Page 148

My hands shook as I placed them on his chest. He covered them with his own, holding them to his bloodied, torn shirt. This kiss was gentle and soft. It was vulnerable. Easy.

I pulled away, my lip quivering. “I should clean this blood off of me.”

I saw the restraint on Wolf’s face, but he didn’t fight me as I pulled away and surveyed the room, looking for anything to cleanse my bloodied, battered skin.

Whoever used to live here must have been wealthy. A large bed sat with massive wooden posts in the middle of the room. The bed was still made, covered in a thin layer of dust.

A perfectly placed desk sat on the far wall, with a broken mirror placed above it.

I moved past it, inching toward a doorway in the back of the room. The door had broken from the hinges, but I cried in relief when I saw a full washroom inside. At least this place wasn’t a total loss.

I quickly found a small cloth and began wiping my hands, doing what I could to scratch the dried blood and caked dirt from my skin.

And then I saw a drip from the piping in the shower.

If there was still running water here, it may restore all lost faith I had in the luxuries of The Golden City.

I turned the handle.

And all hells, water poured from the ceiling. I nearly cried in relief.

Steam radiated a few moments later, and my knees shook.

Running water.

Wolf appeared in the doorway. “Is that—”

“A hot shower? Yes.” A laugh shook my body. “Yes, it is.”

He smiled too, and for a brief moment, there was a crack in the wall of grief that had been cascading around my heart.

“I’ll give you your privacy,” he said after a moment. “Take all the time you need.”

I didn’t bother asking him to try to re-assemble the broken door. He would respect my boundaries. What little was left of them, anyway.

After a few calming breaths, I stripped off my blood-soaked clothes. My boots were practically molded to my feet, but I eventually got them off too, sighing in relief at the sudden freedom.

Steam filled the small room, calling me forward. I stripped off the rest of my clothes, leaving the brutal pile on the ground, and stepped into the shower.

“Hells,” I mumbled as the water cascaded around me. The heat enveloped my torso, my shoulders, the back of my neck. I took a long breath and finally put my face beneath the water.

I didn’t have to look down to know that the water around my feet would be red and black, a reminder of the last week. More blood I tried to rub away only revealed a new healing scrape or scar. My arms were covered in claw marks, bite marks, and gashes.

This was supposed to be the end. It was supposed to get better now; it was supposed to be easy.

I had a mission to finish for Lord.

Emotion hit me like a punch to the chest. That was the whole reason I was here, wasn’t it? I was supposed to finish this for him.

He needed me.

How ashamed would he be if he knew I had surrendered to Wolf? Had let him feed from me? Had died for him?

I wasn’t sure when I started crying, but before I knew it, hot tears melted with the steam from the shower. I tried to let the heat relax my muscles, but more pain followed.

Always more pain.

Always more suffering.