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But she had to tell him the poison eating inside her head. She had to give it to him because he was the only one she knew that poison didn't kill. He would take it, sip it, and still come out on the other side. She couldn't. A life of holding onto venom had slowly started to corrode her from the inside-out until she'd let it out with him.
“I hit him on the head,” the words escaped her in a whisper in the silence of the room, given to the dark, to him.
His fingers paused again, waiting for her to continue. She had no idea why she’d spoken, but once it was out, it escaped like a torrent.
> “I didn’t have any weapon,” she spoke softly as he continued to wash her hair, listening intently. She could feel it in the way his fingers moved with her words. “He tried to smother me with a pillow. I somehow got a hold of the lamp and hit him with it.”
His fingers twitched. He cupped some water in his palm and poured it over the edge of her forehead. She felt the suds flow into the bathwater.
“Somehow we ended up on the floor and he was between my legs-”
He stilled.
In a much more dangerous way than she'd ever experienced before.
Morana immediately realized her error and hurried to explain. “No, no. Not like that. No, he didn’t touch me.”
She could hear his breathing, heavier than before, his fingers tightening in her hair as his body remained motionless in that very, very hunter-like manner.
She went on quickly. “I kind of trapped his head between my thighs to make him immobile. And then I bashed his head with the lamp until he passed out.”
After a few seconds, he started to wash the shampoo out of her hair again. Morana exhaled in relief, telling him the rest. “I clicked his picture. I’ll run facial recognition tomorrow. Anyhow, he woke up and before he could chase, I ran to Dante’s. It’s a good thing he was there.”
He growled softly.
Morana felt her eyebrows hit her hairline but didn’t say anything else. She did enjoy his animal sounds, she was coming to realize. She told him the same.
"As much as I enjoy these animal noises, you can speak, you know."
After a few seconds of silence, she thought he wouldn't respond.
"Later."
One simple word uttered in a voice barely controlled. Morana softened, giving him the time and space to process it his own way.
He finished with her hair as she finished with her bath, the water slowly pruning her fingers. After minutes, Morana looked to see Tristan take out a towel and offer it to her. She stood up and took the towel, drying herself as he went out to the bedroom.
Morana drained out the water and exited into the dark bedroom, seeing him ruffling through a drawer beside the door. Taking out a t-shirt, he handed it to her.
“Thanks,” she muttered, taking it and tugging it over her head. It fell on her body, almost hitting her knees, wrapping her in his scent. She inhaled deeply. It was the best pajama she’d ever had.
She watched him leave the room and return multiple times, taking something out, bringing something in. After the fourth round, he came to her with a glass of water and pills in one hand.
“Painkillers?” she asked, her eyes on him. His eyes were fixed on his t-shirt on her very naked body as he nodded.
Morana took the pills and drank the water. That done, he took the glass and placed it on the edge of the chest of drawers.
Then he swung her up again and carried her the few feet to the bed. Putting her down on the soft mattress that she sank in, he picked up her now clean foot and inspected it. Then he started to apply the ointment and bandage on the cut where it throbbed, not once looking at her.
Morana watched it all, her heart in her throat. She had glimpsed his scars, seen the mottled skin, the burns, the raised flesh that bespoke some of the most brutal torture, some that she could possibly never imagine. And yet, in that moment, when he took care of her little cut like it was a long gash, something deep inside her, the part of her that she was still holding on to, was given, released, handed over, to him. If there was one thing she had realized over the past few weeks, one thing that had become an epiphany in the past few hours, it was that this man would never have killed her.
As silent as he remained, Morana knew it wasn’t because he didn’t feel anything. It was because he felt too much and no matter what, she vowed, watching him at her feet, that she would ride it out with him. She had found something immensely precious in their world, a diamond in the coals, a lotus in the mud. And she vowed to cherish it, cherish him, as he deserved. He needed time to open up, to trust her not to abandon him someday, and she would give that to him. He had earned that.
Quickly wiping the one tear that had left her eyes, because she wasn't used to anyone caring enough to fix her wounds, because despite everything he had been through this man had still found it in his heart to care for when she was hurt, Morana pulled her foot back after he was done. She got under the covers and watched him strip his t-shirt and jeans down to his black boxers, throwing them off to the side.
It was the first time she saw his body as it was. Muscles rippled in places she didn’t know muscles could ripple. Tattoos and scars littered his torso, front and back, some even down on one thigh. One lone tattoo stretched across his bicep, circling, but it was too dim for her to make it out. But the most noticeable was the confidence he was moving with. In clothes or out of it, this man knew who he was and wasn’t afraid of letting people know it.
Morana sank back on the pillows, her heart hammering as she watched him get in on the other side, check his gun on the bedside table, and turn off the light. And it was such a domestic, normal thing, Morana marveled at witnessing it.
