Page 59 of Shade of Ruin

Another. Another. And then I sit down in the water, letting the heat seep into me. I let it pull the stress from my body, something I didn’t imagine was possible. The past two months have been exhausting in a way that no other time of my life can compare to. Constant stress. Constant worries and pain and general uncomfortableness.

Now, things are going to be better. No more days of walking. No more worrying about whether we’ll make it to Draenyth. We’re here. We made it. I did an impossible thing. I crossed theworld and now I’m sitting in a bath in a castle. Hazel would be so proud of me.

And jealous. I can’t keep the smile off my face thinking about that. She’s going to want to hear all about this part of the story when I get home. All the beautiful things in the biggest city in the world.

The bath is massive. Large enough that four or five people could sit comfortably in it at the same time. I’m more than happy to be in it by myself, but the knowledge that Cole is in his own bathroom with only a door between us is at the forefront of my mind. Thin swirls of shadows roll off my fingers.

I take a deep breath and submerge my head, my tension and worries flowing away with the dirt and grime. I run my fingers through my long brown hair, and I can feel it loosening up. Muscles I didn’t even know were sore begin to relax.

I could get used to this. The scent of that smokey bergamot and citrus is everywhere. On me, in the water, and in the air. It smells expensive and smells fancy. It’s another reminder that I’m betrothed to a Fae prince. A prince. Me. A Wyrdling that no one ever wanted to be around. It really wasn’t that long ago that people gripped their iron nails when they saw me, hoping that their bit of iron would keep them safe from me.

How my world has changed in such a short time.

Just behind that chestnut door is an Immortal High Fae who has saved my life twice. He’s the singular reason I’m still alive and not tied to some slave merchant’s stage to be sold by the pound. This whole betrothal may all be so that I don’t die, and I may be a future tool for him to use to save the world. But the betrothal is real, and everything inside me longs to be near him. I can’t help but question what would happen if I stood up and walked into Cole’s bathing room. Would he invite me into the water? Would he invite me to join him in anything more than bathing?

I can’t help but imagine those muscular hands on my body, rubbing away the weariness as his lips press against my skin. As he does the things I’ve fantasized about. My mind flashes to our betrothal ceremony as it has so many times since then. The way it’d felt to share his body. The thought of pressing my body against his, of our minds and souls intermingling like that again.

When I come up for air, I wipe the water away from my face and let out the sigh that’s been building up inside me.

“What do you need?” Cole’s deep voice echoes in the bathroom, and I whirl around, my arms tightening against my chest.

He’s there, a towel wrapped around his waist, his eyes downcast and not trying to look at me. “I… I felt you call me. Do you need something?”

There’s not an ounce of frustration or annoyance in his voice. It’s just confusion and a lack of direction. I look at him. At those taut muscles that shift as he breathes, the scars that twist over his back and across his shoulders. The way his hips seem to point the way toward…

“I didn’t call you,” I say, trying to put shock into my voice. “I was just… thinking.”

He shrugs. “I heard you call me, Maeve. Not your voice. I heard yoursoul.”

Damn it. What am I supposed to say? I can’t lie to him and say he’s making it up. “I thought about you, but…”

How do I finish that thought? I can’t tell him I was thinking about him running his hands and lips over my body. The thought of him being in this bath with me is making the shadows creep out of my fingertips, and there’s nothing I can do to stop them. No, I certainly can’t say that.

“That’s fine. I’ll go back and dress in my room.” He says it, but he’s waiting for me to respond. To tell him yes.Or no.There’sonly one reason I’d want him to stay here, and that’s for him to join me. Without the towel.

“I think that would be for the best,” I say, but deep down, I know what Iwant.

He nods, not saying anything, and he turns to leave. I can’t look away from the sunburst scar across his shoulder. Bright red forever.

His hand goes to the door handle, and he pauses. Then I feel it. The need that rolls through me. Desperate need. Not for sex. Not for kisses or anything truly intimate. Just the feel of my skin against his.

That’s when I realize that it’s not my need any more than it was my terror on the night of our betrothal. “Why?” I whisper.

“Because… I…” He shakes his head, and then he’s gone, slipping through the door and into his own bathing room. I don’t understand. That desperate need had struck like lightning flashing through me, but it doesn’t leave immediately. The afterglow of that feeling makes me want to crawl out of the bath and go to him, to fling myself at him and touch him from head to toe so he doesn’t have to feel this way.

Instead of doing that, I turn back around in the bath and stare ahead. I’d felt so completely relaxed, like I’d found a moment of peace, but now, I just want to get clean so I can be done. There’s nothing relaxing about the bath now because, deep down, I feel like I should be sharing it with my betrothed. Even if we’re only connected like this to save my life.

Everything in me says that I should go to him, that I should crawl into the bath next to him and press my body against his. I don’t know why he felt like he needed my touch so badly, but there’s no denying it.

I don’t move, though. Vesta’s words roll through my head like thunder.Emotions are the storms of humanity. I need toembrace my Immortal side, not my humanity. I should let cold logic steer this ship, not my betrothal bond.

It still tears at me. Cole felt so desperate for my touch. Why shouldn’t I go to him? Because I’m not ready for what comes after that. He told me before our betrothal that I should still be wary of him. He said that I had to protect myself.

I try to regain some semblance of the willpower and strength I’ve had so far on this journey, but it’s difficult in the relaxing water. We may have made it to Draenyth, but the journey isn’t done, and Hazel isn’t healed. Soon, I’ll be able to relax, and maybe then I’ll invite Cole into a bath with me. Until then, I have to keep my eyes ahead and focus on the reason that I left home not that long ago.

Cold and calculating. I need to embrace the Fae blood inside me and ignore the emotions that race through me at the thought of that male. I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to manage that.

My traveling clothes feel strange on my clean body. My hair’s tied back, but it’s still dripping wet. When Cole walks into my room, he’s back to the stoic man that I’ve traveled with, not a glimmer of the vulnerability that he’d shown in the bath.

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