Page 100 of This Monster of Mine

Long moments later, he angled his head to study her with unflinching intensity. “You’re still bleeding.”

“I don’t have the magic to clot it.”

A breath and his hand circled her wrist around her armilla. Heat flared from his fingertips, and she realized he was pooling some of his magic in her.

Gritting her teeth, she pricked a finger and wiped it overbeshaz.The rush of power was familiar, as was the way her vision sharpened behind her closed eyelids, sinking internally, to survey the damage. Hovering her shaking hands above the oozing mess of burns circling her neck, she tried to rebuild the first layer of tissue. Unable to handle the flow of power, her fingers pressed hard into the burn, reopening it. She swallowed a screamand tried again, fighting tears, when Kadra’s hands gripped hers, steadying her fingers.

Gently leading them to each burn, he held her knuckles straight, allowing her to focus. Power slowly leaked into her skin, and she could have cried as she painstakingly rebuilt each layer of tissue, using her magic to push her body into repairing itself much faster than it could on its own. Long moments later, new skin stretched uncomfortably tight over the area.

Kadra watched the process in silence. He had to have questions, but he wasn’t the only one who could leave people in the dark.

“Thank you,” she muttered. “I haven’t been able to do that for … years.”

“Sarai.”

She refused to look at him. An easy task, despite her ear currently lying over his heart.

“I apologize.”

For a moment, she was too stunned to speak, then a weak laugh burst out. “The mighty Kadra is sorry.”

“When he’s wrong.”

Her eyes burned. “Can’t imagine that happens often.”

“No.” His voice was quiet.

“At least you didn’t roast my neck,” she said bitterly. “Or would you have sliced it?”

Kadra paused before heaving the sigh of a man who knew that his next words wouldn’t please their listener. “I have roasted many necks. But I wouldn’t have touched yours. Earlier.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as if to soften his words. “The knife was a threat.”

“So I humiliated myself for nothing.” The only person besides Cisuré who’d seen her scars, and it had been under duress.

“Sarai—”

“I should have realized that you wouldn’t. The optics of having your Petitor turn corpse and all that.” A sardonic laugh wedged in her throat. “I’m surprised you aren’t gloating.”

In response, Kadra slid a finger under her chin. She gave into the unspoken request and raised her head for his perusal. Cavernous eyes traveled her face, lingering on her scars. His jaw ticked, features settling into something quiet and bitter that looked oddly like regret.

“My hands are the worst of it.” She extended them, matching her palm to his larger one. “That’s why my writing looks the way it does.”

He went rigid at her touch. His gaze didn’t leave her as he took her hand and explored it clinically, measuring each misshapen finger, each crooked joint, the scars webbing across the backs of her palms, the evidence of the shattered mess of her digits.

“This was done to you?”

She nodded, unable to think of a lie and certain that he’d see through one. “I’d rather not speak of it.”

He acquiesced, tracing her skin with the callused hands of a swordsman. She braced herself for him to wince, to shudder as so many had. Surrounded as she was by him, she’d feel it.

He didn’t. Instead, he asked no further questions, offered no condolences, merely interlocked their fingers and pulled her closer to hold her more securely. A motion that placed her face barely inches from his. Her breath caught when he looked down.

“If anyone should be humiliated here, it’s me,” he admitted, tight lines bracketing his lips. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Speech failed her. At the apology. At the fact that he was holding her in a way that defied explanation.

Kadra frowned at her expression. “Are you still in pain?”

“I don’t know.” Her head was so jumbled that she could barely sort pain from everything else. “Are you still kicking me out?”

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