Chapter 39 #2
His perfect body is littered with scars, but my eyes instinctively go back to his most recent addition – definitely no mottled green – and then on to a scar that has only just started to fade to silver – the wound I stitched up for him during the Retterheld.
It was the first time my hands were on his bare skin.
I remember all too well the conflicted desire I felt. Back then, it warred with hate and my need for vengeance; now, it wars with heartbreak and broken trust. But the desire is still there.
It never left.
He looks at me and hesitates, a look of uncertainty flashing across his face.
‘Would you like me to do your hair?’ he says softly. ‘I can braid it if you want.’
‘You can?’
‘Sure, I used to do my mother’s hair when I was little. And I may have done a couple of horses’ tails in the past,’ he adds with a casualness that’s intended to make me laugh.
I offer a smile, but I don’t respond straight away.
It’s an intimate thing, letting someone do your hair for you, or at least it is for me. Maybe it’s the type of intimate offer I should say no to, but I can’t.
‘Sure. A braid would be good.’
He settles behind me on the narrow bed, close enough that I can feel the heat of him at my back.
Slowly, carefully, he draws the brush through the curtain of blonde spilling over my shoulders, the bristles whispering softly as they glide from crown to ends.
When he finds no snags, his touch lingers, and he begins to divide my hair with meticulous attention, fingers combing through silk and skin alike.
As he moves his fingertips to a patch of skin behind my ear, he winces.
I spin around and face him. ‘I didn’t think. Your arm. You don’t have to do this.’
His eyes glimmer softly. ‘It’s fine. It distracts me from the pain. As long as you don’t mind?’
A distraction.
A sad huff threatens to leave my lungs. That was the one promise we made to each other – never to use one another as a distraction from the pain in our lives.
But it wasn’t this type of pain we were talking about.
Not a near-death injury but the type of wound that, no matter how deep it cut, most would never see the scars.
Which is why I nod my head.
‘As long as it doesn’t hurt too badly.’
‘I’ll stop if it does,’ he replies, even though we both know he’s lying.
Each gentle pass sends a shiver through me. His fingertips skim my scalp – unhurried, reverent – and the intimacy of it leaves me boneless, melting into the quiet rhythm of his care.
I close my eyes and let myself sink into the sensation, into the rare luxury of being tended to rather than standing strong.
For what feels like the first time since becoming the gifted, I allow myself to simply feel. To belong in the moment. To be taken care of.
Broken bones heal stronger.
Caz’s voice appears in my mind, followed almost immediately by Llin’s.
Which bone do you reckon Rose’s thinking of now? I hear her laugh as if she’s here in the room, and I can’t help but feel a sad chuckle rise within me. She would have made the moment crude. I’m sure of it. And I would have laughed because we’d both know it was true.
But I can’t think about that now. I can’t.
It’s a slow process and I can tell he’s taking his time, but I don’t know whether it’s due to the pain he’s refusing to feel, whether he’s rusty, or because he’s guarding the moment, stretching it out so we can touch innocently for a few more beats.
Either way, I regret it when his hands go still.
‘All done,’ he says, his voice husky.
‘Thank you,’ I respond, only to find mine is the same. I clear my throat and try to sound like that experience didn’t affect me at all.
‘How’s your arm feeling now?’ I ask him.
He rotates the shoulder before shrugging it up and down. ‘A little better. Come on. We should eat.’
He leans forward and picks up a piece of cheese, and I can’t help but notice the way he uses his uninjured arm, his dominant hand resting lightly on his lap instead. Once again, I find my eyes lingering on his body, the urge to reach out and touch him almost unbearable.
My intention was to nurse the wine he brought up – to enjoy it given that I’ve no idea when I’m going to get another cup – but as I go to take another sip, I discover it’s nearly empty. I was gulping it back to try to ease my nerves, but I’m not sure it’s working. I place the cup back on the tray.
‘We can share a bed,’ I say. ‘It’ll be fine. We’re both adults.’
His eyes glint. ‘It’s because we’re both adults that there’s a problem.’
‘We’ll be fine.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be fine. We’ll be plastered together in this tiny bed.’
‘How the heck did they have three people in it?’ I laugh nervously. ‘Surely it couldn’t bear all of their weight.’
‘Ryne has the power to increase the strength of any object. It’s a useful skill on the battlefield. And, apparently, in the bedroom.’
Kyor has finished his food, so he too picks up the wine and downs the glass in one go.
‘Really?’ I laugh. ‘You didn’t even try to savour it.’ I know mine went down far too quickly, but that wasn’t deliberate. It was nerves. Entirely different.
‘If I’ve got to savour something, I’d much rather it was you,’ he throws back, only to wince. He rakes a hand through his hair. ‘Sorry. No flirting right now.’
‘Right.’
‘Right.’ He clears his throat. ‘That wine isn’t good enough to savour, but it’ll help keep us warm.’
‘The room’s warm enough.’
He slides me a glance. ‘Compared to the slums, yes. Compared to the High Hold? No.’
I breathe out heavily. ‘I can’t see my breath. Ergo, warm.’
He shakes his head. ‘Whatever happens between us, I will see you spoiled for the rest of your life. I will feed you, keep you warm and safe. I never, ever want to see you go without again.’
The depth of feeling in his words shakes me. I don’t need Caz’s power to know he means them. Utterly.
I can’t respond. My head throbs with the impossibility of it all.
It doesn’t matter how much he wants to keep me safe, he can’t.
I’m the only one who can do that. Who can keep me, Kay and William safe.
Besides, it’s all very well saying this in the privacy of this tiny room, but when push comes to shove, if he’s forced to choose between his father and me again, we both know which way it will go.
‘We should sleep,’ I say. I shift in the tiny bed. ‘You should lie flat because of your injury. I’ll … I’ll curl around you. Lie down on the right side of the bed, against the wall,’ I instruct, ‘and then I’ll lie on your left shoulder.’
Kyor sets the empty wineglass down, blows out the candle, and we’re plunged into darkness. It’s only when the bed dips under his weight that I know he’s joined me on the mattress.
When he stops shuffling, I assume he’s lying flat as directed, so I take my place on my side in the scant remaining space and rest my head on his uninjured shoulder.
‘This is fine,’ I say, not sure who I am reassuring.
I can smell him now. The sweet vanilla scent that is purely Kyor, mingled with the aroma of fresh, clean soap. It seems a crying shame for his skin to be so clean and me unable to touch it. Taste it. Taste him. Gods, how I want to taste him.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Kyor asks. ‘Your breathing is heavier.’
‘Tasting you,’ I answer before my brain connects to my mouth.
There’s a pause. A dangerous one.
Kyor exhales slowly, the sound rough, as if he’s dragging it up from somewhere deep in his chest. ‘Thorn,’ he murmurs. That intimate nickname on his tongue has always been my undoing. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that to me.’
‘Why?’ I whisper, my lips brushing the warm skin of his shoulder as I speak. It’s an accident. Mostly. Because the moment my mouth touches him, even just there, everything shifts.
His body goes rigid beneath me. Then after a beat his uninjured arm lifts before settling around me, encircling my back, his hand resting at my waist. It’s a featherlight touch, as if he’s holding himself back with patience that’s fraying by the second.
‘Because I don’t trust myself,’ he admits.
I tilt my head, my cheek sliding against his chest, my nose skimming the smooth plane of his skin. I can feel his heart now, hammering beneath my ear. ‘You trusted yourself with me yesterday.’
‘I was half-dead yesterday,’ he says, breath hitching when my knee slides between his legs. ‘That was safer.’
I shouldn’t move closer. I know I shouldn’t.
But I do it anyway.
My fingers trace the line of his ribs, tentatively at first, then bolder when he doesn’t stop me.
His hand tightens at my waist, thumb pressing into bare skin, sending a shiver straight through me.
The bed is too small. There’s nowhere for the heat between us to go, nowhere for the want to bleed off.
‘Rose,’ he warns again, but his voice is low now, threaded with strain.
I lift my head enough to look at him in the darkness. I can’t see much, but I don’t need to. I know the shape of him. The tension in his jaw. The way his breath stutters when I lean in and brush my lips against his throat.
It’s just a kiss. Just a little kiss.
Then another.
His hand slides up my back, slow, reverent, like he’s relearning me, his touch careful and aching all at once. But when his mouth finds mine, there’s nothing restrained about the kiss, nothing gentle. This one is hungry. Desperate. All the things we haven’t said crashing together between us.
I melt into it, my fingers fisting in his hair, my body fitting against his as if it were made to be there. Usually he’s all dominance and fire, and I’m all too happy to be burned, but this time I’m in charge.
There’s nothing subtle or coy about my movements as I rock against him, pressing the inside of my legs against his bare skin, careful of his injured side. I lean my weight to the other side of him, but every nerve ending is lighting up, my skin buzzing, my pulse racing.