“It shouldn’t. Gods damn it, but it does.”
“It was a long time ago. In truth, I forget they’re there because I never see them.”
“Who?” he bit out.
“Korvin.” Saying his name was like pulling the cork from bottled memories. Memories that now flooded my mind.
Korvin’s cold, dead eyes. His monstrous grin. That whip of shattered night.
Father ordered it. Renwell allowed it.
Mother begged Father to change his mind, but instead, he forced her to watch as Korvin flayed my back with his whip. And Renwell... Renwell never took his eyes off me. Then he collected me afterward. Cleaned me up. And swore he would never let Korvin hurt me again.
All because I fell in love with a boy my father considered a traitor.
“Kiera . . . Kiera?”
I heard my name as if from beyond the Abyss. Darkness clouded my eyes. I felt my body lifted with ease and quickly wrapped in a towel. Then I was being carried. Again. Safe. In these arms.
Aiden.
Aiden held me tightly, rubbing his hands over my shuddering body. “Breathe, Kiera. Breathe. Focus on my voice. Listen to my words.” His lips pressed to my forehead, a warmth that branded my soul through my skin. “Come back to me. You are not there anymore. You are here. With me. Breathe.”
Slowly, the darkness faded. Air returned to my lungs. In and out, like calm waves.
Aiden cradled me in his lap in the curtained alcove surrounded by our clothes. My cheek was pressed into his neck. My fingers dug into his shoulders.
Tears burned behind my eyes, but I refused to give any more to that monster.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s him who should feel this pain. I pray that I am the one to inflict it on him one day.”
All dignity forgotten, I burrowed my face deeper into his neck. “I don’t think a monster like him can be defeated. Not like I can.” My words grew fragile. “You said I wear victory beautifully. I’m afraid I don’t wear defeat quite as well.”
He grasped my chin and lifted my gaze to be devoured by his. “I’m beginning to think there isn’t a way you are not beautiful.”
My breath caught.
And I was beginning to think that repeating my history was more than a dangerous possibility.
But I couldn’t let him destroy me this way. I could choose to resist this... this lure between us. The pull of his gaze as it dropped to my lips. The breathless urge to surrender to what my whole being cried out for.
I needed a distraction.
My fingertips brushed over a patch of uneven skin on his shoulder. Of course. His scar.
“What is this from?” I asked softly, hiding from his gaze by peering over his shoulder.
The skin looked deeply burned with odd divots and whorls in it. The image of a falcon in flight had been inked over it with the breast of the bird embodying the scar.
For a moment, I didn’t think he would answer. A part of him seemed to withdraw from me even as he continued to hold me.
“The mine,” he finally said. “They brand all prisoners in such a way by heating up a chunk of raw sunstone and pressing it into the prisoner’s shoulder.”
My jaw dropped. “The Calimber mine? But you said that no one ever left there except in death.”
A muscle in his cheek twitched. “We escaped.”
