Page 203 of Anathema

The older woman waved us after her, swiping up a ceramic pitcher of water along the way, as she led us to a door at the back of the cottage. She opened it onto a small room, with a bed that wouldn’t leave much space between Zevander and me, and limped her way to a basin set out on a washstand.

“Try to get some rest,” she said, making her way back toward the door. “It’s around the witching hour those things wake from their slumber to feed.” On those parting words, she closed the door after her.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

MAEVYTH

My pulse hastened as I watched Zevander doff the jacket he’d worn to The Becoming Ceremony, leaving him in the black tunic and trousers.

I’d never slept beside a man in my life.

Keeping my eyes from him, I removed the cloak he’d loaned me, draping it over a wooden chair by the window. A firelamp flickered on the table beside the bed, casting shadows of our bodies against the wall, and as I looked up to Zevander’s, I watched him slide off his boots.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he said.

With a slight smile, I turned to face him, watching him unlace his trousers. Clearing my throat, I turned away, eyes wide with distress. “Don’t be silly. The floor is hard planks. I’m sure it’s entirely uncomfortable.”

“I’ve slept on worse.”

“When you were … prisoner to the Solassions?” I recalled the story Dolion had told me.

“Yes.” The clipped tone of his voice told me not to prod any further.

“Still, I insist on sharing. It would trouble me to have the whole bed to myself.” I unclasped the scorpion necklace and stared down at the long, elegant gown that would surely take up most of the room on the bed. As if reading my thoughts, he hooked his fingers beneath the hem of his tunic and yanked it over his head. My heart shot to my throat on seeing his brutally muscled form, each groove carved to perfection. A warrior’s body, his skin slashed by the scars of what I imagined were weapons that’d been used against him.

I begged myself to look away, but it was the other scars that prodded my gaze to linger. The ones that suggested a darker intention. Malicious scars that criss-crossed over each other, as if he’d been violently struck.

He handed off the tunic and turned around, perhaps offering me privacy while he unstrapped the weapons down his thigh and across his waist, unbuckling the holster that held them.

I glanced away only a moment, before my eyes were once again drawn to his body. Stretched from one shoulder to the other was an enormous, inked scorpion that failed to cover the multitude of scars carved into his back, as well. As he moved, his muscles flexed, and my fingers tingled with the urge to touch his skin.

Swallowing a gulp, I turned my back to him and tugged my arms from the wretched dress that held me trapped in the fabric. It fell to my mid-section, caught by the narrow bodice that cinched my waist. Stealing a moment to clean the black ooze that’d trickled out of Uncle Felix from my skin, I dipped one of the cloths into the basin and washed my shoulders and chest. When I dragged the rag over my arms, I noticed the cut from earlier, the one Zevander had palpated, had already healed, leaving only a small sealed mark on my skin. No bites from the spiders, thank goodness. Arms crossed over my breasts, a quick glance over my shoulder showed him quickly looking away, and in his profile, I watched his brows lower with a scowl.

It was then I remembered my own scars.

“Someone struck you,” he said, his jagged voice brimming with tension.

“When I was young. Soldiers from my village. Seemed my mouth got me in trouble again.”

He made a gruff sound of disapproval in his throat, but said nothing more, and I slipped into the oversized tunic that reached my knees.

Pushing the bodice over my hips, I let the dress fall beneath the cover of the tunic, the stark cold reminding me I wasn’t wearing undergarments after Uncle Felix had torn them away. I yanked the quilt from the bed and climbed onto the thin mattress, scooting myself as close to the wall as I could, to allow him room. Once settled under the covers, I faced the wall and dared to point out the obvious. “Someone struck you, as well.”

“Solassion soldiers.” He climbed onto the bed beside me, his massive presence, at close proximity, prickling every nerve across my skin.

When he turned off the firelamp, the light in the room died down to nothing more than the silvery bands of moonlight shining in through the window.

The room fell to quietness, with only the sound of my unsteady breaths.

“Seemed they didn’t like the mouth I had on me, as well,” he said, breaking the lingering silence between us.

In the darkness, I smiled. “Well, imagine that. We have something in common.”

“Perhaps. Though, I dare say, your tongue is sharper than mine.” His comment made me chuckle.

Another bout of silence between us.

“Am I making you nervous lying here?”

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