Chapter 12 #2
Jessamine knew he was a little sensitive to all that, but she was back now. She wouldn’t let anyone touch him. So she rubbed her hand up and down his side, and then mockingly glared at Sybil. “He’s right. I like his tongue too much to part with it.”
Both let out matching groans, but Jessamine was quite pleased with her joke. She rather thought it was hilarious.
Now she wanted to get clean. It was so easy to shove aside what had happened to her now that she was surrounded by those who wanted her safe.
The feeling of their love was palpable. If only she could live in this moment forever.
Just lingering with her friends and family, surrounded by so much good, it was hard to think of anything bad at all.
In the long run, that probably wasn’t very healthy. She did need to think about all of this. She needed to plan how to stop a god king, and also deal with the horrible feelings inside her. But for right now, this would do.
The door opened, and Elissa stood in it with her arms full of towels. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”
“I would very much like to be clean,” Jessamine said with a chuckle.
The interior of the shack had been tidied up quite a bit.
They’d used magic to expand it beyond the two rooms. Six doors on the back wall likely led to different bedrooms where everyone was sleeping.
But there was still a sturdy kitchen to her right, with warm wooden cabinets and something in the oven that smelled like freshly baked bread.
On the opposite side was a small seating area.
The chairs and couches were worn and patched, but they looked remarkably comfortable.
And then there was the massive clawfoot tub in the center of it all. It had been filled with steaming water, clearly by hand, and kept warm with magic.
As Elric helped her toward the bath, Agnes clapped her hands. The sound echoed through the room, so loud it was like thunder. Everyone froze and stared at her stern expression.
“Now, we’re all going to go out and have a meeting while these two clean up.
She doesn’t need help bathing herself.” Agnes lifted a hand and closed her eyes as though she was so exasperated she couldn’t look at the other women in front of her.
“No, Patricia. I don’t care that you’ve been a lady’s maid your entire life. The girl knows how to bathe herself.”
Jessamine mouthed thank you as they passed Agnes.
The witch winked at her as the rest of them filtered out of the house. That left just Elric and her once again.
“The quiet seems loud the first moments after they leave,” Elric muttered. He brought her to the tub and pulled the sheer dress off her form. “There you are. Into the tub with you.”
“What about you?”
She wasn’t going to wait for him, though. Jessamine stepped into the hot water and nearly groaned. It felt so good to have some heat on her aching muscles, even just her calves. She hadn’t realized how much tension was left over from what Ajax had done to her.
He stared longingly at the water but then shook his head. “Between the two of us, we’ll turn that water dark brown. You wash yourself first, nightmare. I’ll take a bath after you are clean.”
“Elric, we both can cast magic. Surely there is something to clean water.”
“Ah, there likely is. But you’re naked in front of me once again, and it’s hard to think of spells.” He crouched next to the tub as she sank into the water, trailing his fingers through the soapy bubbles that gathered at her movement. “Besides, I like looking at you.”
This man.
She looked back at him, a soft smile on her face that she couldn’t wipe away. “After all that’s happened, you still like looking at me?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I’d imagine seeing someone die as much as I do would change most people’s thoughts about them.” That she was weak. Lesser. Or maybe just that she was cursed and he should be afraid of what that meant for the two of them.
Elric shook his head. “You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever met, Jessamine. Just because you were bested a few times doesn’t change that. You have never let anyone beat you for long. Even if they get the upper hand, you always seem to win.”
She grabbed the bar of soap they’d left in the water and started scrubbing her skin.
“I don’t feel like that. Sometimes it feels like all I do is lose and then fumble my way into a victory.
Leading people is hard. Making sure they come out of my harebrained plans alive is even harder.
I suppose I’d be better at it if I was like my mother, or if I stopped to think a little while longer. But I always feel so rushed—”
He stole the soap out of her hands.
“Be gentle with yourself,” he scolded.
She looked down at her arms and realized she’d been scrubbing them with her nails. Raw, welted lines rose on her pale skin in the absence of all that dirt.
Sighing, she let her shoulders sink; she’d been so tense she was holding them nearly to her ears. “I’ll get there.”
“I know you will. But let me help in the meantime.” He skated the soap gently over her shoulders and then nudged her forward. “Let me get your back.”
“Why are you so supportive and… good?” she muttered, staring at the soap bubbles that popped in front of her eyes as she leaned forward. “Aren’t you supposed to be a terrifying god?”
“Because this is what I wanted someone to do for me when I went through the exact same thing,” he replied. “It heals me to heal you.”
And damn if that didn’t make tears burn in her eyes.