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My fingers brushed against a worn, dark red cover, and I pulled it from the shelf. I flipped through the pages, the delicate parchment crinkling under my touch.
Palms clammy, and heart racing, I rode the tumultuous waves of hope. The scars had to go. The thought of sharp objects had my stomach roiling, but it was well past midnight, and I had to perform.
As I read, the words on the page seemed to dance before my eyes, swirling around in the dim light while I grasped at nothing, desperate for a way out of the darkness that haunted me.
The door creaked open, and I gasped, dropping the book and turning around. Antonio entered the room, his bare feet making a soft sound against the cold stone floor. He was dressed for bed, clad in a thin white shirt that clung to his muscular frame and soft cotton trousers that rustled in the night’s stillness. His light brown eyes bore into mine, questioning my presence here.
"Antonio," I breathed.
"¿Qué estás haciendo aquí, Carmen?" he demanded, his voice low but firm. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"Lo siento, Antonio," I hesitated, suddenly feeling self-conscious as I my arms to my chest. "I just... No podía dormir. Necesitaba encontrar algo."
He raised one eyebrow and then glanced at the ground, toward the fallen book, before walking closer until only a few inches separated us. Heat radiated from him, warming me like a balm against the moderate chill of the room. I held my breath and swallowed thickly while he bent down and picked up the book.
His sharp lips curved. “What were you looking for?” he asked and stood up, leaning against the bookshelf before he casually started flipping through pages.
“Una solución," I replied, my voice wavering.
He nodded once before closing the book and looking back up at me. His eyes caught on the curves and jagged edges of my chest while I resisted the urge to cover up—to hide.
“Do you want to kill them?” he asked flatly.
I stepped back, the ugly words triggering a clammy sweat all over my body. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The scars. Do you want to kill the ones who gave them to you?”
My throat tightened. More tears came, and my head throbbed. I viciously scrubbed the moisture away with the back of my hands as I put more distance between me and Antonio.
“Absolutely not,” I said. If the spirits ever watched us, then Martina de León was laughing from the shadows.
A muscle in his jaw tightened, an unadulterated fury leaked out of him to a degree I’d only glimpsed in promotional clips for his Blood Tournament. “Do you want me to have them killed?”
I shook my head this time, not trusting myself to speak. He was frightening when he was like this, but I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. Quite the opposite, actually. He would hurt the worldfor me.
But one of us had to be reasonable.
“There’s nothing to be done. They wore masks, and I didn’t know their names,” I started.
He didn’t move. “That information would be easy to ascertain.”
There was something in his eye that told me he was going to make choices he would regret soon if I didn’t stop this. Why was he doing this for me?
I straightened my shoulders and decided that the only way to deal with him was to return his aggression.
“You can go back to bed now. I’m not in pain, and I promise not to disrupt the order of your library.”
“Not in pain?” Scowling, he shook his head and stalked toward me with the power of a mythical beast walking through smoking fire pits hunting his prey. “I hear you scream in the night. Javier has a bruise on his arm from where you kicked him.” His hand darted out and clasped my hand before yanking it upward and pushing back the nightgown and revealing the flesh covered in faint, golden lines. I looked like a broken porcelain doll sloppily glued back together.
“Antonio, please stop.” I yanked my arm away and hid it behind my back.
His body tensed, as if he didn’t understand how to process the waves of emotions roiling over him. The urge to touch him was strong.
“Stop? You call out my name in your sleep, as if I could save you. I took you in. You are my responsibility and I have failed. Massively.” He sneered. “How easily you cast me off.” The hurt bleeding into the air broke me in half.
The need to do something was so strong that I wrapped my arms around myself and crept into the shadows. I had called for him, and he had heard. There was something so private and intimate about that revelation that made air impossible to breathe.
“You act like your responsibilities are burying you alive. I would happily relieve myself from my position if I could.”
