Shoving the door open, I step into the dim room and close it behind me.
Hand pressed against the wall, Baze is standing before the window, looking out upon the waking world.
I still, frowning at the fine stubble on his head. My gaze carves the expanse of his broad shoulders, and my heart drops at the peeled and blistered skin spread across the taut blades.
“Baze …” I rush forward, fingers poised above a patch of bubbled wounds.
Burns.
Clearing my throat, I move to the bathroom, dampen a washcloth, and race back, about to drape it across his sores—
He turns so fast he’s a blur of motion, catching my wrist in his fist. “Don’t,” he says, the word a quiet wound, his eyes shaded with a daunting shadow that makes my skin prickle.
I breathe in his scent, woodsy and floral spiced, and the heady musk of …sex.
He’s beenfuckingsomebody.
My upper lip threatens to peel back before I catch notes of something else mingling with the potent smell …
The acrid tang ofsmoke. Of fried flesh—not his.
Either he was at the burning, or—
Remembering the Gray Guards charging through the streets, my stomach pitches.
Not charging.
Hunting.
“The temple,” I whisper, sliding back a step, raking my gaze across him like I’m seeing him for the first time.
He drops my wrist, keeping his lips tight, watching me retreat another step.
Another.
“You’re the reason the guards have been out in droves,” I snarl, feeling all the blood drop from my face, replaced with a punch ofrage.“I told you to keep away!”
His chest shakes with a silent laugh, a twisted smile breaking across his face as he runs his hand over his bald head. “What’s the point?”
“Don’t say that,” I growl through a snap of teeth.
His face smooths in the blink of an eye, and he leans against the windowsill, stretching his legs before him and crossing them at the ankles. “I need to ask you something.”
The words are clipped, and even though his eyes are shaded by the lack of light in this room, I can feel the accusing slice of his stare.
Some of his anger … it’s directed at me.
“Well, ask me.”
His gaze drops to the floor at my feet, and he seems to hold his breath, like he’s reconsidering.
My patience frays. “Don’t fucking cower from the question, Baze.Ask!”
He sighs, condemning me with an unblinking stare. “I saw her today. At the burning. She was trying to hide abitemarkon her neck.”
My lungs turn to sandstone, hand flying to my mouth.
Cainon fed on her …
