“Don’t you look before you climb into a bath?!” I said, sweeping more bubbles closer to me so that there was no chance he’d get a peek of something beneath the water. Not that I didn’twanthim to see…but in the scenarios I’d fantasized about, I’d had a little more control over the situation.
Octavian, meanwhile, had already recovered from his initial shock. He stepped back, lowering himself onto the ledge opposite mine. I let out a breath of relief as the distracting bits of him disappeared beneath the water—and I ignored the tickle of disappointment that followed.
“I apologize,” he rumbled. “I had no reason to believe this bath was occupied. I was under the impression you were taking a nap in one of the spare rooms.”
“Well, it could have been someone else in here,” I pointed out, still flustered.
“Perhaps, but in Therador, it’s not unusual for people to bathe together. True, the public bathhouses are sometimes split by gender, but even when they aren’t, it’s not considered obscene for two people to wash at the same time, especially in a large bath like this.”
“Oh.” He had a point—this was only inappropriate if we let it be. Wasn’t Esmer always going off about how ridiculously puritan American culture was, and how we’d sexualized even the most innocent, mundane forms of nudity? I was an adult, Octavian was an adult, and there was no reason this had to be anything more than two people bathing.
Even if it was really, really hard not to stare at his pecs right now.
“Of course,” he said, “if you’re uncomfortable—”
“I’m fine,” I assured him quickly. I wasdeterminedto pull myself together and not make things unnecessarily awkward. For once.
He didn’t look convinced. “If you’d prefer to be alone, there’s a lock on the door—”
“Really, it’s okay,” I said, silently cursing Ary for not pointing out the lock to me. Knowing her, she’d probably planned this little encounter herself.
“I’d be more convinced if you didn’t look like a terrified turtle trying to crawl into her shell,” Octavian said.
I straightened, lifting my chin from the suds. If I let myself sit up completely straight, the tops of my shoulders emerged from the water, but my breasts were still safely underneath the bubbles.
“Better?” I asked, forcing myself to look him in the eyes for the first time.
That was a mistake. Because the moment our eyes locked, a bolt of heat traveled through me, all the way down to my toes. I became very aware of the water against my bare skin, the feathery touch of bubbles against the tops of my breasts.
And I could see how dark his gaze had become, how much his pupils had dilated. He might claim that this was all perfectly innocent, but there was no doubt in my mind that he was just as aware of our nakedness as I was. The air between us was so charged my flesh practically buzzed with it.
The old me—and arguably thesmarterme—would have looked away. Instead, I held his eyes, silently daring him to acknowledge his true thoughts.
But he wasn’t like his brother Radven. He wasn’t so blunt with his desire, which made this both harder and easier at the same time.
You’re a grown-ass woman, I reminded myself.There’s no reason to be afraid of a naked man.At least not an honorable one like Octavian.
But then I remembered how little I really knew about him, how he’d conveniently failed to tell me some pretty major things about himself.
“You never said you were some kind ofhero,” I blurted, more accusatorially than I intended.
He blinked, the desire in his eyes disappearing briefly behind a flicker of confusion.
“Everyone out there knows who you are. You’re alegend,” I said. “I thought you were hiding under that cloak so the zhespers wouldn’t see you. Not becauseeveryonein Ring-Around-the-Hill would recognize you.”
His face was unreadable, but his eyes had taken on that bleak, hollow look. “It’s been a long time since I was this ‘hero’ of theirs.”
“It doesn’t sound like something you can just stop being,” I said. “These people clearly still see you that way. They’ve believed in you all this time.”
“I’m not who they remember,” he said. “Too much has changed.”
He looked so lost, so broken in that moment that I was halfway across the bath to him before I remembered we were both still naked.
I lowered myself back down fully into the water, sinking onto the ledge to his right instead of returning to the opposite side of the basin. And then I found myself bringing up the thing Ireallywanted to know.
“Ary said you can change shape,” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to saymanticoreout loud, but the image flashed in my mind anyway—sharp teeth, piercing claws, feathered wings.
The shift in his expression was instant. Gone was the bleakness in his eyes, replaced instead by something fierce and terrifying and—animal.
