Chapter 51

He slams the door shut behind us, water slopping beneath every hurried step as he pulls me through the cabin before dropping my hand. Bolts of lightning rattle the windowpane, illuminating glimpses of him setting the stockpot on the dining table; ripping open a cupboard; rooting around inside it while the chill bites all the way to my bones.

The storm rolled over and sponged up all the heat so fast I feel like I’ve jumped from Puddles straight into an icebox.

“Can you make another salve?” Rhordyn asks, rummaging through a chest on the floor, pulling out a candle and some gauze.

“S-sure,” I stammer, teeth chattering as I drag my gaze along the bundles of herbs hanging from the ceiling.

He lights the candle and places it on the bench, along with the gauze, then proceeds to stack the stove with some twigs and husks from a basket beside it.

Gathering the herbs I need by the flashing lights from the storm and the candle’s flickering flame, I pray I didn’t accidentally grab something caustic. I saw some poison ivy up here somewhere—no idea why anyone would want to preserve that.

The last thing I need is a rash.

While Rhordyn tends to the fire, I shuck leaves off the sprigs and put them in a blue stone bowl with a splash of water, then grind it into a slurry with the pestle I found earlier. I just finish mashing it up when Rhordyn steps up behind me like a shifting mountain, snatching my breath as he shakes out a towel and drapes it around my shoulders.

I steal a backward glance at him as another bolt of lightning strikes, the cataclysmic look in his bold black eyes impaling me. So wild and unbalanced.

He’s never looked so haunted—so untethered—like he’s only a few heartbeats away from combusting.

He’s a beautiful, monstrous enigma, and I would do anything to peek inside his head. To understand the darkness that toils behind his eyes.

“Thank you,” I whisper, heart thumping hard and fast.

He pulls out a stool and sits, tugging me between his thighs with such commanding, unflinching poise that my lungs compact, the room so packed full of him it feels pointless to avoid his gaze.

He’s everywhere.

All around me, pouring into my lungs in bursts of deep, frosty musk. He’s the single element my heart is pumping through my veins in rapid beats.

Lifting the bowl of salve, he digs his fingers through the muck, tips my head to the side, and begins painting the wounds on my neck in a calm, composed manner—a contrast to the energy rolling off him. Goosebumps erupt down my neck, across my shoulder, his mighty presence such a pressure upon my chest that my knees threaten to give way.

In an attempt to anchor myself, I look out the window.

He binds the gauze around my throat, ties it off, then lifts my hand, inspecting the re-agitated wounds.

Another bolt of lightning, the resulting boom so loud the windowpane almost shudders free of its confines. A shudder I feel all the way to my core. My gaze shifts to Rhordyn’s tattoos, and I notice the luminous pulse rippling through them is …

Erratic.

Frowning, I raise my other hand while he paints my palm in salve, dragging the tips of my fingers across the pretty words like I’m writing them myself.

His skin pebbles beneath my touch.

“They’re angry,” I whisper, looking out the window again, noticing their turbulent dance is in sync with the feral beat of the storm outside.

“Yes.”

Is the storm affecting him so greatly? Stirring him up and setting him on edge?

I continue tracing the script up the side of his neck, the uppermost one ending just below his carotid. I drag my finger back down again, following the hint of a line that weaves around his nipple.

“I wouldn’t do that, Milaje.”

His voice is a hoarse rumble.

“Why not?” I whisper, trailing a line down his sternum, imagining my finger is the tip of a paintbrush. That he’s a rock I’m swirling secrets upon.

“Because there’s a very big part of me that wants to see for himself that you’re okay,” he bites out, like he’s speaking through gritted teeth. “And if you keep touching me like that, I’m going to lose control.”

I look up.

He’s watching me like a hunter, his eyes cast in that deeper darkness that’s as electrifying and unsettling as it is thrilling.

A big part of me wants to keep going. To find out what he means. The curious, stupid part that’s utterly selfish.

He can’t be mine.

I look at the scar on his chest—nesting amidst the savage remains of his shredded tattoos—then pull my hand away and tuck it behind my back.

Not.

Mine.

A deep rumble echoes from his chest, and he drops his gaze to my injured hand, using another roll of gauze to rebind it before he takes me by the upper arms, gently shifts me to the side, and stands.

“There’s a woodshed out back,” he says, removing a cloak from a wall hook. “I’ll return soon, hopefully with some more dry wood.”

He opens the door and goes, shutting it behind himself, and I pull my first full breath since we dashed in here. It shudders free as I’m reminded of all the reasons why I need to control myself. All the reasons I can’t drop my walls and give in to this magnetism squeezing the space between us like a force of nature.

One blares louder than the rest …

Apparently a talon through the heart is the only thing capable of killing Rhordyn, but I don’t see him coming back from being sawed into scalding bits.

I loved my mother. I know I did.

My darkness still ripped her apart.

I pull Rhordyn’s shirt up over my head and slop it on the ground, squeezing my hands into fists, releasing them. “Not mine,” I snarl, wiggling out of my pants before I wrap the towel around myself and secure it between my breasts.

Sighing, I ring the clothes out in the sink and drape them over a rack beside the stove.

The storm doesn’t ease. If anything, it grows more restless every minute Rhordyn’s gone—drumming against the roof, lashing the windowpanes, making the walls quake as though it’s howling at me from all angles.

I lean over the sink and squeeze the excess water from my hair, glancing out the window as a flash of lightning ignites a huge, black shadow prowling around the treeline.

My heart leaps into my throat, pulse scattering. I stumble backward, falling onto my ass with a heavy thump.

I press my palm upon my chest and force myself to breathe—in through my nose, out through my mouth—drawing deep, soothing gulps of leather and ice.

Breathe …

“Just my imagination,” I mumble, scrubbing my face with my hands.

Shaking off the full-body shiver that has nothing to do with the cold, I stand, edging toward the window again, peeking out. Another flash of lightning, and all I see are trees reaching for bulbous clouds.

Perhaps I’m going crazy.

I turn my attention to the stockpot sitting on the table where Rhordyn set it down. I lift the lid and draw on the hearty, botanical scent, my stomach gurgling loud enough to wake a sleeping giant.

Not surprising since this will be my first meal in … a while.

I rummage through a cupboard and find two bowls, spoons, cups, and a ladle—rinsing them, placing them on the table along with a jug of water and a small glass bunny I find tucked at the back. It’s perched on its thumping feet, nibbling on a clover leaf, a hole drilled from its head all the way through the bottom, holding the remains of a spent candle I twist free.

Setting the bunny on the table, I reach for a clutch of purple blooms I’ve never seen before, hissing a breath when thistle thorns stab into my fingers. I frown at the flowers crowning the prickly stems as I suck off the small dots of red, then huff out a laugh.

Actually, it’s quite fitting.

Dragging the stool over, I climb up, unravel the tie keeping the bouquet tethered to the ceiling, then leap down and—avoiding the stems—pop the dried blooms in the bunny vase, a smile gracing my lips.

Cute.

I place a bowl, spoon, and a cup on one side of the table, then pause, staring at the other bowl, a swirl of doubt clouding my enthusiasm. There’s always been a place setting for him … but he never eats.

Why would this time be any different?

I pick up the bowl, then hesitate, torn. My grumbling stomach decides for me, and I shrug. He must be hungry, too, and if not …

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I arrange his setting opposite mine, place the ladle next to the stockpot, then step back, smiling at the little touch of brightness brought to this tiny room so full of restless energy and unsaid words. I draw a deep breath, blow it out, and drop into the seat facing the door, resting my chin on my clasped hands to wait.

And wait.

My stomach rumbles, the storm lashing against the walls so hard my imagination paints all sorts of monsters right outside the door. On the other side of the window, looking in.

What if he’s just a figment of my imagination, and I’m sitting here waiting to have dinner with a ghost that’s not coming back?

My chest tightens, gaze spearing to the note on the bedside barrel, sipping his beautifully scrawled words like I used to sip my caspun.

Are you?

Am I going crazy?

I squeeze my eyes shut, pop them open.

Do it again.

Again.

I don’t wake in a gold-brushed room swathed in white sheets, shackled in a cupla with unfulfilled promises lodged in my chest like splinters. I’m still here—still breathing his scent.

Still convinced this is too good to be true.

The door shoves open, and my breath hitches as Rhordyn pours into the room like a storm cloud, stuffing into the too-small space, dwarfing everything, snatching all the air and holding it hostage.

But I don’t need it. Not now.

I’d choose the vision of him—here and alive—over the breath in my lungs from now until the end of time.

The tightness eases from my chest, drawing my attention to a crack in my untended relief dome. To a single vine curling up in waving twists, stretching toward my heart like it’s reaching for the sun.

I stuff it back down the hole and bog up the gap.

Rhordyn kicks the door shut, his arms laden with a pile of what I suppose is wood wrapped in the wet cloak like a big, knobbly parcel. Water dripping from his hair, clothes sodden, he shakes off his boots and makes his way into the room.

He looks at me, expression unreadable as his eyes dip, then lift again before drifting to the dinner table, his gaze scouring the settings. My heart beats me up from the inside as the entire world seems to still.

Even the storm seems to pause.

Slowly, he makes his way across the room, and there’s something in the way he moves that I can’t quite put my finger on, not as smooth and graceful as he usually is—like each step is a battle won. Stealing another glimpse at me, he settles the wood on the ground beside the stove.

Nausea riles through me, threatening to stem my appetite entirely.

He hates it.

He’s thinking of a way to let me down gently—like telling me he actually hates stew. That he only made so much because I looked really hungry.

Seems like a Rhordyn thing to do.

Maybe he’s a ghost, and he can’t even eat …

Maybe I’m all alone in this room.

He crouches before the stove, opens the hatch, and feeds the flames with several pieces of wood, the firelight caressing his beautifully sculpted face. Leaving the stove’s hatch open, he stands, looking down on me.

My heart stills at the sight—his towering body framed by the roaring fire at his back.

I want nothing more than to sit with him. To enjoy the warmth and the sound of rain on the roof and the carefully prepared stew.

But what if he says no?

Get it together, Orlaith. Been there, done that.

Lived to tell the tale.

I scrape together every sapling of courage I can find in my overgrown insides, draw a deep breath, and ask, “Will you share a meal with me?”

“Always,” he rumbles, the word almost knocking me off my seat. “If you’re happy to serve me?”

Serve him?

All I’ve had to do this entire time to convince him to share a meal with me is … serve his food?

Heat bursts in my belly, and I almost laugh, floundering through a long silence while I wrestle my delirium into some semblance of an answer, lathering more layers of light upon my trembling dome. “I’d love to. Do you want to get out of your wet clothes first?”

He swallows and nods, then moves through the room, grabs another towel off a wall shelf, and gets to work undoing his pants, easing them down—

Feeling something cold brush against the side of my face, I look at the window, and our gazes collide.

He’s watching me through the reflection.

Watching me watch him.

Undress.

I suck a breath and look away, cheeks burning as I focus on the thistles and their sharp little spikes.

His footsteps pound the floorboards, making the hairs on the back of my neck lift as he brushes past so close I’m certain no more than a hair’s breadth separates us. He settles into the seat I set for him, a blue towel tied around his middle.

I force my gaze on the thistles again.

He’s.

Not.

Mine.

Raising the lid on the stockpot, I release a waft of steam, pouring the room full of the rich, hearty fragrance.

“Interesting choice of vase,” he murmurs, and I glance at the bunny as I reach for his bowl.

“It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. And so realistic! Whoever crafted it is very talented.”

He makes a choking sound that has me pausing with the ladle half dug into the stew.

“You okay?”

He nods, banging his fist against his chest real hard. “I’m fine. Please continue.”

“Don’t choke to death before we get to share our first meal.”

“Been there, done that.” He flashes me the faintest smile. Warm.

Playful.

“Lived to tell the tale.”

My cheeks heat, and I lower my lashes.

I ladle some stew into his bowl, feeling his gaze trace the motion. “Is that enough?”

He shakes his head.

I lift a brow. “Hungry?”

“Always.”

The word is growled with such a rich, rumbling cadence, all the blood in my body rushes between my legs, making that part of me throb so deeply it’s almost too uncomfortable to sit still. Remembering what Rhordyn said about being able to smell my desire, I squeeze my thighs together and pray he’s too hungry to notice anything other than the smell of the stew.

I ladle him another scoop, almost filling the bowl to the brim. I’m about to serve myself when he reaches for the spoon. “May I?”

“Serve me?”

He nods.

Apparently all my dreams are coming true—like this is one big, pretty picture my imagination conjured up with some fancy paintbrushes.

Clearing my throat, I let him take the ladle and fill my bowl. He sets it before me—not too much, not too little. The exact amount I would have served myself.

Maybe I did serve it?

I internally slap myself.

Stop that, Orlaith.

“Thank you,” I whisper, and he nods, picking up his spoon and skimming it across the surface of his steaming meal. Bringing it to his lips, he blows, then catches my gaze and takes the bite into his mouth.

A shiver ignites me from the inside out, and I draw a shuddered breath, watching him chew with a tender enthusiasm I never believed him capable of. His throat works as he swallows.

Holds my gaze.

I feel that look in my peaked nipples. Low in my belly, and in the warm throb between my legs that’s threatening to undo me.

“Eat, Orlaith.”

Eat. Yes. That’s what I need to do. Focus on my meal. Not his deep, chesty sound of satisfaction, like this is the first meal he’s ever consumed.

I jerk into action, scooping my own mouthful past my lips, groaning before I’ve even pulled the spoon free. Meat threads apart on my tongue, the rich, robust gravy perfectly seasoned with sage and rosemary and thyme and even a little garlic. My taste buds tingle as I chew, releasing more complexities.

I shake my head, swallowing, savoring the feel of it sliding down into me, heating my belly. “This is the best stew I’ve ever tasted,” I say, the words half laughed, half choked. I’m not sure why I feel like crying over this single bite of stew, but here we are.

I look up to see him still watching me as he scoops another heap into his mouth, chewing.

Swallowing.

Such simple things, but it makes me feel like the wealthiest woman in the world. This might just be my favorite moment ever.

He finishes his bowl well before mine and politely asks for more, which I oblige. He pours me a glass of fresh, crisp water I guzzle back, wiping my mouth with the back of my arm.

He breaks my gaze to scrape his bowl clean, rumbling around the final meaty bite, and I realize I’m smiling again. Letting this moment fill me up in so many ways, like a thief stealing things I haven’t earned.

Things I can’t afford.

Looking inside, I find that pesky vine of relief has found another weak spot to split free of my dome, now twirling up my spine on a straight-shot to my heart. I rip it out at the roots, screw it up, and stuff it down the crack. I forge another dome and slam it atop the other, shoving it so flush against my sides I’m certain nothing else will escape.

Clearing my throat, I stack our empty bowls and stand, feeling Rhordyn’s focus brush between my bare shoulder blades as I carry them to the sink. I turn the faucet, waiting for the pipes to groan into action so I can scrub the dishes clean.

He steps up beside me, nudging me out of the way just when the water dribbles free. “I’ll clean up. You climb into bed.”

Releasing a slow sigh, I spin, scanning the room ignited with the warm glow from the stove.

A stark realization dawns …

“There’s only one bed.”

Two of us.

Rhordyn begins scrubbing the dishes. “Perfectly aware, Orlaith.”

Panic nests in my throat, threatening to stunt the breath flowing in and out of my lungs.

There’s not one part of me that doesn’t want to share a bed with this man … except my conscience.

“I’ll take the armchair,” I say, wandering toward it. “I’m smaller. And it’s right by the fire, so I’ll be nice and cozy.”

“I don’t plan on sleeping. You’ll take the bed.”

The words pack the room so full of mortar it leaves no space to wiggle.

Guess I’m taking the bed, then.

Chewing my lower lip, I look at the lumpy armchair that appears far too small for him …

I find it hard to believe he doesn’t intend on switching off—it’s been a big day. But I’m not about to insist we share the bed. Not when I don’t trust myself not to roll into his atmosphere while I’m sleeping. To do what I’ve been wanting to do since I saw him on the beach alive and well and whole.

Hug him.

Love him.

“Okay,” I murmur, padding over to the bed and climbing in, nestling under the covers before I remove my towel and drop it onto the floor. Rearranging my pillows, I find a comfortable spot with my stare speared at the ceiling.

Rhordyn finishes cleaning up, the rain still hammering the windowpanes, though the lightning seems to have calmed. He moves through the room to stoke the fire and fill its belly with a lump of fresh wood, then settles into the chair, springs squeaking beneath his weight.

I draw a deep breath, release it slowly, scared to close my eyes for fear of waking up and realizing it was all a dream. That I’m still in Parith, pretending my heart belongs to another man. Or that I did wake on that beach, but Rhordyn’s not here at all.

It’s just me, alone with my demons and a ghost that haunts my broken heart.

I tip my head to the side, seeing if I can pick apart the illusion …

He’s absolutely too big for the chair, filling it so completely, arms crossed over his chest as he stares out the window, perhaps watching the rain splash against the panes.

He looks real—better than real.

This feels better than real.

Perhaps that’s why I don’t trust it. Like we’re tucked in a bubble prone to pop.

My eyes snap to the ceiling again, and I rub my tightening chest, fingers brushing against my jewel. I lift it, peering into the fathomless blackness—the same inky tone as the gems on Baze’s ring.

I pinch the latch Gunthar pieced back into place, rubbing it between my fingers, remembering that horrible day when I woke beneath a blazing tree wearing tattered scraps, surrounded by lumps of fried flesh.

By people I had slain.

I remember the way Zane’s mother stared at me when she burst into the room, like she was looking into the eyes of a ghost. I remember the chill that seeped through my veins as she released an anguished sob.

“Someone recognized my … fake skin,” I whisper, focusing on a bundle of dried daisies hanging from the strings draped across the ceiling.

Little dead suns staring down at me.

The air tightens, like the room just packed full of something I can neither see nor comprehend.

“She took one look at my face and believed I was her daughter.”

A question swells in my chest, becoming so big and restless it feels like my seams are splitting.

I slide my leg free of the blankets, feeling his cool stare drag along the length of bare thigh all the way to my hip and back down again, settling on the birthmark I tap with the tip of my finger.

My stupid curiosity lengthens her brittle throat.

Begs to be bit.

“How did a mother who put her child in the ground years ago know I had this birthmark on my leg?”

Silence.

I dare a peek at his eyes, catching his stare as he studies me with a hardness that makes every muscle in my body brace for the psychological impact of his response. Is he about to lie to me? Tell me I wouldn’t understand? Perhaps he’s thinking up a riddle to weave for me so I’m left stuck to all the sticky strings, trying to untangle myself?

A big part of me hopes that’s exactly what he’ll do. Lie to me.

Push me further away.

He draws a deep breath and rubs his scruffy jaw, then points to my necklace. “That jewel is steeped in the blood of Kvath.”

My lungs compact.

God of Death …

My stunned mind cycles back to Te Bruk o’ Avalanste, and I hear Kai’s words as though he’s right here, speaking to me:

Kvath. God of Death. He can take on the many forms of the dead, and he made the Irilak with a piece of his shadow.

My mind churns, gutters, chokes. I open my mouth, close it, carve my stare across the dried bouquets. “I thought you believed the Gods don’t exist. You insinuated it right before you tossed that beautiful book in the flames like it was trash.”

“Some of them shouldn’t exist,” he states with cold, brutal precision.

I swallow, chewing on his words like they’re a piece of gristle.

Curiosity lifts another foot, edges her weight forward, sets it down a little closer.

“And how did you get his blood?”

“He gave it to me.”

I suck the smallest gasp, head whipping to the side. He’s staring at me with such intention I can’t hold his gaze for more than two seconds before I break, stabbing my own back at the ceiling again.

Is that why Shay’s drawn to me? The reason that pack of Irilak obeyed when I told them not to feast on the fallen sprites? Because I carry the blood of their Creator around my throat, dressed in the skin of a dead girl?

He gave it to me …

The heavy, tangled statement weighs me down like a lump of lead plonked on my chest.

A tiredness seeps through my bones, mind, and heart, as if someone just slipped beneath my skin and blew out all the candle flames keeping me awake.

I roll to the side, facing the wall, giving him my back. Chastising my curiosity in the same ugly beat.

I’ve been wearing a dead girl’s face all this time—Zane’s sister’s.

No wonder I was so drawn to him.

And I almost lost him, too. Just like I lost my brother.

I pull my knees close to my chest and wrap my arms around them tight.

I shouldn’t have asked.

“Is that all you have?” His words rumble through the room.

I hug myself tighter.

“Yes,” I say to the wall.

“Where have all your questions gone?”

I almost tell him they died with him. That I took a wrong turn, and now the road is dark and lonely with nothing but monsters decorating the shadows.

That I’m one of them.

I almost tell him I’m frightened to go to sleep, afraid he won’t be here when I wake …

But I don’t.

“I’m tired, Rhordyn.”

There’s silence for so long I start to wonder if he’s fallen asleep, but then he says, almost too soft for me to hear, “Goodnight, Orlaith.”