Page 94 of Until the Stars Fall

Connor

They were just buttons. It was just her back.

But with the way my whole body heated as I neared her, she might as well have been standing here in nothing but her shift asking me to help her undress. It didn’t help at all that she trembled under my touch, as if I were ripping the buttons off instead of fastening them. Of course my mind had to conjure up that image, and for a moment I lost myself in the idea…until I saw them.

Scars.

So many scars.

They lined her back at various angles, lengths, and stages of healing.

Gently, I brushed my fingers over them, my anger growing as I did.

“Who did this to you?” I asked, quickly losing the grip on my control.

She bristled, the muscles in her back tensing as she muttered, “It doesn’t matter.”

It didn’t matter? How could she think this didn’t matter?

Slowly, I turned her around to face me and growled, “It matters to me. Was it your family? Did they do this?”

Her eyes met mine. “I don’t need to tell you,” she said firmly.

I pressed my lips together, my chest tightening with fury, but I couldn’t afford to lose my temper again. Pulling in a long, slow breath, I counted back from ten in my head. In the calmest voice I could manage, I said, “Lieke, if they did this to you, their own kin, what could they do to someone else? To an enemy? To the fae?”

Her dark eyes flashed. “Are you accusing my family of something?”

Shaking my head, I raised my brow. “No, but what am I to think? You were in hiding for years and then return with poisoned knives and all these scars. Why did they send you back?”

“Because this is my home, Connor! They sent me back home!”

Her voice trembled slightly, and I caught a hint of sadness mixed with her anger, but I couldn’t let it go. I had failed to have this conversation with her too many times, so I had to at least try. “And the knives?”

“For my own protection!” she shouted at me. “And apparently, it was warranted.”

“That’s all?” I asked. Pushing her like this was a risk, especially right before this important dinner.

She rolled her eyes at me. “You got me, Wolfie. I was obviously sent here to assassinate the family who has provided for me and protected me my whole life—including your brother, who I loved.”

My teeth slammed together. “This isn’t a joke.”

Jabbing a finger into my sternum, she glowered. “Then don’t accuse me of such laughable nonsense.”

I spun away from her and stalked back to the front room, chiding myself for how poorly I’d handled that. Falling into the chair, I dropped my face into my hands and rubbed at my temples.

Between Matthias’s insistence that I was falling for this woman and her clear animosity toward me, it was growing harder to focus. I needed to calm down.

Lieke cleared her throat, and I peered up to find her standing in the doorway, perfectly mimicking the way I had stood there just moments before. “I’m sorry for snapping at you,” she said, pursing her lips. She sounded almost genuine.

I nodded and roughed my hand over my chin as I looked back down to the floor. “You know there are going to be questions about the scars, Sapphire,” I said quietly.

For a moment, she merely hummed, but finally she said, “The unfortunate consequences of having a fiancé who insists I know how to protect myself.”

“That could work,” I said, though I still had my doubts.

“Are you going to be okay, Wolfie?” she asked, almost sounding like she cared.

“Of course,” I lied.

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