“But how are you here? How am I seeing you?”
There was a soft knock on the door behind Isobel, but she ignored it, imploring her mother, trying to lay her touch over the ghostly hands that covered her shoulders.
“I’m not.” Caran smiled again, pointing to Isobel’s forehead. “I’m here.”
“Isobel?” Kilian was knocking louder, and after a second, he tried the handle, finding it unlocked. He propped the door open and as soon as he saw her standing there hugging herself, he stepped into the room and nudged the door closed behind him.
Her mother disappeared.
“What’s wrong?” Kilian’s hands landed on her shoulders, and she almost sagged in relief at the tangible sensation, her eyes drifting shut as she swayed forward, butting her head against his chest.
“Nothing,” she lied.
He chuckled, tucking a few wet locks of hair behind her ears. “Clearly. Did you shower? I can still smell Oscar all over you.”
“Sort of. Not really. Are you offering to help again?”
Kilian forced out a laugh just to dissipate some of the tension, but there was a tight constriction in his chest. She wasn’t okay. She had been through a lot, and he had seen it all knock her down, peg by peg, so slowly that her decline was almost unnoticeable.
But this Isobel wasn’t the same Isobel from before the settlement tour.
“They took my phone,” he murmured against the top of her head. “I had a bit of a breakdown the night you told us about Aron … and a few hours later, the officials arrived to remove me from the academy. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“I don’t need you to be there for me.” She sniffed against his chest and the stubbornness in her voice was adorable.
He eased her back again, examining the pink flush in her cheeks. It was hard to tell if she was embarrassed or feverish.
“You have five surrogates,” he chided gently. “Why have you been ignoring the others if you needed them so badly?”
She sniffed again, and the colour flushed brighter. “I don’t understand why they offered.” She side-stepped him, reaching into the shower to turn the water back on.
His eyes dropped to her towel before he forced them back up again. “Blindfold me,” he blurted.
She turned, a surprised sound somewhere between a gasp and a laugh falling out of those beautiful, lush lips, her eyes widening. “What?”
“I don’t want to leave. You need to shower. We need to talk away from the cameras. The others are only going to leave us alone in here for so long. So blindfold me.”
“Kili.” She made that shocked laughing sound again. Almost a scoff. “I don’t carry blindfolds around.”
His heart warmed at the way she shortened his name, heat cracking into the massive gouges the last few weeks had left in the organ. He rolled his eyes, flicking off the light instead.
She giggled. “Okay, now I also can’t see.”
“Good.” He wasn’t in a laughing mood, but he still liked the sound of hers. It was light, airy, clear as a bell. Stunning. It astounded him that she could possibly sound so pure and innocent after everything that had been done to her.
“Why good?” She was unwinding her towel, turning toward him to feel for the rack.
Fuck. Shit.
If he suddenly left the room, he might have to explain to her that his Alpha sight was a little better than hers.
“Because I’m not getting in there with all my clothes on.” The words expelled from him on a sharp breath, a little too fast, but she was too busy groping for the towel rack to notice.
He fixed his attention to her face, refusing to look lower as he kicked off his shoes and removed all of his layers except his boxers. He slipped past her as she felt her way into the shower, ducking beneath the spray just to clear his head before he retreated to the tiled bench set into the alcove, sitting down, and focussing on the spray that washed over his legs as Isobel stepped beneath the stream.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “It’s not enough, I know, but I …”
She spun around, her arms tucked over her chest, her hands cupping around her neck. She was covered enough for him to drag his eyes up, but he still got an eyeful of the swell of cleavage pressed between her arms and the way she was pouting in his direction.
That thin gold chain was barely visible, except the very top and bottom of it.
He genuinely just didn’t have the willpower to leave her side and desperately needed a moment to talk to her and clear the air … but now he just felt like a pervert because that image was going to stick in his brain for a while.
Or maybe he did orchestrate this.
Now he was questioning everything.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, reaching for his shoulder. He quickly looked away, back down to her legs as she stepped forward, her knuckles brushing his chest before feeling up to his shoulder and squeezing.
He licked his lips, narrowing his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry anyway. I’m sorry all this shit lands on you. It isn’t fair.”
“I can handle it.” Her voice was sad, and the warmth her touch tunnelled through his body suddenly cooled again.
“Gabriel said you’re stealing most of the side effects and all the shittiness of prolonging the bond,” he said numbly. “The least we can do is make it easier. You should be using us.”
“It’s awkward!” she suddenly exclaimed, releasing his shoulder, and feeling around for the bottles of product. “I mean it isn’t awkward when we’re touching, but asking for it is awkward. And weird. And I don’t think I can.”
“Did Theo help?”
She went still, dropping the shampoo bottle. She had to crouch down to find it again. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered, popping up again.
There was way too much movement going on, but he managed to keep his eyes on the floor, counting the tiny sapphire tiles to stay focussed.
“Isobel.” He chuckled.
She huffed. “Yes, it helped.”
“How much?”
“A lot. I felt warm for days.”
He hummed deep in his throat, frustration eating away at him. He could offer … but he wasn’t fucking stupid. Isobel thought he was gay and that made him the only safe place for her to turn to in Dorm A. Part of him wanted to come clean and tell her that it wasn’t all black and white, that he resented some machination of fate telling him that he was suddenly restricted to one person, one gender … but that it had nothing to do with her.
She was stunning, no matter the situation. He had always thought so.
But he was her only safe place. Her only easy option for the physical contact she desperately needed.
He couldn’t cut her off from that.
He stood and ducked out of the shower, snatching the boxers she had brought in from the counter, and her bra from the floor, stalking back toward her. She squeaked when she felt him behind her, spinning her around. He knelt before her, gripping her thighs.
“Step,” he grunted, holding the boxers against her legs.