Without another word, I march back up the staircase, forcing him to retreat ahead of me. We emerge into the bedroom moments later, his broad shoulders tearing away another section of the tapestry as he squeezes through the opening.
“Where is the wound, exactly?” I ask.
E gathers my hands in his and guides me to the bed. My gaze drops to the duvet, where bandages and tape have been dumped in an untidy heap. On the bedside table, wet rags swim in a silvery water basin.
“Where did you find this?” I ask.
“I asked a servant.”
Then he guides one of my hands to the junction of his neck and shoulder. The moment my fingers brush the injury, I hiss.
“Och. This isn’t a scratch.” I probe the edges carefully. The skin is hot and swollen beneath my fingertips. “She fucking filleted your neck.”
He huffs out a tired laugh. “Tell me about it. After I said no, she mentioned that I’d killed her—well, almost killed her, I guess. She hates me, really.”
I sit him on the bed and apply a pack of gauze-like fabric to the wound, pressing hard on it. “Yet she sang the virtues of your cock to me and told me you were her favorite lover.”
His voice lowers. “She said that? When?”
There’s no pride or guile in his question, just disbelief.
“Right before dinner,” I say scathingly.
After your father fucked her in front of me,I almost add.
“I’m so sorry, Max. I had no idea.”
We wait in silence while I apply pressure to the wound, him sitting on the edge of the bed, me standing over him. Blood spatters stain the duvet beneath us, spreading across the empty patch of mattress between his invisible legs.
“This is going to need a healing poultice, or at the very least a proper cleaning and stitches if you don’t want it to leave a scar.”
“Scars are the least of my concerns right now.” He brushes my arm. “I don’t want my past to come between us, but I don’t want to hide anything from you either.”
He hesitates.
“When Iris came to my room, she wasn’t subtle. She was naked, and her hands wereeverywhere, but I stopped her as quickly as I could.”
The seriousness in his voice echoes deep in my chest.
“I would never betray you, Max. And I would never treat you like you’re expendable. Never. What happened earlier in the throne room? Why did you pull away so suddenly?”
I shrug, holding pressure on the gash and using my other hand to wipe as much dried blood as I can from his chest and neck with one of the wet rags. “You were being pushy.”
“No, that’s not it.”
My cheeks burn. “Is it so hard to believe I didn’t want to have sex with you?”
“Tell me the truth, whatever it is,” he pleads.
Him and his damn insight.
I finally tape the gauzy fabric in place. There’s no way for me to properly clean the wound or switch out the dressing, so the best I can do for the time being is stop the bleeding.
“The mirrors creeped me out,” I admit. “And I felt... I felt like we were being watched.”
A sigh escapes him. “That makes sense. And I admit, I was being a little pushy.”
My lips quirk. “Try a lot. Also, I walked in on Iris and your father fucking on the throne right before dinner. That made it a lot creepier.”
