Page 118 of This Monster of Mine

“Just …” Cato struggled to compose himself. “Please make sure he’s alright,” he finally muttered, before leaving the tower.

She warily eyed the door to the tablinum, pausing at the series of rough curses coming from within, each one filthier than the last. Flushing, she considered the merits of sleeping in the atrium when the door parted a little wider, and she caught sight of Kadra.

He was covered in blood.

Sarai’s breath stuttered as he shrugged off his tunic with another curse. Powerful muscles rippled at the motion, a few pale scars at his waist catching the firelight, but that wasn’t what held her attention.

A series of deep gashes stretched across both collarbones, looping around his shoulder to curve down his back. More nasty gouges spanned his chest, his upper abdominal muscles practically shredded. Sweat-dampened hair hung over his forehead as he grimly surveyed the extent of the damage. How had he spoken so evenly to Cato? She’d have been screaming. What inhavïdhad happened in the hours since they’d returned from Decimus’s home?

Tearing a strip from a roll of bandages, Kadra blotted the blood, then attempted to wrap another strip around his shoulder, grimacing when it slipped, digging into his wounds. Twisting around, he paused upon sighting her in the doorway.

Sarai’s eyes followed the trail of blood dripping down his body, to the puddled tunic leaking scarlet onto his spotless tiles. There was far too much blood for all of it to be his.

“How many did you kill?” Her question hung in the iron-scented air, a gauntlet.

“Twelve.” He knotted the bandage across one of his wounds, somehow managing to look immaculate despite the crimson rivulets charting a path down his tattered chest.

Any sane woman would run. She took a shaky step toward him.

“You should see a healer,” she said hoarsely.

“And inform Aelius and Tullus that I’m injured?” The gravelly undertone to his voice hinted he was in pain. “I may as well open my gates and undo the wards while I’m at it.”

“You took that risk with me.” She closed the rest of the distance between them, the potent scents of wine, sweat, and iron overpowering. “I could have let anyone into your home.”

“You despised me.” One side of his mouth rose. “But at the Robing, you risked yourself so a man who was vermin would receive a fair trial. That was enough.” Her breath hitched when he tucked a blood-covered knuckle under her chin. Kadra tilted his head down at her. “To hope you’d choose me.”

Her pulse doubled. A drop of blood trailed down his arm, dripping off a fingertip to splatter on the floor. Those gouges would scar him for life, his muscles would never repair. He had to know it.

She spoke quickly. “I could heal that.”

He halted his binding.

“Only if you want me to,” she muttered.

A gleam lit his eyes before he unwrapped one of the bandages. And waited. She dropped her illusion and ran a pricked finger overbeshaz. She held out her hands, and as he’d done when she’d tried to heal herself, he held her fingers still, pressing them to the golden skin of his stomach. Slowly, tentatively, she traced the jagged edges of one of the wounds and closed her eyes, searching deep. The cuts were a ragged mess, but there was nothing embedded in his skin. Scarlet coated her hands as power flowed from her fingertips, binding broken tissue, rebuilding torn arteries and muscle. She knew it burned, but he sat through it like stone.

Many moments later, she opened her eyes to his unblemished abdomen and Kadra regarded her for a moment before undoing the rest ofhis makeshift bandages. Without a word, she started on the worst of the wounds, the one that had all but shredded his chest.

Silence stretched between them, loaded with the questions he wasn’t asking and the rabid hunger unfurling through her with every stroke of her hands across his flesh.

She broke first. “Growing up, I wanted to be a healer.” She moved on to another gash, avoiding his eyes as he tried to catch hers. “Cisuré was gifted and wealthy enough for the Academiae. I wasn’t, so I learned as much healing as I could on my own.” She smiled bitterly. “I worked really hard.”

“You always do.”

She smiled sadly. “But Arsamea’s healer didn’t want an urchin as an apprentice. So, when I was fourteen, I left for Edessa to join Cisuré.”

“And challenge the entrance exams,” he said matter-of-factly.

She nodded. “I was here for a little over three days before I had to return.”

“Why?”

“You’ve seen the scars. Cisuré brought me back to Arsamea after I was healed. I was in no condition to do anything. All I knew was that I was missing all memory of what happened here and that I could never be a healer again. I can still hurt people. There’s no precision required to that, but handling serious damage is impossible on my own. As you can see”— she took a deep breath—“my hands are ruined.”

Black rage dawned in his eyes. “The person who hurt you was here?”

“Yes.”

---