Page 202 of A Bond in Blood

Our breaths were the only sounds in the room when he finally pulled from me and laid at my side, pulling me against his chest.

I looked up, hoping to see anything through his shadows but I was blocked from him. Like all of those times before.

My hand rose to stroke his face and he gripped it, placing my palm on his right cheek. My gasp was quiet, but my startled jump shook the bed when I felt the wetness on his skin.

Tears.

“There was no other way,” he repeated, holding me tighter.

I remained quiet and unmoving until his arms went lax against me.

When his breaths had finally shifted to that deep sleeping sound I’d learned to recognize, I slipped from his grasp. The bed shifted with him turning to his side and I laid on my back, staring at the dark ceiling.

I had a choice. A choice I knew to be foolish. My eyes went to where I believed my cloak still hung on the back of the chair and I stood slowly.

My feet moved with apprehension with his darkness still wrapped around the space. I held my hands out, guiding the way until my toe hit the legs of the chair.

I reached down, grasping my cloak, pulling it toward me, reaching into the deep pockets.

My hand wrapped around it. The black candle and the piece of flint I’d grabbed before rushing out of my room in a mad dash. My fingers trembled as I lit the flint and quickly stuck it to the candle wick before Ulrich’s shadows could extinguish the flames.

To my shock the candle became bright. Red—just like those candles on the walls in hallway nine.

I turned to the bed, the light illuminating his figure before me and I froze.

What was I doing?

What was I starting?

I shuffled across the floor, my hands shaking until I was before him.

My gasp was quiet, almost a sob when I found his hair laid over his face, covering his features. It was startling, how he appeared as normal as a simple man in the bed. Sleeping off the high of our shared ecstasy.

I leaned forward, lifting his hair as softly as I could while tears fell from my eyes.

The emotions were overwhelming me as I stared down at him. Trying to map the lines of the face I had been forbidden to see for all this time. Trying to force my mind to remember every last detail.

Gods, he was beautiful.

His nose was sharp, his brow thick. Surprisingly, a scar ran down his face. From his right brow, right across his nose, to the end of his left cheek, disappearing into his beard. I admired it, realizing each and every one of his masks were fitting perfectlyto disguise the scar. It was old by the color, but deep enough it had marked his face for eternity.

I held back my desire to stroke his cheek, not wanting to wake him from his peace. Instead, I sat on the floor, admiring him. Imagining that face with his eyes open and his emerald green gaze bright and alive, staring back at me.

I wondered what his cheeks looked like with the lift of his smile. Whether or not the skin around his eyes wrinkled with the movement.

My mind wandered.

Could I love him?

Did I want to?

He was a monster. A madman—always unpredictable. Always seeming to snap at a moment’s notice. Gods, he’d locked me in that dark room. Allowed the torment to torture my mind. He’d laid his hands on me countless times. He’d embarrassed me before his court. He’d encouragedmeto commit murder.

My body was forever marked by his hand. Scars I would never be able to rid myself of. Reminders of his cruelty.

My heart ached while I considered the last eleven months. The hours of his brutality but also the hours of his softness. Even if it were subtle. Even if the creature that lurked within him usually took control.

I thought about those damned letters. For at least half of those long three years, he had been the one writing to me. It was halfway through the courtship when the lettering had changed. When the words were more elongated and appearing to come from a steady hand. And I, like a love-sick adolescent, chose to ignore the change. Not thinking twice on whether or not the words were being written by another’s hand.

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