Violet forgot how to breathe again. She might have imagined those words a thousand ways but never offered so plainly. So surely. As though he was merely stating a fact of the world. Her throat tightened. She did not trust her voice. Instead, she reached for him, her fingers slipping into his hair.
“I think I love you, too.”
His eyes darkened. “You think?”
“I know.” She grinned. “I think.”
“Flaming wench.” Drake surged to his feet and scooped her up without ceremony, one arm beneath her knees, the other braced firmly at her back. Violet let out a startled laugh, clutching at his shoulder as he carried her across the room.
“We need to get you out of these soaked clothes before you fall ill,” he said hoarsely, already lowering her onto the edge of the bed.
“You’re all wet as well.”
He took the dagger from her hand, turning it over in his. “Where did you get this?”
Violet blinked, surprised by the sudden seriousness in his voice. “Your brother Dagger gave it to me.” She snorted. “After I asked for a real one.”
“He must really like you.”
Her lips parted. “Is that unusual?”
“He doesn’t let anyone touch his daggers,” Drake said quietly. “Not even us.”
Something warm settled in her chest at that.
Drake set the dagger carefully on the table beside them, looked back at her, something fierce glowing in his eyes. Their clothes, after that, were shed piece by piece. Violet’s attention caught not on the act itself, but on him, on the breadth of his chest as his shirt was pulled free, the faint bruising beneath his skin, the bandage still wrapped around his abdomen. There was nothing carnal about the moment, only two people who had survived the night and were finally allowing themselves to rest and simply be. When nothing remained between her skin and his, Drake pulled back the covers and drew her down with him, settling her against his chest, his arm coming around her.
Violet sighed as the heat of him seeped into her, her cheek resting over his heart, the steady beat beneath her ear easing the last of her cold.
“May I ask you something?” he asked softly.
“Of course.”
His fingers traced slow, absent patterns along her back. “What did your brother do,” he asked quietly, “to make you run?” He paused. “I know he’s a shite. But did he hurt you?”
The question settled heavily between them.
Violet shut her eyes.
No one had ever asked her that before. Not even her friends. Holly and Pippa knew some things, enough to help her leave, but not everything. “Not the way you might be thinking.”
“I’m not thinking about any way, love. There are a thousand ways to hurt people without lifting a finger.”
“You must have understood the gist of it in the dungeon,” she finally admitted. “I was always watched. Every word weighed. Every step judged. If I laughed too loudly, if I spoke too freely, if I wanted something for myself...” Her throat tightened. “There were consequences. This one time he reduced my meals to thin broth for refusing a gown he had chosen. Another time, he confined me to my bedchamber for a fortnight for questioning his judgment.”
Drake did not interrupt. His arm only tightened, a silent promise that he was there, that she would not be hurt again.
“The worst was when he told me the punishment would end only once I understood I deserved it or when he made me beg for forgiveness on my knees. He made me kneel for a whole day once. I learned early that resistance only made him more ruthless. He even accused me of killing my mother in childbirth, and my father, who perished of heartache shortly after.”
His chest rose sharply beneath her cheek.
“Then he betrothed me to Percival and ordered the servants to deny my existence until I questioned my own.” She swallowed. “Until one day I realized I was vanishing.”
Drake muttered something vicious under his breath.
She lifted her head slightly, enough to see his jaw clenched, his eyes burning in the low light. “I just wanted to escape, start a new life on my terms.”
“I’m going to snap his legs in half.”
