“They did not burn Eneko’s section,” she says at last.
“That’s… good?”
“That is everything.”
A part of me balks at this. Though I am not the most expressive individual, I can hardly believe she would see all this destruction and not be affected.
While I study her, I think of what she said. She constantly extinguishes her feelings and puts them in some dark corner.
“That’s all you have to say? Melisa, they burned hundreds of your people. Maybe thousands.”
She turns away from me, and I notice that her breathing is oddly stilted. When she reaches down and picks up a handful of snow, I move to touch her again.
“Ra’Sa, we’ve arrived. It’s time to prepare to see Eneko. He’s already going to be angry that I’ve been gone a week. I need to make this believable. I’ll worry about the others later.”
I clamp my jaw shut as she tears the hem of her dress and soaks it with ice.She smears frozen mud over her garments and coats her hair in the thick filth, along with her cheek, collarbones, and fingernails.
I come behind her to help her warm up.
“No. I must be chilled as if I’d been left outside for days,” she says.
My brows draw together.
“That would be impossible. If you’d been in the snow for a week, you’d be frozen solid.”
She practically snarls and presses her hand to the waistband of her dress. Her eyes are blank, haunted, when she lets go of the wound soaked in red.
The bandage has been leaking this whole time.
“Melisa,” I growl, grabbing onto the side of her ribcage. Why didn’t I smell it? The fires must have altered my senses.
She gasps and shouts, “Fuck!”
“You do seem to love that word,” I say, and she glares at me. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurting?”
“When I saw the smoke I…”
“Had a plan. Of course. I should’ve known you were thinking far ahead.” I sigh. “The good news is that you are dirty enough for them to believe you haven’t had a bath lately. I would stand firm on you being an icicle if you’d been outside, though.”
She bites her hand. “You should hit me over the head. They’ll be so focused on my wound, they won’t question everything else.”
I recoil. “Absolutely not.”
“Ra’Sa, if you want me to include you in my plans, you must be willing to play along,” she says.
I grab her wrist. “I have my limits, and injuring you is out of the question.”
It still hurts to think of those scars along her belly and up her arms—not to speak of the scars slashed across her soul, where no one can see. She’s been hurt too much.
She smiles sweetly, as she has done dozens of times. I realize it’s been a mask.
“What if I ask kindly and promise to wrap my lips around your cock?”
A spike of adrenaline rushes through my veins.
“Again—No.” Then I bite my lip. “I will carry you. You pretend to sleep in my arms. Final offer.”
She sneers. “Fine. But I won’t forget this.”