Page 32 of The Blood of Gods and Monsters

“It’s just the aftereffects of having the brimstone removed, I think,” Maeryn starts.

“You think?” He glowers at her. “What do you mean, you think?”

Maeryn’s shoulders bunch and though I can’t see her expression, I can tell by the stance she takes—the slight widening of her feet as she plants them on the floor and the tension radiating down her spine a moment before her low, annoyed voice enters the air—that she’s not happy with him.

“Yes, Ruen, I think. Perhaps you should try it sometime,” Maeryn snaps. I repress a snort. “I’ve never known or met anyone that has lived with a sliver of brimstone in them for years much less the decade Kiera had it. There’s no telling what kind of effects she’s suffering from. This is all new. Brimstone damages us as you are well the fuck aware. She’s still—” Maeryn keeps going, her words shooting out one after the other like daggers sailing through the air, but I stop on her last statement. My attention shifts up a bit more from Maeryn’s shoulder to Ruen’s face and the scar that cuts through the side of his handsome features. The thin, raised line dissects his brow and then, thankfully, skips his eye, before continuing to travel over his cheek as it tapers off.

The memory of the Council room returns to me. Something Azai had said—he’d had to kill one of his children’s mothers and then punish the child. Ruen had been that child. Is that scar from his father? My lips twist even as the cold, dead thing inside my chest pumps blood through the rest of my body. It aches for him.

I had only had my father for a short time. The blink of an eye in a God’s—or Atlantean’s—lifetime, but I knew for each and every moment of that time together that he would die before he would ever scar me the way Ruen’s had done to him. Shutting my eyes against that thought, I recline against the pillows and sheets, unaware of just how tense I’d been.

“I’m tired,” I say, the words croaking out to halt Maeryn’s tirade.

“Of course you are,” Maeryn says, sounding as if she is just as tired as I am. “Get some sleep. We can speak again tomorrow. Your head should feel better now.”

I open my eyes and peer up at her. “It does,” I admit. “I don’t know what you did, but thank you.”

Her lips curve into a light smile and she nods. “You’re welcome.” With that, Maeryn sends the others in the room a seething glance and leaves. My lips twitch in amusement, but almost as quickly as my burst of energy came back, it leaves again and my eyelids slide down once more.

It isn’t until I feel a masculine hand on my cheek that my eyes startle open once more. Ruen’s expression is pinched tight as he releases my face and then turns away. That’s it. Just that single touch and then he’s gone. They all are and I’m left alone in the room with sparks of something vibrant and hot sliding through my body.

With a shaky hand, I reach up and touch the same place he had. The heat is long gone, or at least, it should be. Yet, something lingers there beneath the surface and no matter how many times I rub my fingertips over the section of flesh on my face, it doesn’t go away. I fear it’s embedded into my skin now and I have no idea what that means.

Chapter 14

Ruen

White lines mar the inside of my forearm. Only slightly paler than my skin, each slice was cut with a shaft of brimstone sharpened to a fine point. Each of them is so faint that most can’t even perceive them. Just in case, though, I almost always manage to cover them with my clothes. The ones on my back are different. Deeper, whiter, more noticeable.

I remember each and every one of them, though the reason for them has long been lost to me. Instead, I merely recall the way that the blood had welled up from beneath my flesh as it poured down my skin and smudged across the blade and my fingertips.

I drag a washcloth covered in soap over my arms and chest absently. It takes a concentrated effort to ignore those markings. There are dozens on each forearm, more than that if you count the scars I’d repeatedly cut open and made deeper to … well, I’m not entirely sure what I’d wanted to do when I started the process.

I grab handfuls of water and rinse away the suds before standing and getting out of the tub. Water sluices down my body, running between crevices and indentions made by the muscles I’ve packed on since I was that skinny, half-starved child when Azai tracked us down. The room is colder now that I’m no longer sitting in the waist-deep water. It had cooled significantly since I’d first gotten in but it was still warmer than the air is now. I ignore that and reach for a drying sheet, wrapping it around my waist and tucking the end into itself before I swipe a hand up my face and shove the dripping strands of my hair out of my eyes.

My fingers still over the one mark that was not made by my own hand. The slightly raised line that dissects my brow and skips my eye to taper off on my upper cheek is tight with age. I close my eyes and let my hand drop away. I itch to go back to my room and find the brimstone blade I keep hidden beneath the floorboards and use it on myself. It would distract me from the very sensual and dangerous woman now sleeping in my bed. It would … be useless, I ultimately decide with a shake of my head.

Opening up old wounds won’t do more than create problems. I’d stopped for a while after Theos had found the blade—forcing me to change my hiding spot for the damn thing. I’d intended to start back up just when I needed it, but then she’d come into our lives. Like a storm bent on wrecking freshly built cities, Kiera Nezerac had torn through our mundane reality and ripped large gaping holes in our foundation. No, perhaps, it would be more apt to say she’d merely unsettled things enough for our foundation to be ripped from its roots. Caedmon had done the actual ripping with what he’d revealed.

The Gods are not Gods at all but creatures from another world.

I can safely say I had never seen that coming.

With slow steps, I pad across the bathing chamber to the mirror against the far wall and to the waiting pile of clean and dry clothes on the stool next to it. I quickly finish drying my body, ripping the sheet away to use it against my skin with rough movements, ridding myself of the water droplets still clinging to me before sliding into fresh black trousers and doing up the row of buttons. Beyond the window, a low hum of thunder echoes closer. I pause on the final button and lift my gaze to the glass and the skies beyond. Another rumble sounds in the distance, and almost as soon as I take a step toward the window, the clouds part and rain begins to pour. Just a perfect fucking shit ending to the perfect fucking shit week.

The smattering of clicks and taps of the rain slapping the side of the tower fills the room and the lights in the sconces on the walls flicker as if they can sense the wind of the storm on the outside. For several long moments, I stand there, letting the last of the water on my skin dry in the too cold air as my eyes find my face in the window’s reflection. Down, down, down my eyes sink until they’re, once again, fixated on the scars smattering along my arms. I close my eyes briefly, shutting out their image before turning away from the window and moving to finish dressing.

I rip a long dark tunic over my head and yank it down my arms, covering the evidence of my pathetic weakness before leaving the bathing chamber. The main floor is empty. Quiet. Dark.

The others are either asleep or closed off in their rooms. As I reach the hearth, I pause and for the longest moment, I debate making a bed for myself on one of the lounges. A rustling sound draws my eyes towards the stairs again and I spy, with no small amount of disgust and unease, one of Kalix’s familiars slithering over the bottom step and moving its way up to the railing for easier grip as it makes its way up to his room.

Yeah, guess I’m not bedding down out here after all.

I head for my bedroom door and crack it open to peer inside. The room is dark. No candles are lit. I take that as a good sign and slip inside before letting the door snick shut behind me once more. It takes only a second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Almost as soon as I do, though, thunder rumbles in the distance and the whole space lights up with a flash as lightning cracks beyond the barrier of the Academy grounds—likely somewhere over the seaside.

A figure is sitting up in the bed, pale and smaller than I’ve ever noticed before. My breath catches in my throat.

“Sorry,” I say immediately. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

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