Chapter 36

Silas

"I'll wash your hair," Roan said, nominating himself for that office before I could. "I have—"

"If you say ‘seven sisters,' I will cut you down where you stand," I snarled. His eyebrow snapped up, but so did his chin, the challenge clear. "Enough. You're good for stabbing big things." I flexed my fingers. "I do the work that requires finesse."

I grabbed the shampoo bottle from the bag Creed's mother had supplied us with and then walked around the bath, grateful for the opportunity to move, to do something. It helped ease this bloody ache that persisted in my sternum. If it had been coupled with a crushing feeling, or tingling in my arms, I might've gone to see Marian about it, but I knew what this ailment was.

Good old garden-variety guilt.

I'd felt it each time we'd been sent on a mission to retrieve a princess, but this time was so much worse.

Because it was her.

I'd gone along with the pack rites when it became clear that's what Creed needed. We'd still been just children really, youths with sharp weapons and tempers twice as sharp to go with them. But time had passed, and no woman turned my brother's head, so we'd contented ourselves dallying with women for one night only, for his wolf would not tolerate any kind of deeper connection. I'd assumed his mate would be another wolf shifter. The retreat to the packlands which that would have necessitated would have been a welcome reprieve from the hellhole of the Kheanian capital. Even the king wouldn't have been able to protest us retiring into pack life, for his treaty with the wolf shifters depended on that clause. Then when it had become clear Creed's mate was Jessalyn…

I wasn't prepared for it, and I didn't know how to handle the power she exerted over Creed, though it was more than that. She had some sort of power over me as well. I'd walked through parties and drawing rooms, slunk through rich women's boudoirs and dallied with some of the greatest beauties of the Kheanian court, but I couldn't remember a single one of their names, not once I met Jessalyn. I'd brought this up with Arik, and he'd acted like an arse, telling us all that this was the mission, that we couldn't afford to do anything else. I knew that had to change somewhere in my heart. It's why I kept finding myself drifting closer…

Though not close enough.

She'd slipped out the window of the inn where we'd acquired rooms because taking her chances with some local fucking bandits was preferable to sticking with us. And why not? At least they made a show of pretending to help her, whereas we… My trail of self-recrimination was cut off as Jessalyn tilted her head, as much as she could, to look back at me. I'd failed her before, but I wouldn't now.

"Head back," I said as I sank to my knees, putting the bottle of shampoo down beside me.

I guided her head down, catching flashes of the last time someone had manhandled her into position, then tried very hard not to think about the way she looked. I was the one on my knees now and for a very different reason. She closed her eyes as I let her hair trail through the water with only a small wince showing me how careful I needed to be. I would be, by the gods, I would be, I swore as I unscrewed the lid of the shampoo bottle and poured it into my hands. Then as gently as possible, I massaged the soap into her scalp when her head rose out of the water.

Focus on the little things, my father had told me, over and over. It was a philosophy that helped members of The Guild remain alert where others might let their guards down, and so it helped ensure a heist came off without a hitch. It was also a means to quieten a busy mind, to draw your attention back to the here-and-now, and away from the endless whirlpool of what-ifs. At this moment, however, that advice wasn't serving me well. When I traced the shape of her head with my fingers and worked the soap into her scalp in gentle swirls, all I could see, think, or feel was her. So, rather than be caught up in the sensual swirl of her scent, the softness of her skin, the long fall of her hair as I worked the soap into the ends, instead I was forced to deal with this.

You couldn't be a member of The Guild without being able to compartmentalise. Whether we walked the streets of the slums of Khean or the halls of the palace, we did so with intent: to lie, steal, manipulate, deceive, and otherwise do all the things our patrons paid us to do, nary a care in the world. It'd been my ability to put people in boxes and lock all the feelings they stirred away that had gotten me through the trip with Jessalyn.

Now the lid on her box wouldn't stay shut.

It had shuddered, rattled ominously, threatened to burst open, but I'd kept stuffing it down. Because Arik… The commander and I would be having a conversation soon, one that might be better had with our fists. But my priority was in front of me.

"How's that?" I asked gently. "Not hurting too much?"

"You've obviously never been constrained into a tight corset, with maids putting their feet into your back as they cinch you in to achieve a sixteen-inch waist," she replied, then waved a hand. "But, no, you are being uncharacteristically gentle."

"Rinse," I said, barely able to keep the triumph out of my voice.

She obediently lowered her hair back into the water and I let my hands shift through it, washing off all the soap.

"How's that?" I asked.

"I feel much more human." She frowned as she looked at her nails, while Roan and Creed were still spending an inordinate amount of time soaping up her feet. "I'll say one thing, I've no intention of trying to escape again. It's hell on my nails, for one."

"No one cares about your nails, lass," Creed said, and that was his mistake.

Her hands disappeared under the water as she sat upright in the bath. Their eyes started to drift down to take in her bared breasts, but as my hand slid to my knives, they both looked back up again.

"Men always say that." All the poison of before was back in her voice, roused again by my brother's careless comment. "They look at all the efforts women go to and mock them as silly things that occupy our tiny minds." Her fingers flicked free of the water as she inspected her nails anew. "Yet while men are determined to deny us access to more direct avenues of power, they are also susceptible to the very feminine wiles they mock."

She drew her feet toward her then pushed herself up and out of the water, and we all looked up from where we remained on our knees before her. She was Daedra, one of the twin goddesses of love, the one that represented the mad, frantic love that burns bright and consumes. We could no more look away than if the goddess herself had stepped into the room and commanded our attention.

"When men stop bowing at our feet every time we go to the trouble of displaying our virtues, then you'll find we become a lot less interested in the state of our nails."

Silence reigned and she blinked, as if she'd expected a very different response. "Is there a drying cloth in the room?"

"Here, let me," Creed said, picking up the one his mother had provided.

"No, I'm fine to do this myself."

And she did, patting dry the wrists marred by ropes, the bruises on her skin. We marked every one of them silently, just as she did. We regained our feet and stepped forward once her body was dry, hovering as she bent over, wincing at the movement, she wrapped her hair in the towel and twisted it into a turban that sat like a crown on her head.

"Now, the lady Marian spoke of some food."

She was good, so very good, at masking what she felt, but I knew all the signs of distress. There was just a tiny little quaver in her voice, one she quickly obliterated, but I heard it. It buzzed in my ear, long after she'd stepped out of the bath with Creed and Roan's assistance.

"I brought your bags up," Roan told her, one hand worrying at the fingers of the other until he pulled them free of each other. "Figured you might want your things. I can go get them for you if you like. They're just outside the door."

"Having fresh clothes to change into would be a very pleasant thing," she replied. "And thank you, Master Roan, for bringing my things to me."

That small moment of gratitude had all three of us becoming immediately alert because it set alight something far more fragile, yet stronger, than the chemical blast of roseblood. Hope. And it sprang eternal, flickering in the dark, even though it threatened to snuff it out. I made a silent promise to earn a similar acknowledgement for myself.