanded.
He ran a hand through his hair. “You are my responsibility, so yes, I care about what happens to you in that sense.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.” If he was going to be stubborn about it, she was going to press.
Orelia held the plumrose out in front of her.
“You went out and found all those roses knowing they’re my favorite, cut off their thorns, and arranged them all together.
A man who does that cares about the person he does it for, so say it, Vade. Admit that you care about me.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, face looking haunted. Something was holding him back.
Impatience had her saying, “Why won’t you just admit it?”
He shook his head, walking away.
Orelia rushed up and grabbed his arm. “Why, Vade?”
“Because I can’t!”
“Why?” she shouted. “I know you do!”
Anguish littered his features, but he only stared at her, and she knew she wasn’t going to get an answer no matter how hard she tried.
“I guess I truly do mean nothing to you, then.” Orelia threw the rose on the ground, spun on her heel, and stormed off. She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t care that she only had his shirt on, or that she was barefoot. She just had to get out of there.
“Fine! You want the truth?” he called after her.
Her hand froze on the door handle, but she refused to turn around.
Vade’s slow footsteps sounded, making her heart pound. When she could feel him behind her, Orelia finally turned and looked up at him.
His eyes had gone misty. “The truth is I care about you so fucking much that it scares the shit out of me.”
She sucked in a breath.
“You are not ‘nothing’ to me, Orelia. You’re a summer rain when it soaks the ground and breathes its love into the earth. You’re the setting sun that paints the clouds in remarkable shades of pink, orange, and yellow.”
Her lips parted when he touched her cheek.
“You’re the warmth of a fire and the softness of a blanket on a cold winter’s night.
You’re the flowers that bloom year after year no matter how harsh the seasons, and the calm of the sea before sunrise, when not even the birds have woken, and all is peaceful.
You’re the world, Orelia. Because you are everything. That’s what you are to me. Everything.”
He cupped her face with both hands, and she gently gripped his wrists. “Vade . . .I . . .I’ve never heard you talk like that.”
“I’ve had a long time to find the right words.”
Her heart swelled so much she thought it might burst. His chest was against hers, dousing her in his natural warmth.
“You think it didn’t kill me to watch you kiss that fucker in the tavern last night?
Or break my heart to see what he’d done to you?
Do you know how hard it’s been to watch men ogle you wherever we go and not tell you that I want to be the only one that gets to look at you that way?
Day in and day out I have to pretend I’m not interested in you for your own sake.
To protect you. It’s taken every single fiber of my being to keep from telling you how I feel, Orelia. ”
He brushed his thumb across her lips and she wanted him to kiss her. Her hands slid down to his waist, encouraging him, but Vade’s eyes stayed locked onto hers.
“You are the only true joy I have ever known in my life. A joy I don’t deserve for the things I’ve done. So I tried so gods-damned hard to push you away and make you hate me because I was trying to save you from me.”
“Vade—”
“Just let me finish. Please. Let me get the rest of this out before I fuck up whatever’s happening between us right now.”
Orelia stayed quiet, hands still on his hips.
He took a steadying breath, and when his onyx eyes found hers, they were full of more sincerity than she’d ever seen from anyone.
“You’ve had me ever since Ricaboro, Orelia.
Ever since you realized it was me inside the room at The White Pony.
You looked at me like I was your savior.
I’ve never been anything to anyone except the last thing they see, or the thing they don’t want to see.
But you were genuinely happy I was there, and I knew at that moment you had me forever. ”
All this time he’d cared about her. Even hearing him say it still didn’t feel like the truth. “Ever since the Pony?” she asked.
He nodded. “And in the gambling den. . .” Vade’s eyes darkened, his hands sliding down her body, gripping her waist tight.
“You don’t want to know the deliciously filthy thoughts I had of you.
I tried ignoring it by pretending I was interested in the waitress, but when Fargus had his grubby hands all over you, I nearly lost it. ”
He pressed his body full to hers, and her breathing hitched. “You were right in the alley. I was jealous. So insanely, absurdly jealous. I would have killed him for touching you had I not been interrupted by his cronies.”
Warmth pooled low in her belly, and she couldn’t keep her lips from his any longer. Orelia was about to kiss him when Vade pulled back.
Death’s Shadow dropped to his knees.
He gripped her hips and looked up at her with heartbreaking vulnerability. “I love you, Orelia. I love every part of you, but you don’t deserve someone like me. Not even someone half like me. You deserve someone good, and kind, and righteous, and I am none of those things.”
She hadn’t expected him to say he loved her, but hearing his admission had her eyes welling with tears.
“I don’t expect you to say you love me back.
Hells, I’d think you a fool if you did. And I know I’m an asshole, but I have tried so gods-damned hard to push you away, and still you haven’t given up on me.
Still, you try to see the good in me. Still, you try and fix what’s permanently broken.
” His misty eyes searched hers. “Why, Orelia? Why haven’t you given up on me?
” The sadness in his voice cracked her heart.
“Because I can’t.” Her voice broke. She placed a hand on his cheek, and he leaned into her touch. “There is a darkness in you I’ll never understand, but you are not without light, Vade.”
He pressed his cheek to her stomach and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing tight.
Orelia slid her hand into his hair, holding him to her.
After a few seconds, she dropped to her knees and took his face in her hands.
“Stop trying to push me away, because I’m not going to let you.
You have provided for me, and protected me, and saved me multiple times.
You deserve to let yourself be happy, Vade. ”
He brushed a strand of hair back from her face. “I’m not good for you, Orelia. Please don’t do this to yourself . . .”
“I decide what’s good for me.”
He gazed at her with devastating longing. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be the man you deserve.”
She did her best to match the longing in his eyes. “All I ask is that you try.”
Vade rested his forehead on hers, closing his eyes. “Will you be patient with me? Will you teach me how to love you the right way? Because gods, I want this, but I don’t want to fuck it up. I don’t even know where to start.”
Orelia pulled back and smoothed his cheek with her thumb. “I know you’ve never given yourself to anyone, so I will be there with you, figuring this out together.”
A grateful smile shot across his face.
“And there’s only one thing you need to do,” Orelia whispered.
“Anything.”
She slid her hand to the back of his neck, pulled him down to her, and whispered onto his lips, “Just love me slowly.”
Vade gently pressed his mouth to hers, and Orelia’s entire body burst to life.