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Her heart was skipping out an anxious beat she knew he would pick up on, even from several paces behind her. Nothing ever slipped past his careful attention. But she hurried up to his suite and into the bathroom, flicking on the lights as she moved. She found her tin of healing salve in one of the drawers, the label marked with a mortar and pestle.
He could get mad at her for interfering with his fight with Malakai after. First, she needed to take care of him.
Metal clinked as she twisted the lid off the tin. As she was setting the tin and lid on the countertop, she felt Darien enter the room. She could feel him everywhere, all the time, she didn’t even have to look to know he was there. No matter where they were, no matter who they were with, his presence never failed to affect her.
“Loren.” That voice was low. Gentle, not cold. The tone was the opposite of what she expected to hear, but she still wasn’t ready to face whatever he wanted to say.
She found a box of gauze pads in the drawer and took out a short stack, pinching them between her thumb and index finger. She separated one from the others and dampened it with water from the tap. “Would you please sit on the edge of the bathtub?” she said, not turning.
There was a pause, and then Darien did as she’d asked.
Quiet filled the room as she stepped up to him. He spread his legs to allow her to get closer, and then she began her work, using the gauze pad to clean the cuts on his jaw, his nose, and the skin below and above his left eye. Thanks to Darien’s hellseher genes, most of the wounds were already healing, but there were a couple that were deeper than the rest, and these were the ones she focused on.
Darien watched her intently, his eyes never once leaving her face. She was nearly finished when he broke the silence, his deep, rich voice filling the whole room.
“You’re barely touching me, baby.” The quiet words echoed faintly.
“I’m almost done,” she whispered.
She turned around to grab the tin of healing salve from the countertop. As she stepped back up to him, balancing the open tin in her palm, he shut his eyes, freeing her from that piercing stare, and held very still. Carefully, she dabbed a bit of the product to his brow and the bridge of his nose—the two deepest wounds on his face, the ones that were taking the longest to heal.
Once she was finished with the salve, the lid back on the tin, she was out of things to occupy herself with.
There was no point in delaying any longer. She placed the tin on the edge of the bathtub and waited.
When he opened his eyes to look up at her, she looked away. She stared at the glossy floor, her teeth worrying her lower lip. “You probably want to talk,” she began. “About what happened at the House of Souls.”
“You’re afraid I’m angry with you,” Darien accused. “Aren’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t you be?” She forced herself to make eye contact with him. “I stepped between you and Malakai. I got involved when I shouldn’t have. You have every right to be angry with me.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “I do.”
She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. “I—”
He got to his feet, the sudden proximity sending her drifting back a pace. He towered over her, that familiar tension crackling between them, his bare upper body so close to her that every breath she drew nearly caused her breasts to brush up against him.
Slowly, he reached out, his hand closing around her chin. He tilted her face up, but she kept her focus pointing downward, lashes fanning out above her cheeks. “Look at me,” he commanded.
She did. That hand was exceptionally gentle, and his eyes—
Those eyes were sparking, but not with anger. They were sparking with need. Desire. The unexpected reaction struck her dumb.
“You could’ve been hurt,” Darien said, “you know that?”
With his hand still grasping her chin, she barely managed to nod.
“Tell me why you did it,” he said, keeping his intense eyes locked with hers. “Why’d you get between us?”
“Because I couldn’t bear to see you in pain.” Her words were a wobbly whisper. “And because…” Tears pricked her eyes, the moisture blurring her vision. “Because I love you.”
There was a moment of quiet before he said her name. “Loren.”
She looked up at him again, not realizing until now that she had looked away.
“I am mad,” he began. When she tried to duck her head, he held firm, dipping his own low enough to draw her gaze. “But not at you. I’m mad that you almost got hurt, but you did it because you love me.” His rough thumb swept across her mouth, briefly tugging on her bottom lip. He tracked the motion with a heated gaze that turned her legs to jelly before his focus swept back up to her eyes. “And I can’t be angry at that.”
He released her then, both hands moving to grasp the backs of her thighs. He hoisted her up and wrapped her legs around his waist.
