Page 120 of Storm of Shadows

I don’t know why he says that because we all know, even if I relent and agree to be their thrall, this is only a temporary arrangement lasting as long as our time in the academy. Then I will most probably never see the three of them again.

I don’t have long to mull it over though, because in the next moment they do something entirely unexpected. Dray comes to kneel on the other side of the bathtub and reverently, gently, with care and kindness they begin to wash me, soft sponges and fragrant soap gliding over my skin.

I’m too weak to argue about it. Too tired to push them away.

Instead, I close my eyes once more and dissolve into the feeling. If it’s been a long time since anyone touched me with kindness, then I don’t remember a time someone stroked and caressed me like this. Even Amelia was too busy to do anything but scrub the dirt from my body, hurriedly because the water was always too cold to make it pleasant.

When Dray reaches the scars on my stomach, he’s even gentler, his brow furrowing as he does.

“I know it’s really ugly,” I mutter, wrapping my arms around my stomach in a bid to hide them from him. Maybe this will finally be the point when they realize they don’t want me as a thrall.

“I didn’t say they were ugly. Is that what you think? Is that why you were trying to keep them hidden?”

“They’re not exactly beautiful, are they?”

He rocks back on his heels and drags his shirt over his head. His chest is sculpted and muscular, rows of tight abs running over his stomach. But he also has a scar of his own – a ragged one that runs in a circle over his shoulder and down his back.

“How did–” I gasp.

“Another shifter. He wasn’t very friendly.” He chuckles. “Don’t worry he’s dead now.”

“Shit,” I mumble, realizing it must have been a set of powerful jaws that made that scar, realizing it was probably Dray who killed the other shifter. “But I didn’t notice it when you were–”

“Fur hides it.”

“Did it hurt?”

He chuckles again. “Hurt like hell,” he says, running his fingertips over the raised mangled flesh. “Do you think it’s ugly?”

“No,” I admit. I shrug. “It’s kinda sexy.” I peer down at my stomach. “My scars are not sexy.”

“They’re a testament of what you’ve been through – whatever that was,” he adds, with a growl, “of what you survived. And that is beautiful.”

I can’t help smiling at the crazy bastard, an expression he studies with interest.

Beaufort taps my shoulder.

“Lean forward so I can do your back,” he commands. I pull a face. I don’t want to. I only ever catch fleeting glances of my back in the mirror but I know it’s as mangled and twisted as Dray’s shoulder.

“Please,” Dray adds with a set of puppy dog eyes that could melt the coldest of hearts.

With a little huff, I fold forwards, resting my cheek on my bent knees.

Beaufort mutters something under his breath and then he’s gliding the sponge over my back. I barely feel it. I lost the sensation on the skin there long ago.

“Did it hurt?” Dray asks me, repeating my early question.

I consider whether to tell them the truth, and in the end – who knows what possesses me – I do.

“At first, yes. But I learned to disassociate from the pain. To take myself someplace else.”

“It happened more than once,” Beaufort says, his voice quiet but a current of rage quivering below the surface.

I close my eyes. “Many times.”

I feel a slight tug at my scalp and then Beaufort is unwinding my hair and washing that too.

“She has the most beautiful hair,” he murmurs to Dray, running his fingers through the strands and massaging my scalp. It’s so good I let out a little sigh of pleasure. That man really does have exceedingly talented hands.