Page 66 of SIN Bone Deep

“Nothing a good feed won’t fix,” Mal replied cheerfully. “Isn’t that right, Nyx?”

I opened my eyes. “I’m tired, Mal.”

“A nice bath will fix you right up,” he set me down on my feet in the bathroom. Aunt Fennel leaned over the bathtub and looked up from adding herbs to the water as he began to peel my filthy, bloody clothing from me. “If this is what you do to new clothes, you’re going to be expensive to keep, Nyx,” he remarked.

“Oh Nyx,” Fennel pressed her fingers to her mouth as the extent of my injuries were revealed. “What happened, sweet child?”

“It’s a long story,” I clung to my skirt, fighting off Mal’s efforts to remove it. “A bit of privacy, please,” I pleaded. I did not want Fennel to see that I was bare beneath, nor if there was blood on my thighs. “Please.”

“Out,” Fennel ordered Mal. “Out, out, young man!”

“You too, please,” I avoided looking at either of them. My body ached and I did not think I had the strength to stand for much longer. “Let me have the bathroom.”

“I need to heal you,” Mal protested.

“After. Please.”

“Alright,” he withdrew with Fennel. “But don’t take too long.”

Once the door closed behind them, I broke, releasing the tears that had been threatening, and turned off the bath water. I turned on the shower instead, and slid my skirt off, before standing under the water, letting the stream wash off Warren’s touch. When the water ran clear instead of brown or pink, I turned off the tap and only then got into the bath, lying back with a sigh.

“Your aunts are furious with me,” Mal appeared, sitting on the edge of the bath and dabbled his fingers into the water. “And are probably even more furious that I have disappeared on them mid-lecture, but I’m hardly going to hang around to be scolded by a pair of hags. Besides,” his smile was bright. “I needed to heal you. It will sting a little,” he reached out and placed his hand over mine. “These things never come without a price.”

Sting was an understatement. It was as if the blood within my veins boiled, and I cried out through gritted teeth, my hands clenching on the lip of the bath. It was a flash of a moment, however, and then over, and Mal smoothed my hair back from my face before taking my chin between finger and thumb, turning it one way and then the other, inspecting his handy work.

“Much better,” he said, and whilst the tone of his voice was light, there was something in the set of his face and the fire in his eyes that gave lie to that lightness. “Let’s tuck you into bed, shall we?” He reached for the towels.

There was no sign of injury in the mirror when I looked. The evidence of having been beaten and raped had vanished from my skin, but not from my mind, and my hands shook as I touched my cheek, not quite able to believe that my face was back to normal. My fingers confirmed what my eyes saw. There were no wounds.

“Thank you, Mal,” I whispered. “The pain is gone.”

“Good.” He carried me into the bedroom wrapped in the towels and fussed about putting me into a nightgown and then fluffing the pillows. Once I was tucked under the covers, he put his hand on my knee. “I will be right back,” he told me. “I have something I need to see too before it’s too late. Sleep, Nyx. I’ll be here when you wake.”

“Okay, Mal. Thank you,” I closed my eyes and felt when the room was empty again. In the distance, I could hear fire engines. Warren’s house was burning, I remembered. I pushed back the covers and pulled on my dressing gown as I went to my window, looking out into the garden.

I knew Ender was there even before he appeared as a reflection in the window glass. “Did you know?” I asked him quietly. “In the car, you said what you said about immortality and feeding. Did you know where I was headed and that I would almost be killed?”

“No,” he replied, his voice gentle. “Your future is no longer visible to me, Nyx. You are immortal. There is no death for you until you choose it.”

“He said it wasn’t him,” I whispered reaching out to touch his face on the glass. “The car was new and expensive, and his house was poor, shabby. I believe him. But if not him, then who was it? And why?”

“I do not know the answer to those questions,” he stepped closer, and I watched him lift a hand stroking down my hair, but I did not feel his touch which meant that he made the motion but did not connect it, perhaps sensing that I did not wish a man’s hands on me in that moment, not even his. “I did not see who drove the car. I saw only you. And now,” he was sad. “I do not see you at all.”

“I see you,” I mouthed the words at him.

His eyes met mine in the reflection. “Mal will be returning soon.”

“Did you do something to make them summon him away again?” I wondered.

“In a way, I did,” his smile was faint. “He went to get the soul of that man. He wanted to torture him for what he did to you.”

“Oh,” I was not surprised. I had seen the change in Mal when he had healed me. He had known in that moment that Warren had not just beaten me but also raped me. “Well, I guess that’s good. Warren deserves to suffer.”

“Hmm. That he does. Malachar will not find him,” Ender’s expression hardened. “For I have already claimed him as my own. Whilst Malachar is inventive in his tortures,” his lips quirked in a truly terrifying smile. “I have advantages that he does not.”

“The Lord of Death,” I turned to face him. “Mal said it, several times, and I did not realize what it meant. You’re not just some grim reaper, are you Ender?”

He reached out and cupped the locket that I wore around my neck, the memento mori. He opened it. Inside, I saw that the lock of dark blonde hair was gone and, in its place, rested a weaving of raven black. He closed the locket again. “He cannot sense my magic within your aunts’. He may have won this round, Elenyx, but I will not relinquish my claim. I am yours. I am patient, and I will wait until you are ready to be mine.”

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