The comment earned me the faintest eye-roll, but the corners of her mouth curved. Quinn disappeared into the washroom, pulling the door mostly closed behind her—mostly, because it didn’t latch properly and we both knew it.
I let out a sigh and flopped back on the floor, cursing under my breath.
Because now there was a woman—bare, beautiful, and seemingly cursed—in my washroom.
Fifteen paces away.
Steam hissed faintly through the doorframe, carrying the faint mineral tang of the pipes. A splash of water. The whisper of cloth sliding to the floor.
The tether stirred; the flex of a muscle in sleep. I felt it low in my chest, an awareness that wasn’t mine alone. As thoughsomewhere beyond the wall, she’d paused mid-movement, caught by the same inexplicable thread. A prickle ran beneath my skin. It wasn’t pain, but it wasn’t peace either. The feeling was too alive to ignore, too faint to understand. For one impossible heartbeat, I thought I could sense her. The thought left my pulse uneven.
I was officially going mad. Although I knew very little about the Tether gift, or any of the higher-order magics, I’d never heard of the connections it forged allowing communication. No. This delusion must have been born of my own loneliness and pathetic longing.
Saints help me.
I rolled onto my stomach, hoping it would somehow silence the thoughts clawing their way through my skull.
It didn’t.
I wasn’t an idiot. I’d seen naked women before. But this—this was different.
Because this wasn’t about sex.
It was about the fact that she trusted me enough to turn her back. To undress in a room that didn’t lock. To strip away her defenses and slip into something so human as hot water and soap.
It affected me more than I was prepared to admit.
A faint ripple in the tether again—as if the thought had carried across it. I froze, irrationally certain she might feel that I was thinking about her. I told myself that was ridiculous. Told myself it was just my imagination. But the paranoia refused to leave.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Tried to think of anything else. Sweating horses. Moldy soup. Wren’s snoring. Physical exams by surgeons with cold hands.
Nothing worked.
There was a bare woman in my room. In my tub. And I was trying very hard not to imagine the steam pooling over her collarbones,the curve of her legs, the way her hair might float like ink in the water?—
The tether gave another traitorous thrum.
Nope.
I sat up, slammed my fist gently into the mattress, and muttered, “You’re headed to the seven hells, Mav. The slow way.”
I stood and paced twice, then dropped back down, arms crossed behind my head, the picture of innocence.
The water shifted again, enough to imagine skin sliding against porcelain. I swallowed hard.
Get a hold of yourself. You are a gentleman.
Or I was at least a man who was trying.
And that had to count for something.
The door creaked open.
I didn’t look immediately, at the risk of seeming too eager or borderline unhinged. Or like I hadn’t spent the last ten minutes pretending the thin wall separating us might turn transparent at any moment.
Quinn stepped fully into the room, and my traitorous eyes slid to her. My mind and lungs ceased functioning in maddening harmony.
Hanging loose on her frame was one of my old tunics, navy linen, worn soft at the seams. The collar gaped at her collarbone. She’d pushed the sleeves to her elbows, hem brushing dangerously high on her thighs. Her legs—Saints, her legs—bare and pale, carried her across the floor as if this were any other day. As if her walking aroundmyroom, wearingmyclothing, and smelling ofmysoap was a normal occurrence.
