CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 23

AUREN

It’s been a whole week. Seven days of training. I sleep until dusk, by which point Slade has already disappeared to wherever he goes, and then I get dressed and come here to train with Judd until I want to pass out. Then I wash myself as best I can without getting my bandages wet, and join everyone for dinner.

I don’t cook it. I think we’ve all agreed that’s for the best.

After dinner, I usually join in with the others playing cards while Hojat reads or mixes up some new tincture to try on Digby or myself. The storm still hasn’t stopped. I can hear it blowing through the entrance of the cave at all hours, raging against the shelter of the Grotto.

And me, I stay up long after everyone else goes to bed, not falling asleep until dawn. I don’t trust myself to be up with the sun. But…I haven’t gilded anything. Not a single time. Not even while I’ve laid asleep in the bed. My borrowed clothes are the same brown and black color as before, the blankets and furs on the bed untouched by my power.

I don’t know what that means, but I’m silently stewing in worry, avoiding the topic at all costs.

When I woke up in that cave and felt the power coursing through me, I just needed it to stop. To be shut away. Because my gold can’t be trusted. Especially not that facet I’ve never even known that I was capable of before.

Now…now it seems like it’s broken completely. As if whatever I did in Ranhold that night has changed my gold-touch irreparably. But I’m just going to focus on getting stronger physically for now. So I sleep the daylight away instead of obsessively worrying about why my gold-touch seems to have dried up.

“You’re looking at your feet again.”

Judd’s voice makes my head wrench up. “Sorry.”

“Can’t have your eyes buried into the ground,” he tells me. “Or the beam. Now take three steps forward. No looking.”

I bite my lip, fighting every instinct to look down. The wooden beam beneath my feet must be at least ten feet long. When I came into the Teeth yesterday, it was waiting for me in the very middle of the room. I can’t even imagine how heavy it must be. When I asked Judd, he said Slade and Ryatt had brought it in earlier for me. I’m a bit disappointed that I missed the sight of them carrying it.

For the past two days, I have been doing nothing but these beam exercises. It’s forcing me to re-learn how to balance. I’ve fallen off more times than I can count. My legs ache, the arches of my feet feel sprained, and even my toes are sore. But I don’t quit.

“One,” Judd counts as I place one foot in front of the other. “Two, three... Good.”

He walks the length of the beam on the ground beside me, the blue light of the Teeth’s jaw casting a long shadow behind him.

“Now I want you to turn around and walk three steps the other way.”

I groan. “Do I have to?”

Judd laughs. “Come on, Gildy.”

He’s had me do this very move so many times, but I always lose my damn balance. My body still wants to rely on the ribbons that are no longer there. Still, I force myself to twist my back foot and spin around...only to go pitching right off the beam and landing ass-first in the needling hay on the ground.

They’re pokey. It doesn’t feel great.

I let out a growl of frustration, slapping my hand against the beam and then getting even more aggravated when tiny splinters break off into it. I yank off my glove and toss it to the floor.

“Again.”

I cut Judd a look. “I hate you.”

“Gotta walk before you can run, Gildy. Or in your case, gotta balance before you can stop falling on your ass.”

“Thank you for bestowing that wisdom.”

He dusts off the shoulder of his black coat. “Anytime.”

I stand back up onto the beam, trying to ignore my throbbing feet and smarting ankles, my arms automatically lifting up to try and steady my balance. The muscles in my legs tighten to keep me steady.

“Walk all the way to the end.”

I nod and go slowly, but my eyes flick down to double-check I’m not about to go walking right off the edge.

“I saw that. No peeking.”

I swear this man has an uncanny ability to know where I’m looking. Yanking my eyes back up, I keep my line of sight at the other end of the cave.

“Don’t overthink it. There you go... Now stop and turn.”

I do it without thought, spinning on the ball of my foot...and I actually don’t fall over. Instead, my other foot plants perfectly in front of the one I just swiveled, and then before I know it, I’m successfully facing the other way.

My eyes go wide, and a huge grin comes over my face. “I did it!”

“Very good,” he says with a clap. “Now let’s do that ten more times.”

My smile melts right off my face. “Shouldn’t we just end on this high note?”

“Nice try,” he says, walking up to be parallel with me. “Now that we know you can do it, you’re going to master it.”

Judd isn’t kidding about doing it ten times. I probably do it about forty more times in all, because he doesn’t count it if I fall or flail or stumble.

The jerk.

By the time I manage to complete my tenth one, I collapse on the ground, knees up in front of me, elbows leaning on them as I drop my head toward my lap and pant. I’m covered in sweat and splinters, and my feet are killing me.

“My ankles feel like they want to burst through my skin.”

“You did well,” Judd says, coming up to me and passing me some water.

I guzzle it down, not even caring that some of it drips from the sides of my lips and goes down my chin. When I hand it back to him, I say, “Thanks for pushing me, Judd.”

“Anytime. Now, don’t forget to get some snow and use it to ice your feet and legs. Because tomorrow, we’ll be doing more beam work.”

I groan, rubbing my spasming calf. “I hate icing them.”

“But it helps.”

“It does,” I relent. Not only does Hojat help to ice my sore muscles, but he’s also been placing snow packs on my back. As much as I hate it while it’s on, it really has helped a lot.

“Ready to go?”

I nod, and when I take Judd’s hand for him to help haul me to my feet, I don’t even flinch. Already, I’m getting more used to touch. It’s strange how much has changed in such a short amount of time.

Together, we leave the cracked entrance of the Teeth, spilling out into the main cave of the Grotto. As soon as we do, I see a figure striding for us, and even though my eyes don’t adjust right away, my body knows exactly who it is.

When Slade’s close enough that I can see the shadowed lines of his face, his intent attention spills my heartbeat into a scattered runoff.

“You’re limping,” he says by way of greeting, stopping in front of us.

“I’m okay, my feet are just sore.”

“I told her to ice them,” Judd tells him. “But she did good today. Her balance has already improved. She’s ready to move on as soon as her back is a bit more healed up.”

Slade nods, and I can see approval cast over his expression. “I’d like to take you somewhere, if you’re willing.”

My brows lift in surprise, and my pulse picks up in pace. It seems like he’s been avoiding me. We share dinner together with the others, but he always goes off to do things while I fall asleep on my own, and then I wake up the same. The only indication that he’s actually stayed in there with me is that the fire is always tended to, the pillow on his side always indented. I can’t really blame him though. I’m the one sleeping away the day.

“It will be something relaxing, I promise,” he tells me, obviously picking up on my hesitation.

“Okay,” I say with a nod, though I feel guilty for making it seem like he has to convince me. He’s still feeling really guilty about the whole rot thing. “I’d like that.”

Relief flashes through his eyes just before Judd claps us both on the shoulders. “You two have relaxing fun. I’m off to go make Lu play cards with me. She got all my money again last night.” He turns and walks off, his silhouette disappearing in the direction of the house.

I look up at Slade, very aware that we’re alone. We haven’t been alone, not really. Not since I woke up in that cave and practically jumped him.

Clearing my throat, I ask, “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Then he turns and kneels down in front of me. “Hop on.”

I blink. “What?”

“I saw your grimace every time you took a step. I want to carry you, but I don’t want to hurt your back. So hop on.”

My feet shift in place, but even that sends a shock of pain down my arches. “Are you sure?”

He glances at me over his shoulder. “Am I sure that I want your body pressed against mine while I carry you so that you’re not in pain? Yes.”

I can’t help but feel a little thrill at the way he looks at me.

“Alright,” I say quietly.

Tentatively, I wrap my arms around his neck, and he instantly lifts me up, my legs going around his hips. It immediately makes me think of the other time my legs wrapped around him, only I was latched onto his front, grinding against him and desperate to be mindless, to not have to think, to be punished and pleasured as my world came crashing down around me.

Slade adjusts me on his back as he straightens up, his strong hands coming down to grip my thighs. The thick leggings do absolutely nothing to keep a barrier against his touch, because I can feel it searing into the skin of my legs, making me tingle.

“Are you sure this is okay?” I ask, since my hourglass figure means I’m no twig.

His fingers dig into my thighs, letting a dark chuckle rumble against my chest. “More than okay, and I think I proved that fact the other day, don’t you?”

I don’t need a mirror to know that my cheeks are flaring with a gilded blush.

He starts to walk, heading in the opposite direction as Judd, away from the house. His steps are steady, his touch strong, but I can’t help the nerves that are jumping around in my veins.

“Relax, Auren.”

It’s like my body was waiting for that command, because as soon as he says it, I’m able to release the vise grip around my nervousness. Slowly, I let my body ease, my breasts pressing against this muscular back, my cheek resting on his shoulder. I silently revel in it. This feeling is still very new.

I’ve never felt so safe as I do when he’s holding me. When my body is against his. It’s not safety with strings attached, it’s not comfort with conditions. He holds me like he wants nothing else in return, and it’s so foreign that I still find myself in awe at how this can be for me.

“Your thoughts are awfully loud back there,” Slade says.

I glance up at the thinning lines of blue along the ceiling. “I’ll try to keep it down.”

“On the contrary, I want you to voice them.”

“I was thinking...that this is still very new. That there’s so much we don’t know about each other.”

He doesn’t answer right away, instead letting his thoughts percolate in the air. “That’s true,” he finally replies. “I suppose the two of us have learned to be very good at keeping secrets.”

I let out a little laugh. “That’s an understatement.”

“But I think that’s what I’m looking forward to the most,” he confesses, his voice sounding sensually low. “Peeling you back, layer by layer. Learning you inside and out.” His hands squeeze my thighs, and even though he’s not talking about anything sexual, my body still responds like he is, my mind imagining him peeling off the layers of my clothes and laying me bare in a completely different way. “I’m looking forward to every edge of you that you’ll reveal to me.”

I swallow thickly, trying and failing to keep the heat from gathering low in my belly. “I look forward to that with you too.”

His head turns to the side so he can look at me over his shoulder. “Good.”

The thought of baring myself to him—in more ways than one—always sends my pulse racing. It’s invigorating and vulnerable, so scary and yet so thrilling.

I don’t know if I’ve been avoiding him or he’s been avoiding me since I woke up, or maybe it’s a combination of both, but all of that just feels so complicated compared to this quiet moment in the dark.

“Where are we going?” I ask him again.

“Such impatience.”

I roll my eyes. “Like you’d let me lead you somewhere without telling you where it was.”

“Oh, Goldfinch, I’d follow you to the end of the world and tip right off the edge, all because of a crook of your finger.”

My stomach does a flip. “Oh.”

“Oh, indeed.”

He continues down the cave and takes a sharp left. “Almost there.”

Then I see what looks like a dead end but is actually an enclave blocked by a short rock wall. As soon as Slade slips around it, there’s a...smell.

My nose wrinkles. “Did you just...”

“Did I just what?”

Great Divine. It’s strong. I have to suppress the urge to plug my nose.

I clear my throat. “I just can’t help but notice that it smells. Badly. All of a sudden.”

A startled laugh barks out of him. “That smell isn’t coming from me, I assure you. Though I’m a bit worried that you think I could produce something so...pungent.”

“I was worried too, believe me.” The smell is consuming the air, but then I realize that the air is also wet, and there’s a steady bubbling sound getting louder and louder.

“Here’s the culprit,” Slade tells me, just as he rounds another turn, where the small cave opens up to a room full of steam. The humidity instantly sticks to my skin and clothes, and the soft sound of bubbling draws my eye to the pool of water just ahead. “I chose this cave to build the Grotto because it was big enough to have a house and a training area, but this private hot spring was a definite perk.”

“Is this the only one?”

“In here, yes. But there are others. The villagers who live here have a couple past the pavilion, inside the mountain there. It’s much larger and has a couple smaller ones split away for more privacy.”

“Amazing,” I say, because while the pool of water is probably only just as long as Slade’s bed, everything about this enclave is cozy and intimate. I’ve gotten so used to the constant cold air that I practically melt into this steamy warmth.

As soon as Slade sets me down, I look around the softly glowing space. “It’s so pretty.” The veins of fluorescence running around the slightly domed walls and ceiling are reflected back in the water beneath, the blue clinging to the foggy air.

I walk closer, the rock beneath my boots slick with puddled moisture. The hot spring sits in the middle of the room, and there’s a short area of raised rock that makes a shelf around it. The water itself is in constant movement from the gentle bubbles rising at the center. Kneeling down, I dip a finger into it and practically purr at the heat.

At a noise behind me, I turn around, only to find Slade shrugging off his coat and laying it onto a rock that’s jutting up from the ground.

When I see him whip off his shirt next, my eyes go wide. His body never fails to make me surge with heat. All those perfectly defined muscles, those roots weaving beneath his pale skin and curving around his pecs, spreading up his collarbone and down his shoulders. He’s so incredibly, beautifully fae.

“I figured you deserved a reward for training so hard,” he says, and I have to force my eyes back up to his smirking face.

I blink over at the hot spring, excitement bubbling up as much as the water’s heat. “We’re getting in?”

His grin flashes through the dim room. “I wouldn’t bring you all the way in here just to tease you. I know your back isn’t bandaged anymore, but Hojat said it’s not quite ready for a soak. But I figured we could soak our feet and legs together.”

“Great Divine, yes.” I think I might weep in joy on behalf of my poor, aching feet. “But…why’d you take off your shirt if we’re soaking our feet?”

“Don’t worry, you won’t submerge in the water—not until your back is all the way healed. But even so, we’ll need to strip, otherwise our clothes will get soaked near the hot spring. The steam is very thick.”

My eyes cast over to the bubbling pool, and he’s right, I can see with my own eyes how dense the steam is, but that doesn’t make me stop from panicking.

“I promise, the steam will feel nice.”

My heart knocks against the rails of my ribs. “I’m sore,” I blurt out.

Slade’s lip twitches. “I will be the perfect gentleman,” he assures me. “I only want to take care of you, to help you relax. Nothing more. And I’ve seen you bare before. There isn’t an inch of you I haven’t touched.”

Heat that has nothing to do with the hot springs comes bubbling up into my core. But it’s tempered with an edge of distress.

I don’t have bandages wrapped around me anymore. If I take off my shirt, he’ll see. He’ll see the ugly, leftover bruising. The crinkled, frayed stubs. He’ll see the ruin of my back.

And I still can’t bear that.

I don’t know when he moves behind me, but I startle at his soft voice. “Let me.”

His fingers skim against the back of my neck, right where the first button is, and I can feel the heat of his breath press against my skin far more than the steam in the air.

I freeze, my fingers gripping the front of my collar while my emotions go jumbled and confused, like puzzle pieces all shaken up.

“No,” I tell him, taking a step away. “I’m just going to leave this on.”

He moves back into my line of vision, but I don’t meet his eyes. The silence between us is like silt, the murky waters convoluted and confusing. But even in that silence, I know he hears. I know that he’s listening to what I’m not saying.

Don’t look. I don’t want you to see.

“Alright,” Slade finally says, his tone quiet.

I hear him walk toward the hot spring, and then a rustle of clothing tells me the moment he drops his pants. I feel my already heated cheeks flood with a blush.

My eyes flick up to see his completely nude body, his back facing me. I’ve never gotten to appreciate him from this angle before. I watch as he walks his way into the hot spring, the steam almost completely enveloping him. Yet it doesn’t obscure the way his ass flexes before he steps in deeper, until his lower half disappears beneath the surface of the water.

He sticks to the perimeter, avoiding the bubbling center, and then the rest of him disappears for a second too as he dunks his whole body under. When he comes back up, he pushes his dripping black hair away from his face, and the movement is so incredibly sexy that, despite the moisture in the air, my mouth goes dry. Slade is all hard, sculpted muscles, an endless plane of strength and masculine beauty.

Right now, I feel lacking. Sweaty from training, hair tangled, my skin probably in heated blotches, and my back…

More than anyone else, Slade adored my ribbons. And now they’re gone, and I just feel so…incomplete. Inadequate. I don’t know if I’ll ever not feel that.

“Coming in?” he asks.

With a nod, I kick off my boots and then peel off my leggings and socks, leaving them on a protruding stone. The shirt hits my thighs, and I walk closer, wrapped up in the steam, eyeing the water and his pinkening skin. “How are you not boiling alive?”

“The bubbles are from the hot water constantly coming up to circulate, but the flow is quite slow. It’s not too hot, I promise.”

There must be some kind of rock shelf inside the spring, because he sits down, facing me. He spreads his arms out on either side of him, hands resting on the rim of the cave’s floor. It puts his muscles on full display, his lines of power only just barely visible as they bunch around his shoulders.

“Come here,” he tells me, patting the rock beneath his hand. “You can sit and let your legs soak.”

Nodding, my bare feet pad over the slick, warmed rock floor. I stop just beside him and then carefully sit down on the lip of the hot spring. The steam envelops us both so thoroughly that it makes the rest of the cave seem almost non-existent, basking us in a milky blue glow.

I dip one foot into the water and then instantly groan at the delicious heat. Without wasting any more time, I slip my other foot in, letting my legs rest all the way down until the hot water laps at my calves.

“Great Divine,” I breathe out, relishing in the heat. “This feels nice.”

“I thought you might like it.”

I brace my hands behind me. “This makes up for the stench.”

He chuckles, and the noise makes my toes curl in the water. I slowly start to relax, fingers gently tugging at the hem of my shirt that rests on my upper thighs. Already, the material is damp, the fabric sticking to my breasts as the thick steam clutches against my skin, leaving me feeling dewy and warm all over.

“You sure the steam is okay?” I ask nervously, my back itching ever so slightly.

Slade nods. “Hojat said it was fine for a bit.”

Letting out a sigh, I enjoy the feel of the bubbling water beneath my sore feet, my eyes skimming over the visible parts of him. “Your lines—they’re usually spread to more of your body.”

He looks down at his chest as if to see what I’m seeing. “They’re not as pronounced after I expel magic.”

With his arms free and bare, the lines of his power are like black blades of grass shifting slightly in a breeze.

“Do you have to do that a lot?”

“I’ve learned how to hold it in for long periods of time.”

I frown. “That must be painful.”

“It can be,” he admits. “But I learned control a long time ago, and part of that has to do with knowing when to hold back…and when to let go.”

His eyes bore into me, and I know he’s trying to steer me into this conversation, to turn it around to me. But I don’t want to go there.

Not yet.

“Slade.”

“We need to talk about it,” he says firmly.

Memories of that night in Ranhold start to surround me just as much as the cloying steam. The amount of power I felt was indescribable. It seemed to feed something dark in me, seemed to multiply and grow. Having your magic suddenly feel so uncontrollable and foreign can be terrifying in itself, but it wasn’t just the magic. It was me. I lost control.

Just like I did in Carnith.

I swore to myself I’d keep my magic locked up tight, but I failed all over again. It feels like I’m fifteen years old, with brand new magic dripping from shaky fingers and no clue how to manage it.

“Is that what this is?” I ask, my voice gone sharp, eyes cutting into him. “You only brought me in here to force me to talk?”

Slade’s shoulders go tense, and he slowly lowers his arms into the water. “I would never force you to do anything,” he says, his voice darkened, like the crisped edges of a leaf, curling and blackening with the burn. “And you should know that.”

“Well, that’s not strictly true, is it?” I say, the words flying from my mouth before I can stop myself. “I don’t remember asking you to rot me.”

Something stretched and harsh radiates between us. My pulse raps against my temples. I have to suppress the urge to place a hand over my chest, as if I’m afraid the rot is going to stir to life because I brought it up.

Slade leans forward slightly, the steam curling between us like sinuous specters, and I wish I hadn’t said it. I wish I could pull the words right back into my mouth and swallow them down. Because I don’t blame him. I don’t resent him. If anything, I’m thankful, so I don’t even know why I said it other than the fact that I’m lashing out so I don’t have to face my own whip.

“You’re right,” he says, and despite the heat of the room, a chill lopes down my back. “But I will tell you this now, Goldfinch, and you will hear it. When it comes to your life, when it comes to the option between you living and dying, I will always step in. I will always choose to do whatever needs to be done to ensure that you fuckinglive.”

My inhale gets snagged against the rungs of my ribs, banging against it with hollow uselessness.

“I hate that I had to use my power against you, but don’t mistake my guilt for regret, because you will be sorely mistaken. I would do it again in a fucking heartbeat.”

His gaze is too intense, his words too hard-hitting. My eyes lower, my own guilt bubbling up as much as the heated water.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that,” I confess. “I’m not mad at you for that at all. If I were in your position, I’d have done the same thing. I’m grateful you were able to stop me. I wouldn’t be here right now if you hadn’t intervened. I will always be in your debt.”

He doesn’t say anything at first, and I worry that I’ve really upset him, but then I suddenly feel his hand lift my leg. I startle, because I didn’t hear or see him move, but now he’s right in front of me, his deft, strong fingers massaging into the sore arch of my foot as he stands in the water in front of me.

Our eyes lock as he presses into every sore inch, thumbs circling, hands moving my foot up and down. “You are not indebted to anyone, Goldfinch, least of all me,” he murmurs as he continues to release the tension and the pain, like the real magic is in his touch. “You are priceless. You are worth more than gold. And the world owes you so much more than what you’ve been given.”

I think a tear might drip onto my lashes, but I pretend it’s the plugged-up steam.

Slade and I stay quiet after that. He massages both of my feet until I can’t suppress the groans, until my arches no longer feel stretched and sore. Then his masterful hands move up to my calves, his firm touch pressing into the knots, rubbing every tender part. Because that’s what he always does for me. He finds every aching part and helps me work through it.

Even when I don’t want to.