My hands reach up to cover his, soaking in his warmth as I start to shiver. “You are not helping my anxiety here.”
He looked for me all day.
Probably with the chains in one hand, ready to lock me back up again.
He laughs, low and gruff, and his thumb rubs across my cheek. He pulls it back, showing me the dark smudge. “And whyareyou so wet?”
“Ah…” I glance down. I’m worse than when I first arrived, my hair full of leaves and twigs. But I feel alive. Like I needed today, needed the air and the water to feel like myself again, likeStasi, and not just the Anastasia everyone keeps telling me I am.
“I slipped,” I admit sheepishly. “On the bank of the stream.”
“Of course you did.” He reaches behind him, and my eyes light up when he hands me a large towel. “Here, you wild thing.”
My grin stretches slowly across my face. “So, really. How much trouble am I in?”
Kit purses his lips. “He’s waiting for you upstairs. I’ll come with you.”
The offer warms my stomach, even as I wrap the towel around my shoulders. But I shake my head in refusal. “No. I’ll speak to him.”
Kit crosses his arms. “Anastasia.”
“Kit.” I mimic his position, before I drop my hands. “I… it’s fine. I can take it.”
I’m not scared of Silas. He won’t hurt me. At least, not physically.
But his tongue is fucking sharp. And I don’t want Kit to see that, don’t want him to feel like he has to take sides, like he has to choose between me and his brother.
And maybe… maybe he wouldn’t choose me anyway.
He blows out a breath, and I let out one of my own as he leans forward, wrapping me in his arms. “I’m filthy.”
“I don’t care,” he says roughly. “You don’t trust me yet. Do you?”
I freeze, my body hardening against him. “What?”
“I get it,” he says in a low voice. His hands rub up and down my back, and I close my eyes. “When you spend so long on your own, it’s hard to rely on anyone else. And I haven’t exactly given you any reason to believe that you can lean on me.”
He steps back, and I glance down to where he holds my hand securely in his. Following it up, to where deep, dark violet eyes watch me closely.
“I told you I would wait forever for you,” he says quietly. His thumb rubs over my skin, slow, comforting strokes. “And if it takes forever to prove to you that I’m not going anywhere, then I’ll spend every day showing you, Stasi. You are not on your own. Not anymore.”
My breath catches, as I watch him. My heart squeezing, my throat tightening up. With want.
Because I want what he’s offering.Desperately.
But the good things that happen to me have a real habit of not lasting.
I’m not sure I could cope if it happened again.
“Come on,” he says, his eyes tracing my face. “I won’t stay, not if you don’t want me to. But I’ll take you in. And when you’re done, come up and use my shower.”
I swallow. “I have a bathroom now.”
“I know,” he says mildly. He leads me out of the kitchen, up the steps and towards the study that used to belong to William. When he knocks, heavy,angry-soundingfootsteps echo.
Trepidation makes me stand a little taller, and Kit chooses that exact moment to lean down and whisper in my ear. “But I want you to stay with me.”
The color floods my face as the door swings open. Silas ignores his brother completely, his blue eyes travelling over me. Assessing my soggy state, my chaotic nest of hair. The mud.
