Page 2 of Claimed By Ruin

She laid the dish towel down on the counter and then filled the glass with water, the faucet the only sound in the weighted calm of the house. The pipes groaned, the deep rattle a new and not welcome addition.

She turned then, her face a mask of terrifying calm, and set the glass on the table between us.

She didn’t push it towards me. She just left it there.

A peace offering?

A weapon?

For the first time since I’d met her, I looked at her and didn’t know.

The sun was fully up now, the bright light cutting through the window and splitting her face in half. The frilly white curtains I remembered from before had been replaced with heavy burlap held back by a hook on the wall.

Smart.

It made the kitchen darker, less homey than it was the day we’d arrived, but that loss was worth the trade.

I huffed in a breath and caught a faint scent, one I had tried—and failed—to recreate in my mind. I thinned my lips, trying to suppress the urge to smile at the memory of presenting Asia with that soap. Levi had what appeared to be an inexhaustible stash of boring white bar soap, and when I had given Asia eight bars of glycerin soap, she had been spectacularly creative in showing her thanks.

I pressed my thumb into my chest, trying to rub away the sudden ache.

That was before.

The memory had no place anymore.

My hand curled into a tight fist as I glanced down at her stomach. All those times before when I’d been so careful… Not that night, though. That night I’d given in fully to my deranged need to possess her.

Now came the consequences.

I lifted my gaze to her face again.

She met my eyes, and I braced myself for the scream.

For the tears.

For the rage I deserved.

I didn’t get it. Instead she tilted her head, her gaze dropping to my hands, then moving back up to my face.

“If you’d been here,” she said, her voice flat, “you would know.”

I nodded.

So a weapon then.

One she wielded with precision.

One she’d earned.

I held her gaze. “I’m here now.”

Her face hardened for just a split second, and then she smiled. She turned abruptly, and then walked towards the kitchen door. “In that case, make yourself useful. The animals need to be fed.”

She was gone then, her booted steps echoing through the living room, the squeak and then slap of the screen door slamming behind her.

I should have fixed that before I left. The noise of the screen door didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, but every little bit helped.

Soon that sound faded, and I was like I had been so many times before.