Page 83 of Alchemised

T HE ALCOHOL BURNED DOWN H ELENA’S THROAT, brIGHT and smooth, leaving an aftertaste like wood smoke on her tongue.

She handed the decanter back, not sure why they were passing something so unwieldy.

One sip and she could already feel the alcohol loosening her insides as he gestured towards the sofa. She curled up nervously on the far end.

He pushed the bottle towards her and when she tried to demur, he slid closer, his body closing in, sending her heart skyrocketing.

“You need to catch up.”

“I don’t have a regenerative liver,” she said in protest, looking dubiously at the amount inside and realising only then that the entire bottle was the “one drink” she’d agreed to.

The sofa was long enough that there was no reason for him to be so close, but there were barely inches between them. She took another sip and tried to return it, but he refused to take it, watching her like a curious cat before it springs.

“You’re going to regret this if I start crying.” She could already feel the alcohol in her face. “I get emotional when I’m drunk.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Is there a reason to cry?”

She looked down, rubbing her thumb over the etched pattern on the decanter. “There’s always a reason.”

Kaine shifted, rubbing his shoulders against the sofa like a cat marking its territory. His eyes fluttered shut as he moaned. “I never realised how much I enjoy leaning against things.”

“Should I give you and the sofa some privacy?” she asked, trying to scoot farther into the corner.

He stilled, eyes instantly opening, and reached towards her. “Don’t go.”

Heat rose all the way to the roots of her hair. She looked away, drinking more.

“I know you feel a lot better, but you need to be careful for the next few days,” she said between sips. “I think I did everything right so the scar tissue won’t tear, but once the Abeyance is over, things might change. If it feels off, at all, you can call me. I can keep coming to make sure.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Is there anyone you don’t feel responsible for?”

She looked away, trying to stifle Luc’s voice in her head calling her choices easy. “It’s my job,” she said quietly.

“Thank you, Marino.”

She swallowed, lifting her gaze. “Still not Helena?”

He exhaled, avoiding her eyes.

“Helena.” He said it slowly, drawing it out, as if he was testing the way it sounded.

She smiled at him. “See? Not so hard.”

He stared at her without smiling back, and she tried not to be distracted but he was so close, and still without a shirt on. Her eyes kept dropping involuntarily. She was trying not to look, but ordinarily when she saw people without their clothes on, it was because they were dying.

He was—very alive.

Her breath grew short. She tore her eyes away, not wanting to be accused of leering again, but he didn’t seem to have noticed this time. He was still studying her.

She couldn’t tell how intoxicated he was, but she was beginning to feel very drunk. Her head was growing heavy, and she had an overwhelming desire to laugh and cry simultaneously.

“You should put a shirt on,” she said, her voice jumping. “You must be cold.”

Faster than she could blink, her hand was in his, and he pressed her fingers against his chest.

“Do I feel cold?”

She shook her head, speechless, his skin warm against her palm. He didn’t flinch when she touched him now, instead leaning into it.

“You can use your resonance, if you don’t believe me.”

A shiver ran down her spine.

“I guess you’re all right,” she said, her fingers brushing against his skin.

He inhaled unsteadily, and she felt the shudder under her palm. His hand was still over hers, but he wasn’t holding it in place any longer.

She looked up and realised she found him handsome.

Before, he’d been too young and vicious, like a newly hatched viper striking at anything that moved. Then gaunt and dying and perpetually furious looking.

Now there was something still about him. His features had filled out. The threads of silver-white in his dark hair made him look even older than she was.

The coldness she associated with him had become a distant memory; his skin was warm, and his breath where it touched her cheek was warm. Drunk and feeling his heartbeat beneath her fingers, she couldn’t remember when she’d stopped being afraid of him.

“I must admit,” he said in a low voice as though making a confession, “if anyone had told me you’d become so lovely, I would never have come near you. I was rather blindsided when I saw you again.”

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“You’re like a rose in a graveyard,” he said, and his lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I wonder what you could have turned into without the war.”

“I—never thought about it.”

He nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me.” He reached out and captured the loose curl behind her ear. “I remember your hair. Is it still the same?”

She flushed. He would remember that, of all things.

“Unfortunately,” she said.

“Like you, then,” he said, twisting the curl so it wrapped around his fingertip, “trapped in place, but still the same somewhere underneath.”

She stared at him, startled by the remark, and then tears welled up and streamed down her cheeks. His eyes widened.

“Gods, Marino, don’t cry,” he said hastily.

“Sorry,” she said, pulling her hand free and scrubbing her face. “I’m just—really drunk.”

The moment vanished like mist in sunlight. She wiped her eyes several times, suddenly feeling so raw.

When she glanced up, he’d looked away, eyebrows knitting together.

She’d never seen him so casually expressive before. As they sat there, she felt as if she were finally seeing the real him. He looked so sad at first; but as she watched, an empty look of bitterness filled his eyes, darkness spreading across his face.

She reached towards him, not sure what she was doing but wanting to pull him back from wherever his thoughts were taking him.

She caught his left hand in hers, and when he didn’t resist, she pressed her thumbs up across the palm until his fingers flexed and began massaging it from the wrist to the fingertips.

“Why do you do that?” he asked after a minute.

“My father used to do this for me,” she said without looking up. “He said alchemists were like surgeons, so we have to take care of our hands.”

“But why are you doing it for me?”

Her fingers stilled briefly; she stared at the lines of his palm.

“My mother died when I was seven. She’d been sick for a long time.

All my life actually. One day I went to wake her, and she was—cold.

She’d slipped away in the night, no warning, no goodbyes.

After that, I was afraid to go to sleep.

I wasn’t scared of being dead, but I was worried my father or I might slip away like that and leave the other all alone.

So he’d hold my hand until I fell asleep, so I’d know he was there.

You looked lonely just now, so I thought …

” She shook her head and let go. “I don’t know. It’s nothing. Sorry.”

She sat awkwardly fidgeting with her fingers. If she stayed much longer, the checkpoint would close and she’d be trapped outside the city overnight. As she opened her mouth to excuse herself, he spoke.

“Would you do something for me?” The question was quiet.

She looked up. His expression had relaxed again, and his hair had fallen across his forehead, softening his features.

She scanned him quickly. “What do you want?”

He tilted his head. “Will you take your hair down? I want to see it.”

She blinked in surprise. “Really?”

He just gave a short nod, watching her.

She reached up awkwardly and pulled the pins out.

The two braids tumbled down, and she removed the ties, running her fingers through the strands to unbraid them, feeling the tension in her scalp release as she dropped her hands into her lap, not wanting to see his reaction, heat already scalding her face and neck.

“There. My mane.”

He stared in silence, as if he needed time to take it in. “I didn’t realise it was so long.”

She squeezed the pins, daring to glance up. “The weight makes it more manageable.”

He said nothing else, just staring as if mesmerised.

She flushed. Having her hair loose felt as if she was revealing something deeply intimate about herself, something she was accustomed to keeping carefully put away because it was so often treated as either unacceptable or pitiable. She wasn’t prepared for this kind of reaction.

He leaned forward, lacing his fingers into her hair along her temple, running his fingers through it. His expression curious. She shivered at the sensation, at the nearness of him.

“It’s softer than I expected,” he said. His eyes were fascinated.

She didn’t know what to say.

His hand slid up her neck and tangled with the curls at the base of her skull. His breathing had grown shallow.

He wasn’t looking at her hair anymore; his eyes were on her face, on her lips, that silver gleam lighting them again as he shifted closer.

“If you don’t want me to kiss you, you should say so now,” he said.

He was so near, she could taste his breath, the burn of alcohol on it.

Everything had become blurred and dreamlike, except him.

She could feel the weight of her life bearing down, crushing her day by day, always taking more than she could spare, but she could also feel Kaine, the warmth of him and his fingers laced through her hair.

He was gentler than she thought he could be. He looked at her like he saw her.

And he was asking.

She kissed him.

A real kiss this time.

The instant her lips met his, he took control. As if she’d sprung something loose in him, his arm was around her waist, drawing her towards him, pulling her close until their bodies pressed together, and she was on his lap.

Her hands were on his shoulders, fingertips brushing across the outermost point of the array while he deepened the kiss as if wanting to consume her. When his lips left hers, he arched her neck back, his breath and tongue hot on her bared throat.

He seemed to be mapping her with the span of his fingers, a topographer exploring the curve of her clavicles, every dip and rise of bone and flesh.

He pulled her so close that she could feel the barrier of her clothing between them, her skirts around her hips. His hands gripped her waist, thumbs tracing her ribs.

She ran a hand along his jaw, and when her palm grazed his cheek, he pressed his face into it, eyes fluttering shut, a breath escaping him, as if he were starved of touch.

His hands slid up her back, following the length of her spine, and she arched like a cat, leaning into him. His touch sent a heady rush through her, her mind tumbling as if caught in a wave.

She hadn’t realised how much she’d wanted to be touched. That she was starved of it, too.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, clinging to him, her heart pounding so violently she could hear it. A bruising pleasure rippled through her at his touch, making her chest clench. His fingers on the buttons of her shirt, unfastening them one by one. The layers between them slipping away.

She had not comprehended her stark lack of intimacy until this moment. Now awakened, it seemed to claw out from under her skin, a need that she’d only ever known as an absence.

She knew that people enjoyed sex, but she had always thought it was an indulgence. She had not known it was a hunger.

Or that she was starving.

She pressed closer, wanting to erase every sliver of space between them, so tired of being always alone. A thing apart, reduced to her functions. Healer. Chymist. Liaison. Tool.

Whore.

Her eyes burned and she closed them, trying to slip free and lose herself in a place where her thoughts couldn’t catch up, but they chased her down, insinuating themselves beneath her skin where Kaine’s fingers didn’t reach. Whispering through her skull, like a damning, mocking chorus.

This was a mission. A job. What she’d been sent to do. What did it say about her, that she was so eager? So hungry for this feeling of being wanted?

Kaine’s teeth scraped along the curving bone of her jaw, his touch evoking an ache that nearly split her open.

When he bit down on the side of her neck, she shuddered with a gasping moan, fingers grasping, digging into his skin, and he turned her until she was beneath him on the sofa, his warmth and weight surrounding her, pressed against her.

It was happening so fast. Why would he so suddenly want her like this?

Reality caught up like a blow to her chest: He didn’t.

He was intoxicated. And no longer injured.

After months of agony, he was ravenous for pleasure and physical release.

And she was here. Drunk and compliant, ready to be consumed.

A starved wolf would sate itself on anything.

She stared at him, her ribs clenching around her lungs until she couldn’t breathe. Shame burning trails down her temples as she recoiled.

Kaine went still, then lifted his head. He looked at her for only a moment, then pulled his hands away and himself off.

“I think it’s time you go,” he said.