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Ugh.
I guess it’s like Vegas. What happens in the oubliette, stays in the oubliette.
I take my time washing up. After I’m cleaned, dried, and dressed, I step aside so that he can take his turn. I mutter snarky insults under my breath as I braid my hair, poking fun at how Rys takes even longer in the shower than I do.
The cold shoulder continues throughout the rest of the day. He purposely keeps his back to me, watching the strait outside of our cell as if that’s more entertaining than I am. He barely says three words to me after the derisive Unseelie guard delivers us our last meal of the day.
No. Wait. That’s not right. He actually said four words.
“You can have mine.”
I don’t touch his plate, purposely ignoring his offer even though I’m still hungry after I eat my portion. He did that while we were in the oubliette, too, so I know he’s gotta be starving.
He picks at a few pieces when he realizes I’m refusing to touch it, then sets it aside as if he’s saving it—which he probably is. Then, as I watch him with a pretty obvious scowl of my own, he removes the sheet from the cot like I’ve seen him do before and then lays it out on the floor.
That’s it. I’ve had enough.
“What are you doing?”
If he’s surprised at my question, he doesn’t show it. He just shrugs, then straightens the nearest corner of the sheet, laying it flat with the palm of his hand. “It takes a lot to fight the effects of the shadows. I need my rest. I never sleep enough when I’m down there.”
That’s right. I kept dozing off but Rys maybe allowed himself a couple of hours of sleep at most. He’s gotta be bushed.
But there’s no way in hell I’m going to stand back and let him sleep on the floor.
“Okay. Well, if you’re ready for bed, come over here. We can share.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?” After how close together we slept while we were in the dark oubliette, I no longer have any issues sharing the cot with him. I didn’t think Rys would, either, and I’m kind of surprised—and a little insulted—when he says that. “Is it because the guards’ll notice? Screw ‘em. If they didn’t want us to share a cot, they could’ve given us two. Or, better yet, not make us share a cell when my old one is still empty.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
“If I’m that close to you I’ll want to...” His voice trails off, then he gives his head a sharp jerk. “You forget that, Leannán. Take the bed. I deserve the floor.”
Oh, hell no. He doesn’t honestly think I’m going to let him go without finishing his sentence, does he?
“You’ll want to what?”
He clamps his mouth shut.
I push off the cot, moving toward him. “You’ll want to what, Rys?” I ask again. Then I supply the answer for him. “Touch me? You already did. Don’t you remember?””
“The shadows are cold. You had no other choice. You needed my heat.”
I did. I can’t deny that. But I don’t think Rys has realized that that had been my excuse to get close to him. I used him to touch me because I didn’t want to be that untouched, unclaimed human anymore. Of course it backfired on me. I wanted him to be addicted to me so that he’d watch over me, maybe even take me with him if he ever got his head out of his ass and decided to leave this place.
Look at that. Now I’m the one who’s addicted.
And, you know, I thought my attraction to Rys had something to do with Posey rubbing off on me. The night they moved me from her wing to Rys’s cell, I couldn’t stop fantasizing over him while he was washing up, and I tried to convince myself that I was just lusting after him because he was there—and because it was safe.
Unlike Veron and Dusk and some of the other guards, he didn’t look at me like something to own, to take, to claim. I wasn’t just a walking, talking, breathing pussy. I might be human, but I had feelings.
Rys actually took care of me. And, okay, maybe I didn’t see it like that at first—sue me for being suspicious considering everything I’ve gone through in Faerie—but I can’t deny it now. Between the pear he saved me so that I wouldn’t go hungry, and the faerie fire he managed to conjure to protect me from Dusk… he’s been watching my back even before the bargain we made that night in our cell.
And now, knowing that Rys has been taking punishments for me, trying to keep the guards off my back even if it made his own imprisonment worse, I have to reassess my impression of Rys and how he feels about me.
