Page 51 of The Blood that Binds Us

I pause and look over my shoulder, just as he motions with his chin for me to follow him. “This way.”

My feet fall in line beside his, my eyebrow spiking when I look at him with a silent question.

“There’s a collection of oils and herbs in the private bath. It’s only ever occupied when guests are visiting, but as we have no visitors today, it’s yours to use.”

“Oh,” I say, surprised at the Black Art’s display of… kindness? Not quite, but almost.

Sin escorts me to a small structure with vining green plants climbing up the sides and across the slanted roof. He pushes open the door and heads to a large cabinet along the wall, while I take in the small steaming pool in the center of the bathhouse. “Undress and get in. I need to read these labels…” he says, his hands fumbling over the small glass jars of assorted herbs, flowers, and oils, each with handwritten scrawl on the side detailing their medicinal properties.

With his attention on the collection of jars in front of him, I disrobe and step into the bathing chamber large enough to fit a few bodies. The warmth wrings some of the soreness from my arms instantly, and a deep sigh falls from my lips.

“Do Iwantto know what you’re moaning about back there; in quarters that are not your own I might add?”

“I wasnotmoaning!” I snap. “The water just feels nice, alright? Not all of us have honed our bodies into… well, that,” I say, glancing at where he stands, his bare abdomen visible on either side of the armored plate. “Us normal people actually feel pain, Blackheart.”

“I would think you’ve come to resent that nickname now that it’s been so adoringly marked on you.”

I flash a vulgar gesture to his back, and his shoulders rise and fall ever so slightly, as if he felt the expression aimed at him. My eyes dart to the small black heart permanently inked into the skin of my hip, and bile coats my mouth.

“I understand why you marked me, Your Grace. If I had someone as wonderfully talented and powerful as myself in my company, I would wish to claim them as my own too. Now only if I knew someone as powerful as myself… hmm… maybe in the next life.”

“You spill a lot of shit from that pretty mouth for someone who wouldn’t survive fifteen seconds in combat without your magic. You made that perfectly clear today.”

“And you’re awfully arrogant for someone who doesn’t know basic herbal properties. Am I going to have to wait for you to finish reading every label in the cabinet, or can you just fetch the lavender and calendula on your left?”

His hands snatch the two jars from the cabinet, the one with the dried lavender for soothing muscles and the other with the rich orange tones of dried calendula petals, ideal for reducing swelling. Sin sprinkles a generous amount of the herbs into the water and finishes with a few drops of oil from a tiny, dark bottle.

“Thank you.”

Keeping his eyes fixed on the water now clouded from the additions, he says, “Just wanted to make sure you didn’t have any excuses when I knock you on your little round ass tomorrow.”

I smack the water, assaulting him with a hundred tiny droplets that he sidesteps with a wave of his arm, the shadow of a smirk on his face.

“Sure, we’ll see about that.”

His eyes never wandering to where I sit naked in the steaming water, he heads for the door. “I don’t make idle threats, love.”

* * *

Alone in the private bath, my mind drifts to thoughts of tomorrow when we’ll be dueling with magic in place of swords.

That will be interesting.

Enjoy your caster’s high, Sin had said. He knew the effect expelling that amount of magic the night I confronted him would have on me—the purely physical reaction it would stir in me, and the heat it would send beelining straight to my thighs.

I dueled with Eldridge a lot. He practiced conjuring his shields around him, while I worked on my casting, never enough to shatter his shields completely, but enough to build up the muscle memory of grabbing my collective and willing it away from me, again and again. Naturally, the caster’s high would follow, and if Eldridge hadn’t seen me at my lowest point, maybe I would have acted on those instincts.

But hehadseen me—when I was so weak, so feeble. And now I don’t know if he could ever see me as something different, assomeonedifferent. Could he see me as the woman I wanted to be now?

A woman who was shatterproof.

My thoughts wander to the feelings I often felt when Eldridge and I would duel and the magic that would coerce my body into betraying me. I slip a hand under the water and find myself slick with the thought of him.

The anger that flashed in his eyes when someone dared to speak ill of me… the feel of his bulky arms wrapped around me on the coldest of nights. His possessiveness…

My mind drifts to the night of the Rut when Eldridge interfered after… after Sin decked a man for his crude suggestion. And then slung me over his shoulder as if I was nothing more than a belonging.

His belonging.

---