Page 109 of The Ever King

“There aren’t any toothy creatures that will gnaw off my foot, right?”

He stared at me for a breath, bemused. “No, love. Those are in the cove around the bend.”

I released his hand and reached for the clasp of my dress behind my neck. “Good. Then there’s nothing stopping us.”

With the next step, I let the simple dress fall off my body and bunch at my feet. Erik drew in a sharp breath with a curse on his tongue. I’d never been comfortable naked, but there wasn’t much he hadn’t already seen. The way Erik’s eyes darkened to a polished ink whenever he came close, whenever his hands were on my body, had become a new ambition.

He was the first man I wanted to let see me. All of me. A man wrong for me, yet I couldn’t stop wanting him. I couldn’t find a reason to care that I did.

I stepped into the water until I reached my waist. Erik remained on the sand, but stood straight and stiff. Moonlight kissed the slopes of my breasts. Cold as the water was, my body boiled under his scrutiny. His eyes roved from my face, to the peaks of my nipples, to the planes of my stomach.

“Coming in?” I asked sweetly. Erik shook out his hands and I chuckled. “Bloodsinger, do I make younervous?”

“No,” he insisted. “You unsettle me, there is a difference.”

“You are a sea fae who commands the water. I want to see what you can do.” I cupped the clear water in my palms and splashed it over my face, letting the rivulets glide over my bare skin. “Come in.”

“I don’t—” Erik looked over his shoulder for a breath. “I don’t allow others to see me.”

“I’ve seen you. You’re rather bold at removing your shirt.”

“No.” He paused. “I’ve never let anyone see all of me.”

I went still as though I’d been plunged headfirst into ice.I know how disgusting it is for you to look upon such mangled skin.Shame was potent and hot and grating down my spine. Erik’s torture had been showcased in front of his people, used as a weakness, as fuel to inspire hate.

He hid himself away because of it, and I’d mocked him much the same.

I eased out of the water, naked and bared to him. His eyes pulsed when I leaned into his body and lifted my arm, showing off a pink scar.

“I fell on a jagged rock, and my friends made it into a snake by drawing a head on one end.” I brushed my hair aside, revealing a scar behind my ear. “Sparring accident against my cousin. Alek told me it was my first battle scar left by a fearsome warrior. He was twelve and skinnier than me.”

Four more scars, one on my ribs from stumbling down a rocky knoll while visiting Mira when I was nine. Another on my knee from skidding over rough soil. Two on my shoulders from willow switches Jonas, Sander, and I tried to use as swords until we realized they were more like whips.

Erik gripped my wrist before I could show him the bite mark under my chin from one of my grandfather’s hounds. “You are hardly mangled, love.”

My shoulders slumped. “Erik, I said that out of anger. My intent was to hurt you when I didn’t think anything could hurt you.”

“I’m not hurt.”

“Your scars bother you,” I whispered, “but they do not bother me.”

He scoffed. “Curse me, hate me, but don’t lie to me. I know what I am; I know what people see when they look at me.”

“What do they see?”

“Something weak,” he said in a snarl. “I’ve spent my entire rule proving what was done to me does not lessen my strength as a king.”

“Hmm.” My pulse thudded in my skull when I gripped his wrist. “I was raised to see scars as a sign of strength—or if you are me, a sign of clumsiness. Scars paint our stories, they give proof to the battles we’ve survived, the trials we’ve overcome. To me, what I see when I look at you, Erik Bloodsinger, is a king who has faced more than the kings before him.”

His nostrils flared when I led his fingertips to my hipbones.

“Songbird,” he said, rough and low.

“The more I look at you, the more I want.”

“Don’t,” he warned. “I don’t need false praise.”

“I’m not saying sweet words to bolster your ego, Bloodsinger.” I placed his hand to my thigh. He closed his eyes when I widened my stance. “I’m proving to you what I want.”