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I didn’t have to ask; I didn’t have to tell him what I needed.

He slowly turned back to me, slipping his hand into mine, and guided me toward the water, helping me step into it. A shiver skidded over my body as I lowered myself into the hot liquid, letting the warmth soothe my skin. Andrues knelt beside me, dipping a single finger into the water and clearing it of the blood that had already soaked into it.

My hands wrapped around a sponge resting on the ledge, dipping it into the water before turning toward him and lifting to my knees. He watched as I hesitantly reached for him, his eyes never leaving mine as my fingers wrapped around his jaw. I brought the sponge to his face, gently washing the blood from his skin and the scars that lay atop it.

His jaw flexed as my fingers slid over the cut of it, slowly turning his head from side to side to make sure I had cleaned every bit of crimson from him. I let them linger there for a moment, a moment that was longer than any friend would have allowed, as I swallowed back the urge to pull his lips to mine.

His eyes flickered as I finally pulled my hand from him and lowered myself back into the water, letting it lap against me as I pulled my knees to my chest.

“May I wash you?” Andrues asked, his voice hushed as his hand slipped into the water and pulled the sponge from my fingers.

I nodded, setting my chin against my knees and watched from the corner of my eye as he reached for the pitcher on the bathing table beside us and dipped it into the water, filling it.

He spilled the contents of it over my shoulders, and began to wipe away the evidence of the lives that I had taken.

“Thank you,” I whispered, shifting my cheek to my knees so I could look at him.

He nodded, his fingers brushing over my skin—my scars—as he poured more water down my back.

“Why did you do it?” I asked, my eyes falling to the clear liquid swirling around me. “You are not one for unnecessary violence, you could have just thrown them into the prisons once you found them. Why let me kill them?”

“Lean your head back,” he requested softly, but did not answer my question as he lathered soap into my hair. His fingers brushed through the raven strands, cleansing them as I waited silently, anxiously, for his response.

Another pitcher was filled and poured into my hair as he washed the soap from it before he responded.

“I know you well enough to know you would have gone after them one way or another,” he started, gently turning my body so that my back was facing him. His fingers ran through the damp stands, splitting it into sections as he began braiding it down my back.

“What happened tonight was necessary, and I know you needed it to feel safe. But you also deserved it.” His voice was a low growl now, his hands still weaving through my hair. “After what they did to you . . . you deserved to be the one to kill them.”

His hands slipped from my hair, tracing down the column of my neck.

“When Hyacinth told me—when I learned what they had done to you . . . I have had centuries to learn how to hone my rage, but I am still a violent man, Ataliia.”

His hands flexed around my shoulders, his forehead falling to meet the top of my head.

“There is nothing I would not do to keep you safe, no act of violence I would not commit to avenge every wrong that has been done to you.”

The only sound was the fire crackling in the corner of the room as my chest heaved at his words. My breaths grew short and rapid as his fingers began tracing small patterns down my arms.

“Kiss me,” I breathed, my eyes locking on the wall in front of us as I felt his head slowly lift from mine.

“Ataliia—”

“Kiss me, Andrues,” I said again, cutting him off as I turned to face him, his hands never leaving my skin.

His eyes darkened as they met mine and I swallowed.

“We are friends.” The words left his lips in a rasp as his eyes fluttered to my mouth.

I tilted my chin toward him, my fingers grasping around the curve of the bath’s copper edge. “Then kiss me as your friend, but kiss me either way.”

The words barely made it off the tip of my tongue before his lips crashed onto mine. His hands slid to cup each side of my face as he pulled me closer, uncoiling me from the water as he stood. A flame burst to life inside my chest as my fingers reached for him, burying into his hair and holding on.

I would not breathe. I would not think.

I would not give him a chance to pull away from me.

A growl escaped his throat as my dripping body pressed against him and his hands slid from my face down each curvedside of my body, falling to the back of my thighs as he lifted me against him.