But because the fucker’s strange attitude was affecting Sanora, Thrax had put him out of his misery and left him instruction notes, and he’d confessed his sins to her with tears, begging her on both knees.
That was the last person she dated because it had freaked her out of her mind. She’d pulled back from relationships right then, pouringher time into her education. And Thrax—fool that he was—had never been prouder for that fantastic decision.
Fast forward to some months ago, when she bought the train ticket to Nimorran. Thrax had been ecstatic and worried all at once. Worried because he didn’t want her to find out about her fate at all. Ecstatic because he thought it wouldn’t be so bad to be selfish for once andstudyher from up close. In a small town. So he’d come to Nimorran a month ahead, waiting for her.
After Sanora had wandered straight into death’s mouth twice, he’d had no choice but to intervene. He’d moved in with her to keep an eye on her. He hadn’t planned to do that, she’d forced his hand.
And he knew he’d made the right decision when he found out that Nimorran’s forces were planning to eat her up.
They’d anticipated that he’d bring her there himself and coerce her into handing him her soul, which would have given them their chance to strike her down before he could claim it. But since he had no plan of bringing her, The Crater had called to her and been trying to pull her to her death.
All so she wouldn’t be able to give Thrax her soul.
All so she’d die before she thought about handing it to him.
Selvanyra’s cruel handiwork. The goddess didn’t mind killing her offspring's soul over and over if it meant his endless torment continued. She wanted Sanora destroyed before she could even think about surrendering to him
Defying the universe in her tricky way.
He pieced everything together some days after Sanora came to Nimorran, and he’d spent an hour laughing because oh, wasn’t Selvanyra cruelly creative?
The creak of a door opening upstairs yanked him out of his thoughts, followed by light footsteps.
Sanora.
She stepped out of her room, adjusting the strap of her black nightie, her messy bun making her look half-wild, half-innocent. She was fanning herself, skin flushed from heat, as she made her way to his room. She paused, though, sensing him below. Then she backed a walk to the landing, stilling when her eyes found him.
He believed she’d woken up to change into a lighter wear because that wasn’t what she went to bed with. And the fact that she’d been fanning herself meant she’d been hot in his room.
Nimorran’s weird weather.
“You’re back,” she murmured, voice husky with sleep.
She started down the steps, the glow from the living room catching her frame. He drank her in—the cascade of strands that escaped her bun, the dazed glimmer in her eyes, the softness of her lips, the delicate line of her throat...until his gaze caught on the scar above her shoulder.
His eyes darkened at the memory of the day it had happened. He’d been in Nimorran that time, scheduled to leave in a week. When he got back and found out about the incident from the neighbouring whispers—and the fact that the bastard who had done it had run away before he could be arrested—he’d hunted him by himself.
Thrax never had the chance to bloody his hands because the man didn’t last long. He wouldn’t say he didn’t kill him either. But the scum had died two days later from a deadly disease that had been left untreated.
It was the first time Thrax was seeing the scar up close. Sanora didn’t like showing it. She preferred clothes that hid it, and that made him want to map it with his thumbs the way someone marks a possession. The other times he’d seen the scar were from afar, when she’d stroll past her room window briefly in strapless tops.
She stepped down fully and stopped in front of him, reaching out and taking both his palms in her hands. The contact did what nothing else could do: it ignited him.
Her fingers brushing the fresh skin sent a thrill slamming through him so intense he clenched his teeth because he could not let himself jerk his hands away from her grip. Whenever she touched him unexpectedly like that, especially when his body was still recovering from blood loss, it would feel as though his body was trying to tear itself apart just from her skin against his. It was agony and ecstasy in one breath.
She rubbed her thumbs along the line of wound on his palms. “You’re not going to tell me what you always sneak out to do?” she whispered, curious and affectionate.
He could not lie to her. Couldn’t even say a word. If he opened his mouth to speak in this moment when his guards were down and he was vulnerable and at mercy to her touch, he might start spilling all that he’d kept a secret.
Instead, he stared at her for a long moment before freeing his hands and cupping her face. He lifted her head gently so the green in her eyes met his. He always needed the simple geometry of her face to remind himself he was still tethered to something human.
“I’m doing okay,” he said, voice dry but steady for her sake. Then he asked, “For how long have you been awake?”
“Maybe ten minutes. Not long.” She wrapped a hand around his wrist. “Come to bed with me.”
Goddamn.
The single sentence hammered through him with more force than necessary, and she didn’t know.
