Page 88 of Acedia

I wanted to learn to fight for a purely selfish reason: to keep myself safe.

And maybe…

Maybe that was okay.

Maybe being selfish a little bit of the time didn’t make me unkind or difficult or less worthy of love.

Maybe Nana had been wrong about that—and a few other things too. It was a liberating, terrifying thought.

“Oh, Iris,” Damen murmured, squeezing me tightly as he climbed the stairs into the washroom. Instead of depositing mein the tub like I’d expected, he climbed in with me, so I was only touching his warm skin instead of the cold stone.

“Do I smell funny?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.Of all the times to get overwhelmed, Iris. How unsexy of you.

“Just like you have a lot going on in that head of yours,” Damen assured me, carefully unwrapping the towel and tossing it aside before turning on the water. Thankfully, it seemed like he was going to let it run for a bit so I could wash away the grossness rather than filling up the tub. “You’re also coated in my scent, which I am very fond of and sad to be washing away.”

I mustered up my limited courage. It was funny that it had been so easy to leave everything I knew behind and come here, and yet talking about my feelings seemed to be the scariest prospect I’d ever faced. “Well, you’ll just have to cover me in it again.”

Damen hummed, arranging me so I was leaning back against his chest and pressing his nose to my neck. “Would you like that? I am your boyfriend, after all.”

“Are you teasing me?” I asked suspiciously, absently running my hands over his firm thighs.

“Only a little. It’s been a long time since I was referred to as aboy.”

“Shade-friend, then?”

Damen laughed, the sound echoing in the cavernous washroom. “You can call me whatever you want, Iris. What matters to me is that you’re mine and I’m yours. I won’t share you.”

The words send a tremor ofsomethingdown my spine. “You don’t have to.”

He made a rumbling sound of approval before encouraging me to lie back, gently pushing my knees apart and running a wet washcloth between them.

“You don’t have to do that,” I mumbled, trying to decide whether or not to be embarrassed. I knew the mechanics of sex, but I didn’t know the norms around what happened afterward. And even if I did, the norms in the human realm might not apply here.

“I made a mess of you, it’s only right that I clean you up. Are you sore?”

“A little tender,” I admitted.

Damen gave me an apologetic squeeze. “I’ll send for some healing tea.” He hesitated for a moment. “You don’t have any regrets, do you?”

“None,” I replied firmly. “Do you?”

“Fuck no.”

I exhaled a little. “Can we do it again?”

He shook with laughter. “Let’s wait until you’re not hurting, hm? For tonight, we’re going to wash up, have tea, and rest. Sound good?”

“That sounds incredible.”

I didn’t have the courage to ask the question I wanted to ask. To find out if my rejection of Damen’s proposal meant that marriage—and mating—was off the table for us forever.

I’d said that I needed to find a sense of purpose, and in hindsight—so had he. It was increasingly clear that Damen now wasn’t the Damen who had proposed to me then.

He’d come into himself a lot more. He had a clearer sense of direction in life. He knew who he was and he wasn’t afraid to speak up when the occasion called for it.

I’d alwayslikedDamen. And since we’d started getting intimate, I’d definitely been attracted to him. But it felt like more than that now. When he wasn’t around, I missed him. When he was near, everything felt easier. Better.

And the idea of him moving on, finding someone else, proposing tothem…It was excruciating. It made my stomach lurch violently, like the time I’d had food poisoning.

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