Page 59 of The Blood of Gods and Monsters

My motions are moderate. I don’t press down too hard, but meticulously clean the wound before I set the cloth to the side and steal his from him. He doesn’t fight me, much to my astonishment, but I don’t comment as I press the herbs into the opening of his skin. A hiss escapes from him a moment later and the forearm under my grip tenses as I assume pain flares through him.

“I don’t know why you’re acting like this,” I finally say. “Didn’t you want to feel the pain?”

He doesn’t answer and my gaze flickers up to meet his. Midnight eyes with pupils blown wide nearly encompassing the color of his irises are locked on me.

“Or is there another reason why you flayed yourself open like this?” I continue. My voice leaves behind the cold, clinical tone and delves back into anger.

Of all the Darkhavens, I didn’t expect this of him. Then again, Ruen is the Darkhaven I know the least about. Perhaps, had I been paying closer attention, I would’ve noticed that he rarely undressed in front of others. That I’d never seen him without a shirt—not even in sparring practice when so many other men had stripped to just their trousers.

“It’s not always about pain,” he murmurs.

“No?” I continue my ministrations with his forearm, finishing smearing the herbs over the wound before moving onto the next scab. “Then what is it about?”

Ruen doesn’t answer. His expression doesn’t change, but I suspect he doesn’t have an answer—at least not one that he wants to admit to. The grinding of my jaw persists and I finish with one forearm, reaching for the next. Ruen lets me take it, lifting it as I spread more of the herbs that seem to sink into his flesh until merely a thin sheen of the gooey liquid is seen over his skin.

There are older lines here, so pale that they’re difficult to see. My fingers pause over an older line, at the end of his wrist, right over the twin veins that meet. This line is different from the rest. It’s deeper, cut vertically along where the blood thrums a consistent pulse. It’s older, but it tells a story. This cut had meant to kill, not harm.

I release Ruen’s forearm and drop the cloth into the bowl on his nightstand. Finding the wrappings discarded behind it all, I lift his arms once more and start the process of circling his forearms and dressing the wounds to keep them from getting infected. Ruen doesn't speak when I finish the first and move to the second. In fact, he remains completely still and quiet as I perform the task.

My gaze lifts to meet his, and I see nothing of the man and everything of a barely restrained beast reflected back at me. Ruen Darkhaven may not have the same abilities as his brother Kalix, but that doesn’t make him any less deadly.

I cinch the last of the dressing, completing the task, before taking a step back and fixing him with a look. “We need to talk.”

Chapter 25

Kiera

“What are you afraid of?”

A low growl leaves him at my question, rumbling in obvious warning. Ruen’s eyes glow a little brighter, the dark blue tint still left as a small ring around his pupils illuminating as it tinges the slightest bit in red. I disregard the implied threat of that change and stare back at him unflinching. Waiting.

“I am not afraid of anything.”

Silence echoes between us at Ruen’s hissed statement. I wait a bit to see if he’ll say more, but when he doesn’t, I’m not surprised.

A sigh slips free from my lips and Ruen narrows his eyes on me. Before he can open his mouth and say anything else that’ll leave me further annoyed, I speak. “That’s not the first lie you’ve told me, I’m sure,” I say slowly, meaningfully, as I lift my gaze to meet his. “But if we’re going to do this—you and me and your brothers—if the four of us are going to work together, then I intend to make sure it’s the last.”

The look Ruen gives me is full of unending cold rage. Something skitters beneath my skin, a match to that frost coated fury of his. I meet his eyes with resolute determination. If anyone can understand him, it’s the child that still dwells within me—the child of my past.

Phantoms enter the room. Each one a monstrous creature, unseen to most but not us. We know these ghosts quite well, Ruen and I. They’re part of the darkness that resides within our souls. Ruen’s body unfolds from itself, and it isn’t until he rises from the bed to his full height that I realize just how much smaller he seemed with his shoulders hunched and his head tilted down to his arms. Now I have to raise my chin to keep my gaze connected with his.

“Who are you to demand that of me?” Each word is accompanied by the throb of distant thunder, but I’m not so naive as to think it has anything to do with the perfect weather outside.

It might be cooler than the summer months, but there is no storm hovering in the near distance. The only storm is right here in this room. Between him and me.

There is something enticingly stimulating about two powerful beings facing off against one another and a strange sort of energy crackles through the room. The air is hot, wafting over my throat as it remains bared while my attention stays trapped within his eyes. Eyes that are flickering between midnight and crimson. The line of civility that he has walked since our first meeting is being erased.

“Who do you want me to be?” I finally ask in response. A question for a question.

Full masculine lips part, and I can’t tell if it’s shock or consideration. Ruen takes a step toward me, but the distance between us doesn’t shorten. It takes me a moment to realize it’s because my body moved on its own accord and forced me back in the same instant. As if my instincts are warning me to avoid this monstrous creature that’s appeared before us.

Ruen is a man in the thinnest sense right now. The body he resides in may appear like that of a Mortal God, but there is a creature of great power and strength that lies beyond his flesh, and every primordial sense I possess is cautioning me to be careful. Irritation flares to life within me. I don’t like to be ordered about—not even by my own senses. I am the one in control now in a way that I haven’t been in a very long time.

There is no brimstone in my neck. No blood contract sealing me to do someone else’s bidding. In this room, it is just Ruen and me. No one else should come between us when we are so close to uncovering something I sense must be unveiled.

Some wounds fester if you leave them wrapped for too long. I suspect Ruen Darkhaven has many that need to be excised from him and there’s no one else around to help him but me.

This time, when he takes a step towards me, I force my traitorous body to remain stone still. Being so close to him, nearly touching the wide warrior frame of him reminds me of all the ways I can’t compare. In the Underworld, I’d learned to use my smaller stature to my advantage. Focusing on speed and honing what advantages my God blood had brought me had saved my life more than once. In the end, though, I’d always been destined to work in the shadows, hiding my talents even when my Divine ancestry was discovered.

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