Page 67 of Jailer to the Death God
I’ve been naked in front of him before, when I flung myself into the bath in my heart-stricken grief. Not like this. Not in a warm, firelit space where the light plays across his beautiful face—human in aspect, his tan features tortured with a kind of anguished tenderness.
He stays on one knee for a moment, staring at my torso—the flawless flesh of my breasts and belly. I’m still much too thin, still stained with blood, but I’m whole. He devours the sight, as if he can’t quite believe I’m healed.
“How do you feel?” he asks, low.
“Wonderful.” I gaze at my upturned palms. The old scars from my nails are still there, but the most recent ones are gone, along with the scrapes from when I fell in the gardens. When I touch my cheekbone, it doesn’t hurt, and the skin is smooth. “I forgot how good it feels to be attended by a gifted healer. I assume you found one?”
Arawn nods, a shadow crossing his face. “The innkeeper’s son. They were hiding his gift, but I made them reveal it.”
My forehead puckers. “You were cruel to them?”
“I had to save you.”
“You mean you had to save yourself.” I scoff lightly, stepping away from him and moving toward the bath.
“No.” He’s on his feet, grabbing my arm, whirling me toward him. “No, Vale. I had to saveyou.”
My insides thrill wildly. He’s holding my arm so tightly it almost hurts, his brow furrowed, his eyes pained and stormy, almost angry. As if he hates what he just said, and wishes he could take it back.
“Well,” I say gently. “It’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
He gives a restless grunt of assent and releases me. I step into the round washtub, almost squealing with delight at the sensation of hot water. The tub is small—I have to sit with my knees tucked up—but it’s enough. Immediately I set to work cleansing my skin of the gore from my own wounds.
With every pass of the cloth over my body, my joy at being alive ebbs, and my sorrow rises. Two of my guards lie dead somewhere along the road.
“Did you bury them? My guards who died?”
“My only goal was to get you help as quickly as possible. Your remaining guards took care of everything else. I hope they buried your men, but if not, you can speak to the innkeeper tomorrow, and he can send someone to tend to the bodies.”
“Is Farley all right?”
“The healer took care of his face. He will have no scars.”
“And my surviving guards? They must be terrified—they must have questions about you—”
“Stop.” He advances, kneeling by the tub and gripping my wet shoulders. “Stop thinking about everyone else. Just for a little while. I slaughtered the rest of my hounds—there are more in Annwn, but they are weaker, less malevolent, unlikely to come into the mortal plane without my permission. All the ancient hounds I’ve had since humanity’s inception—they’re dead. Your guards may be afraid of monsters in the dark, but it is a groundless fear. I have given them orders for the night, which is all they need. You—” he grips my chin— “youwillbathe, and eat, and rest. Andnot think.”
“You can’t stop me from thinking,” I throw at him.
His eyes flash, his mouth quirks—and then he’s kissing me.
The taste of him is scintillating darkness, a swirl of stars and ink over my tongue. His large hand closes over the back of my neck—warm, powerful, gentle. He devours my mouth with the same euphoric zeal he showed in the carriage this morning; and I’m blind to anything else, wordless and thoughtless, transported with him into some liminal space beyond this room, this inn, this kingdom.
Arawn moves to break the kiss, but I rebel.
All of me revolts as a sudden, voracious need roars through my body. I throw my arms around his neck and make a sound of defiant protest into his mouth. He rumbles in response, and his other hand clamps to my breast, sliding over the wet flesh, passing under my arm and around to my back.
Without breaking the kiss he lurches to his feet, dragging me upright with him. I stumble out of the tub, dripping, soaking through his clothes. I dig my fingers into the fabric of his tunic, raking it up, and he parts from me for a half-second to tear it off over his head. We collide again, my bare skin sealed to his, our lips and tongues writhing, breath coming in quick, ardent bursts.
Questions and cautions begin to crowd into my mind, but I shove them far, far back into the dark recesses of my brain and slam a gate across them.
My hungry fingers cup the hard ridges of Arawn’s abs, glide up his sides, wander over his pectorals. His nipples tighten still more in response to my touch.
I drop one hand to his waistband and tug sharply down, a wordless demand for more of his skin.
While he’s shucking off the boots and pants, a couple of stray thoughts leak through that barred gate in my mind.
We said our interlude in the carriage would be the only one. Never again, nothing more between us.
