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Chapter twenty-six

I don’t know how long he carried me. Hours, maybe. The burning pain above my hip had me struggling to keep conscious and the crunching of gravel and dirt beneath his heavy boots lulled me to sleep.

By the time we arrived at the cabin, the air around me was pitch black save for the bright stars and waxing moon in the nighttime sky.

He woke me with his deep, soothing voice. “We’re here.”

Wood creaked and groaned beneath our weight. The entire cabin rattled from the brute force of his kick against the door. It slammed against the wall, and he carried me across the threshold.

“Was that necessary?” I winced at the pain my laughter caused.

“I have no free hands.” The traces of a smirk illuminated his face, even in the dark.

“Whose house is this?” It was a clean, single room with a tiny kitchenette, double bed, cast-iron tub, toilet, and hand-pump faucet.

“Damond’s family,” he answered, setting me down on the bed. “No one will find us here. ”

“Damond is your cousin.” He kept his hands on my ribs to ensure my balance as I settled and cringed at the resurging pain. “So your family, then?”

He grinned and knelt down before me. “ Distant cousin.”

Before I could object, he was unlacing my boots, then removing my wool socks.

I glanced up to see a full-length mirror resting against the opposite wall of the cabin.

Dusty, but clear enough that I could see our reflection.

And his reflection was a sight to behold.

Kneeling, head bowed as if in surrender to a fleeting salvation he longed to possess.

“I didn’t think I’d have you on your knees so many times in one day,” I quietly teased. “Such a mighty warrior bowing before a feeble queen.”

He stilled with his hands on the back of my legs.

“You have no idea how easily you put me on my knees.” He stroked the bare skin of my calves—up to the sensitive space behind my knees and back down.

“You are a dream.” He lifted his right hand to cup my cheek.

He traced his finger from the curve of my jaw to my lips, parting them with his thumb.

“There’s not a chance I’ll make it to heaven, but I pray the gods are gracious to send me to a place where I can see you.

Just you.” He wound his fingers in my hair.

“Because if I can’t spend eternity looking at you, I’d rather my soul cease to exist. You are ,” he breathed, “the single most breathtaking thing in this world.”

My brow crinkled in confusion at how he could whisper such longings to me when I knew his heart still belonged to his wife. Yet I whispered past the ache in my chest, through the tightening of my throat, “All those sweet words, and you still won’t kiss me?”

He shook his head, eyes filled with regret. “I told you why.”

Yes. Because he wouldn’t stop . That wasn’t a good enough reason for me. A very poor reason, actually. But if it was good enough for him, I had to respect his wishes. At least, I had to try.

So I lowered his hands from my face and avoided the rejection I inflicted upon him by doing so. I diverted my attention to the mirror behind him and regretted it. Before, I had been too focused on him to see how much blood covered my face, arms, hair, and neck. Blood from the man I’d killed.

Red. So much red.

“I need a bath.” My voice dropped, low and cold. “To get it off.” Even breaths transformed into frantic pants. I pointed at myself in the mirror. “I need a bath.”

He glanced at the cast-iron tub in the corner, then back at me. “You can’t submerge your wound, not when it’s so fresh.”

“I—I don’t care. I need to get him—the blood—off of me—”

He turned, stood, and strode over to the corner of the cabin to swipe a sponge off a small table beside the tub.

Then, he dragged a bucket over to the bath and filled it with water.

“Undress.” He opened the drawer of a small wardrobe and tossed me four clean towels.

“Put two of these down, cover yourself with the others, and lie down.”

“What?” I gulped.

“Take off your clothes, Ella, and lie down.”

“What?” I choked. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get his blood off of you.” He reached for a bar of soap from a stool beside the tub and tossed it into the bucket. “Tell me when you’re covered.”

“I… I can do it myself if it’s too much—”

“You are injured, and I will help you.”

He started a fire in the hearth behind the tub. As soon as the flames roared, delectable warmth filled the cabin. I stared at the towels in my hand and sighed. This was probably going to hurt in more ways than one.

When I lifted my arms to remove the black sweater, stabbing twinges rippled up and down my side then throbbed in waves. I cursed under my breath .

“Are you alright?” Still with his back to me, he removed his jacket, rolled the sleeves of his black shirt up to his elbow, and reached up to rub the back of his neck.

“Yes,” I hissed through the pain, and peeled the sweater the rest of the way over my head. “Yes, it just… hurts.”

Somehow—slowly and carefully—I managed to strip off my pants and undergarments without falling to the ground. While I undressed, he took the sponge and washed his own face, arms, and hands so all traces of blood on him were gone.

The towels were ivory and smelled clean. Odd for a cabin this far out in the woods, but given Damond’s fine taste, I wasn’t too surprised.

“I’m covered.”

He turned but kept his eyes trained down as he dragged the bucket, now full of water, to the bed’s edge and knelt before me.

I shifted where I sat, causing the towel to shift down my left breast, not far enough to expose anything.

“Do not drop that towel.” His voice was clipped, his jaw clenched. “To…” He cleared his throat. “To keep the wound dry.”

Yes, to keep the wound dry. My core tightened, well aware I was completely naked beneath this towel. He motioned for me to lay down.

“Wait.” Warmth flooded my cheeks like rivers of shame.

Letting him see me in only his shirt while swimming was one thing.

I had been covered. And sitting here beneath towels, I was still fully shielded besides my shoulders and knees.

But laying down would expose almost everything else.

The rest of me… I was afraid to disappoint him.

“I don’t know what I look like to a man naked. ” Or in this case, almost naked.

Danger and darkness spiraled in his stare. “You said you trust me, Ella?” he asked calmly.

I nodded .

“Then I need you to trust me when I say your last fear in this life, or any life, mortal or eternal, should be that I won’t like what you look like naked.”

I stared at him—eyes wide, cheeks hot. Fire licked my core. I forced a trembling breath.

“Understood?” His deep voice was strained.

I nodded and forced a swallow through my dry mouth.

“Good.” He motioned toward the bed. “Now lie down for me.”

With an unsteady sigh, I lowered myself onto the bed, highly aware of every surface of my exposed skin. He watched me at first, but when the towels began to slip, he became very interested in his own boots. I readjusted the towels to cover my waist and breasts.

“Gavin?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“If you won’t kiss me because you don’t think you can stop,” I rushed out, “I’m having a hard time understanding how this is any better or… easier for you.”

“This is… practical.” But his voice was still strained, and he stared at his feet while taking up space on the edge of the bed. “You need my help.”

The desire that pulsed in my center and soaked me between my thighs felt anything but practical. I heard him dip the sponge into the water and held my breath, waiting for that first touch.

“It might be a little cold,” he muttered.

“Probably for the best,” I whispered.

He chuckled in breathless surprise and touched the sponge to my forehead. I gasped and shuddered. Cold, indeed.

“Do you want to talk about what happened today?” he said, distracting us both from the weak pants passing through my lips. “With that Insidion.” Our eyes met, and I knew the guilt and sorrow read plain on my face when he added, “You were defending yourself. ”

I broke our gaze, closed my eyes, and focused on the cool touch of the sponge on my skin. He wetted my hair, splayed out on the pillow beneath my head, and took his time washing out the blood.

“I know I had to do it,” I said finally. “Or I might have died.” He took a third, dry towel and carefully brushed any remaining water off of my forehead, nose, and cheeks. “But I’m afraid I’ll see the light leave his eyes every time I close my own.”

“For a while, you might.” The sponge in his hand—warmed slightly from the friction of his ministrations—led careful strokes along my jaw and neck.

“But it gets easier?”

“I can’t answer that for you.” He rinsed the sponge and washed my left shoulder. “But it did for me. Though I suppose the first time I killed someone, I never regretted it to begin with.”

“Who was it?” I looked at him and found no traces of warmth in his stare.

“Someone had been harmed and frightened. Someone I cared about very much.”

His wife, I presumed, but I was afraid to ask. I didn’t want any of our few remaining moments to be about her. Maybe that made me selfish. I wasn’t sure I cared.

“You killed the person that did it?”

He languorously stroked the sponge from my shoulder down my left arm. I closed my eyes, lips parted, breathing shallowly, allowing myself to savor the soothing touch.

“He should have been punished long before I got to him.” He rinsed the sponge with one hand and softly dried my neck, collarbone, and left arm with the towel in the other before repeating on the other side.

“But he wasn’t, so I took care of him myself.

” After what I saw today, I knew he hadn’t hesitated. No remorse. Only death.

“When you were fighting that Insidion that got away, it felt like you went… feral, almost. Like you went somewhere else.”

He focused on my arm as he dabbed it dry. “I’m sorry I scared you.”