She understood something of that sort of damage—in the animals she took in, and in herself, too, after Dido. She’d found those injuries took the longest to heal.
And going by the fury in Bran’s eyes, those wounds were yet festering.
An impulse lit through her.
An impulse to help him.
But, no.
He wasn’t her damaged creature to help.
Yet who would help him?
For that hadn’t been her only—or most unsettling—impulse moments ago.
There had been another impulse—one rooted in long-suppressed instinct …
To reach out and touch him.
The obvious interpretation of that touch would’ve been that she’d sought to bring comfort.
The obvious interpretation would have been wrong.
Just now, she’d wanted to touch him not out of selflessness, but selfishness.
Her palm yet tingled from the feel of him only hours ago when they’d shaken hands.
Once, she’d been so intoxicated by his touch, she’d needed it upon her at all times. She hadn’t been able to keep away from him. It had been addiction in its purest form—one touch like hot lightning through her veins.
And just now, it had been the very same pull.
One touch—one shake of the hand—was all it took to bring addiction prickling back to life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TWO WEEKS LATER
Flat on his back, with the sky for a ceiling as it shifted from crisp indigo night to hazy silver-blue with impending dawn, Bran gave his muscles leave to relax as salt water held him aloft, weightless.
This was his favorite moment of the day—many days, the moment he lived for.
The first touch of toe to water was the hardest. The stark cold of the North Sea was unrelenting enough to chill a man to the cockles of his heart, even in summer. But it was only the first thirty seconds that tempted one to return to shore. Then the body performed a neat little wondrous trick—it went numb. The sort of numbness that slid through skin and muscle down to bone, and deeper still, to the marrow … the cells … the mind … allowing him the blessed relief of blankness … of freedom.
In the water, floating on his back, his body was as free as anyone else’s.
The only time he felt like himself was this part of the day—in the water.
The only time of day he felt anything worth feeling.
Yet was that still entirely true?
Or had it become habit to think thusly?
For in the last few weeks, hadn’t there been other moments when he’d felt a connection to a part of himself—a part of himself yet tethered to the man he’d beenbefore?
To the east, shimmering gold broke across the watery horizon in a gradient of yellow, orange, and red.Dawn.His signal to begin the laborious process of making his way back to the Roost.
He touched feet to the ocean floor, coarse sand digging between his toes, the push and pull of waves crashing about him, gravity laying a heavier hand across his shoulders with each step. This was his least favorite part of the day—the return to the reality of this body he inhabited.
