He looked down. Just once.
His breath caught. And in the next moment, I felt him harden beneath me.
He shifted immediately, angling his hips back, setting more space between us even as I stayed in his lap. He cursed under his breath and spun me gently around, so my back pressed to his chest again instead.
“I’m sorry,” he said, low and rough.
He tried to move further away from where our bodies met, but the motion only made things worse. A small, involuntary sound escaped my throat—more breath than voice.
At the sound, his hands tightened around my waist.
“Alright,” he said after a long breath. “You’re clean.”
And with that, he stood, lifting me from the bath. He kept me pressed to his chest, water trailing down both our bodies. The towel he used to dry me was soft, but his hands avoided every inch they could—rushing where they might linger, gentling where they might shake.
When I was mostly dry, he stepped back just enough to lift a clean sleeping gown over my head. He held it open while I leaned forward, letting the wet shift fall away unnoticed. I kept my eyes closed through it all.
Once dressed, he carried me back to the bed and laid me gently down, tugging the furs over my body with more care than he likely intended to show.
He hovered for a moment. Adjusted the wet strands of hair across my pillow.
Then, after a long pause, he spoke. “Don’t ever ask me to do that again.” His voice was quiet. No anger. Just restraint so tight it frayed.
He stepped back, already retreating into shadow. “I need to find Santiago. Try to sleep.”
And then he was gone.
The chamber dimmed.
And for the first time in what felt like lifetimes, I sank into sleep without dreams.
35
Malachi
The momentthe door closed behind me, I leaned back against it and exhaled.
She was too quiet. Too soft in that bed. Every instinct in me wanted to go back in.
But I didn’t. Because if I did, I wouldn’t leave.
My skin still smelled like her—the clove-sweet water, the echo of her heartbeat against my chest. My hands, still damp, remembered the curve of her spine, the silk of her hair sliding through my fingers. The way she pressed against me—soft and sure—like she believed I was built to hold someone like her. I wasn’t. Gods, I wasn’t.
I shouldn’t have gotten in with her.
But she’d asked. And I was too far gone to say no.
What was happening to me?
My footsteps echoed down the corridor, slow and heavy. I raked a hand over my face.
It wasn’t just desire. That would’ve been easier. It was the wayshe looked at me. Trusted me. The way she let herself be held. I’d carried her like she was fragile, when she was anything but. She’d survived horrors the rest of us only spoke of in whispers. And yet, she still made me feel something I hadn’t let myself feel in centuries.
That was the danger.
There was something primal between us—something I couldn’t name but felt in the marrow of my bones. A pull I’d spent too long resisting.
She was never supposed to matter. Not like this.