Page 82 of Unveil

“Put my shirt on, baby.”

She doesn’t argue, just strips down to her panties and walks into the opening I’ve stretched for her, letting me help without a word. Not that she needs me to help her get dressed, obviously. But for me, doingsomethingeases the tension in my muscles a fraction.

The hem flutters to just above her knees. There’s no flirting. No sly jokes.

Just… silence.

Jesus, I hate this.

When she sits on the cot, I undress to my boxer briefs with just as little fanfare. My pulse is a heavy lump of concern in my throat as I lean against the door and slowly slump down to my “bed.”

“Orion?”

“Yeah?” I freeze mid-sit.

She scooches back on the cot, making herself smaller, and fidgets with the edge of the blanket. She looks so innocent when her shy question whispers out.

“Sleep with me?”

My heart stops painfully.

I swallow, but my voice is still rough. “You sure?”

She nods without hesitation, but I’m already moving, sliding in under the blanket beside her.

The second I’m close, something primal takes over, but not lust. Need. The need to touch her, hold her, save her from whatever monster claws her up inside.

As I lie down, I loop one arm around her waist and roll her into me. Wanting to be pressed along every part of her that I can reach, I hook my hand behind her knee and pull her leg over mine, brushing my hand over her tattoo and keeping it there. She instantly rests her cheek on my chest, like it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to find comfort a breath away from my Fury birthmark. As it should be.

Her soft hand drifts over my pec. “What happened here?”

I don’t have to look to know she’s tracing the jagged scar that I had inked into her thigh tattoo.

Where to begin? Where to end? That’s the thing about this feud. There’s neither.

I don’t want to burden her with anything else tonight, but itisa part of my past—a part of me— she’ll find out soon enough. She’s given me so much already tonight, she deserves whatever I can give her back.

“It happened when I was seventeen,” I murmur. “I was stabbed.”

Her fingers still, but I go on. “It was the worst night of my life. I got these then too.” I raise one hand, turning it in the firelight.

My fingers and the tops of my hands were left relatively unscathed, but my palms? With the fire flickering out of focus behind them, the ridges and glossy divots look alive with movement over the dead nerves. Ironic, really.

“The burns were bad. I’m lucky I have feeling in my hands at all.”

My eyes drift to the fire, my mind to the memories that always flicker behind the flames. Luna traces a horizontal ridge,bringing me back to her and saving me from descending into hell for the millionth time. Then she laces her fingers in mine and holds them to my chest.

“Is he dead?”

She doesn’t pity me. She doesn’t whisper “I’m sorry” or cry for me. And I don’t want her to.

Luna was born into this life and understands its brutality without needing an explanation. She intuitively knows those exchanges feel more like peeling off a scab than the half-assed balm they’re meant to be. As much as I want to protect her from this world, she belongs in it too. She belongs tome, and one day I’ll convince her of that.

“He’s dead,” I answer simply, even though there’s way more to that story. Like the fact that two got away.

“Good.”

She settles against me, and her next question comes out with weighted tenderness.