I’ve not thought this through.
He reached for the topmost button of his shirt, undoing it. When he finished, he moved onto the next. It wasn’t until the fourth button that Alora finally found her voice again.
“What are you doing?”
His fingertips stilled for only a heartbeat. “Reminding you.”
Then his shirt was shrugged from his shoulders and dropped to the puddle of water formed on the floor.
Alora cleared her throat. It was all she could manage while drinking in the sight of every sculpted part of him. “Of what?” If he took off his trousers, she’d faint dead away, she knew.
Bash made several purposeful strides toward her, which Alora only realized belatedly, backing away too late. Her bottom met the vanity, the makeup scattering. His chest made up her view. Her gaze flicked to the wound she inflicted upon him. As it wept slowly, already beginning to clot.
But that wasn’t where she was meant to look. Two fingers pressed beneath her chin forcing her attention upward. She allowed him this, her eyes skimming over his chest and shoulder, the skin smooth and lightly marked, and she wondered if what he planned for her would really be so bad, after all. What did it mean that a flutter of anticipation built inside her now?
Except her eyes landed on a disruption in his flesh, there where his shoulder met his neck, snuffing any eagerness dead. Four long scars, purpled and raised. Her abrupt intake of air had him asking, “Do you remember that day?”
Alora shook her head. “No. What happened?”
“Specter wolves. You turned two to stone. The very same that now adorn Opulence’s entrance. I nearly died that day.”
Brief flashes of feeling and images came for her. Of blood and panic, of the captain’s weight slumped against her.Oh. She’d been terrified.
“And this.” He released her chin to duck his own, and her gaze drifted to follow. A small red line marked the flesh just above his hip. “I was stabbed by my brother. On your front stoop, no less. A less dramatic moment than the wolves.”
Alora blinked as she recalled the feel of him beneath her fingertips, a dressing tied into place. There’d been no small dose of horror that day, too, though she couldn’t drudge up theparticulars. And relief. She’d been so relieved, she could have perished.
Her finger reached to trace the fresh scar. His hand clenched beside it.
“So you’ve come to inform me that all our interactions before were of you nearly dying in my company?”
His kohl-rimmed eyes creased by the smallest measure. “No. You’ve had your fair share of unfortunate experiences too.”
“What? Why would I ever—” Alora stopped and pressed her eyes closed. It didn’t make sense to her, that she would spend so much time with someone who barely outran death. What sort of dangerous situations had she gotten into because of him? It didn’t sound like her at all.
But then his hand covered hers, there on his hip, and she knew.
Oh god, sheknew.She didn’t only tolerate this person. Or like him some. She must either be a little bit obsessed or a little bit in love. And that was why nothing sounded like her—because she’d never felt like this before.
What atragedy.Her nails clawed at the vanity wood. “Is this all I can hope for? Bits and pieces to return but nothing whole?”
“It depends. I need to know what he did to you. It can’t be the darts. They’re the most concentrated, entering the bloodstream. The batons are less, mixing with the wounds they leave behind, but I see no marks on you.”
She couldn’t tell him everything, the entrancement forbade it. But she could say, “I touched the lamp.”
“The oil?”
She nodded, teeth ruining her cheek as she stared at the water coating the floor. “You had no part in this? Truly?”
“Goddammit,” he growled, dragging her face back to his. “Alora, look at me. I wouldnever.”
She focused on his masked mouth, something else returning to her as she took in the stretch of leather. “You’re an Urchin, aren’t you? I remember Mister Whitters warning me away from you.”
“That is only part of who I am.”
But she couldn’t help it, this distrustful emotion. “What did”—she swallowed, fighting it—“Master…wish from you?” Her voice was hard, even as she fairly choked on the word.
“We’re still in search of Mister Macaw, the groundskeeper who eloped just this morning. You’ve met him before. Rumor is he realized whom he sculpted upon that topiary and fled in disappointment. I think it’s more likely he fled in protest; he did seem to like you quite a lot. And then he asked after William. He hasn’t been seen all day.”
