Heat that has nothing to do with the hot springs comes bubbling up into my core. But it’s tempered with an edge of distress.
I don’t have bandages wrapped around me anymore. If I take off my shirt, he’ll see. He’ll see the ugly, leftover bruising. The crinkled, frayed stubs. He’ll see the ruin of my back.
And I still can’t bear that.
I don’t know when he moves behind me, but I startle at his soft voice. “Let me.”
His fingers skim against the back of my neck, right where the first button is, and I can feel the heat of his breath press against my skin far more than the steam in the air.
I freeze, my fingers gripping the front of my collar while my emotions go jumbled and confused, like puzzle pieces all shaken up.
“No,” I tell him, taking a step away. “I’m just going to leave this on.”
He moves back into my line of vision, but I don’t meet his eyes. The silence between us is like silt, the murky waters convoluted and confusing. But even in that silence, I know he hears. I know that he’s listening to what I’m not saying.
Don’t look. I don’t want you to see.
“Alright,” Slade finally says, his tone quiet.
I hear him walk toward the hot spring, and then a rustle of clothing tells me the moment he drops his pants. I feel my already heated cheeks flood with a blush.
My eyes flick up to see his completely nude body, his back facing me. I’ve never gotten to appreciate him from this angle before. I watch as he walks his way into the hot spring, the steam almost completely enveloping him. Yet it doesn’t obscure the way his ass flexes before he steps in deeper, until his lower half disappears beneath the surface of the water.
He sticks to the perimeter, avoiding the bubbling center, and then the rest of him disappears for a second too as he dunks his whole body under. When he comes back up, he pushes his dripping black hair away from his face, and the movement is so incredibly sexy that, despite the moisture in the air, my mouth goes dry. Slade is all hard, sculpted muscles, an endless plane of strength and masculine beauty.
Right now, I feel lacking. Sweaty from training, hair tangled, my skin probably in heated blotches, and my back…
More than anyone else, Slade adored my ribbons. And now they’re gone, and I just feel so…incomplete. Inadequate. I don’t know if I’ll ever not feel that.
“Coming in?” he asks.
With a nod, I kick off my boots and then peel off my leggings and socks, leaving them on a protruding stone. The shirt hits my thighs, and I walk closer, wrapped up in the steam, eyeing the water and his pinkening skin. “How are you not boiling alive?”
“The bubbles are from the hot water constantly coming up to circulate, but the flow is quite slow. It’s not too hot, I promise.”
There must be some kind of rock shelf inside the spring, because he sits down, facing me. He spreads his arms out on either side of him, hands resting on the rim of the cave’s floor. It puts his muscles on full display, his lines of power only just barely visible as they bunch around his shoulders.
“Come here,” he tells me, patting the rock beneath his hand. “You can sit and let your legs soak.”
Nodding, my bare feet pad over the slick, warmed rock floor. I stop just beside him and then carefully sit down on the lip of the hot spring. The steam envelops us both so thoroughly that it makes the rest of the cave seem almost non-existent, basking us in a milky blue glow.
I dip one foot into the water and then instantly groan at the delicious heat. Without wasting any more time, I slip my other foot in, letting my legs rest all the way down until the hot water laps at my calves.
“Great Divine,” I breathe out, relishing in the heat. “This feels nice.”
“I thought you might like it.”
I brace my hands behind me. “This makes up for the stench.”
He chuckles, and the noise makes my toes curl in the water. I slowly start to relax, fingers gently tugging at the hem of my shirt that rests on my upper thighs. Already, the material is damp, the fabric sticking to my breasts as the thick steam clutches against my skin, leaving me feeling dewy and warm all over.
“You sure the steam is okay?” I ask nervously, my back itching ever so slightly.
Slade nods. “Hojat said it was fine for a bit.”
Letting out a sigh, I enjoy the feel of the bubbling water beneath my sore feet, my eyes skimming over the visible parts of him. “Your lines—they’re usually spread to more of your body.”
He looks down at his chest as if to see what I’m seeing. “They’re not as pronounced after I expel magic.”
With his arms free and bare, the lines of his power are like black blades of grass shifting slightly in a breeze.
“Do you have to do that a lot?”
“I’ve learned how to hold it in for long periods of time.”
I frown. “That must be painful.”
“It can be,” he admits. “But I learned control a long time ago, and part of that has to do with knowing when to hold back…and when to let go.”
His eyes bore into me, and I know he’s trying to steer me into this conversation, to turn it around to me. But I don’t want to go there.
Not yet.
“Slade.”
“We need to talk about it,” he says firmly.
Memories of that night in Ranhold start to surround me just as much as the cloying steam. The amount of power I felt was indescribable. It seemed to feed something dark in me, seemed to multiply and grow. Having your magic suddenly feel so uncontrollable and foreign can be terrifying in itself, but it wasn’t just the magic. It was me. I lost control.
Just like I did in Carnith.
I swore to myself I’d keep my magic locked up tight, but I failed all over again. It feels like I’m fifteen years old, with brand new magic dripping from shaky fingers and no clue how to manage it.
“Is that what this is?” I ask, my voice gone sharp, eyes cutting into him. “You only brought me in here to force me to talk?”
Slade’s shoulders go tense, and he slowly lowers his arms into the water. “I would never force you to do anything,” he says, his voice darkened, like the crisped edges of a leaf, curling and blackening with the burn. “And you should know that.”
“Well, that’s not strictly true, is it?” I say, the words flying from my mouth before I can stop myself. “I don’t remember asking you to rot me.”
Something stretched and harsh radiates between us. My pulse raps against my temples. I have to suppress the urge to place a hand over my chest, as if I’m afraid the rot is going to stir to life because I brought it up.
Slade leans forward slightly, the steam curling between us like sinuous specters, and I wish I hadn’t said it. I wish I could pull the words right back into my mouth and swallow them down. Because I don’t blame him. I don’t resent him. If anything, I’m thankful, so I don’t even know why I said it other than the fact that I’m lashing out so I don’t have to face my own whip.
“You’re right,” he says, and despite the heat of the room, a chill lopes down my back. “But I will tell you this now, Goldfinch, and you will hear it. When it comes to your life, when it comes to the option between you living and dying, I will always step in. I will always choose to do whatever needs to be done to ensure that you fucking live.”
My inhale gets snagged against the rungs of my ribs, banging against it with hollow uselessness.
“I hate that I had to use my power against you, but don’t mistake my guilt for regret, because you will be sorely mistaken. I would do it again in a fucking heartbeat.”
His gaze is too intense, his words too hard-hitting. My eyes lower, my own guilt bubbling up as much as the heated water.