“But—”
“They’re waiting for us,” he reminds me.
I straighten away, reality slowly filling in the gaps that pleasure had created. “They’re going to suspect something.”
“They already have.”
“What have they said?” I ease away so he can stand. Never have I been so focused on the way a man rises to his feet, the long, strong line of his back. The pert roundness of his rear that I focus on for far, far too long.
“Nothing, yet. But they will.”
“How do you know they suspect something then?”
“They’re my covenant, they are all bound to me as I am to them.” He pauses briefly, hands on his nightshirt. His eyes dart to mine and I can sense a brief moment of hesitation. One that ends with him pulling it over his head. “See.”
“Oh.” That’s all I can muster.
I know what he’s trying to show me—the markings that are similar to mine across his body. There’s one by his elbow. One underneath his left pectoral. One indented into the V shape that disappears into the front of his trousers, leaving me jealous of some black ink. But, if I’m honest, my focus only grazes on the markings and, instead, lingers on the indents of his lean muscles—the deep shadows hammered by struggle and famine. Scars accent his flesh, white and deep, crisscrossing over his perfect form.
“The other marks.” I manage to find words despite the sight of him leaving me nearly breathless. “Are you bloodsworn with all the others, too?” I saw similar marks on his covenant.
“They have sworn their oaths to me, marking our blood…but it is not quite the same as a bloodsworn. The bond of a bloodsworn is different, deeper.” Ruvan pauses midway to collecting his shirt, instead standing before me. I lean back slightly, trying to take him all in. I don’t know what I’ve done to earn such a display but I don’t want to risk doing anything that could end it. “This scar is from the first time I went to the old castle. This one is from before the long night, when Tempost was a city of desperate people.”
“And desperation breeds stupidity,” I echo my mother’s words softly.
“Too true.” He wears a bitter smile. “This one is from when I first awoke. And this is from when I was clumsier with weapons…” He lists off all his scars, one by one, until he reaches his forearm. Unlike the other scars, the skin is still gnarled and greenish. Festering. “You know this one.”
“It still looks so poorly.”
“It might always.” He pauses. “Does it disgust you?”
“I don’t think anything on you could disgust me.”
He’s as surprised as I am. Ruvan’s lips part slightly before smirking. “You’re certain of that? Your eyes held a lot of disgust for me when you first arrived.”
I shake my head and huff. “What do my eyes hold now?”
“They hold…” He trails off, pausing, thinking. My breath grows shallow as I wait for what he’s about to say—what I can feel but have yet to put words to myself. “Not disgust.”
“Will you be all right?” I ask, slightly shifting the conversation away from that place of breathless tension.
“I have no choice.”
“I’ll help you,” I say with conviction.
“Because you are my bloodsworn?” he asks with guarded eyes.
“BecauseIwant to.”
“Good.” He squeezes my hand and resumes getting dressed.
I slip out of the room, giving him privacy, and take the moment to collect myself. The skyline of Tempost catches my eye out the window and I pause before it, inhaling deeply and letting the air out slowly. My breath fogs the glass, turning it into a more mirrored surface.
Dark, short hair. Dark eyes. Tanned skin mottled with my own scars. It’s still me. Just as much as Ruvan’s mark is between my collarbones. The bloodsworn and the vampir are now a part of me, as much as the smithy is, as much as my mother’s words, or my brother’s training, or the hamlet’s old stories are… They all are me. Yet not onedefinesme.
I won’t let it. I want to choose every moment, one after the next. I want to be my own woman.
Iwillbe, for the first time ever.
