But then he took a step toward me, allowing the moon to bathe him with its light. The horrifying sight of him tucked my gasp into my throat.
Stone was naked, stripped down to nothing. And slashed across his monstrous shaft were bulging saw-toothed scars, uneven rivers of white and pink flesh. The largest one split his skin and ran down the side of his shaft, then crossed the front before fading into a light thatch of blond hair. Along the insides of his thighs and around his pubic bone were white protruding scars. Dozens of them.
I would have taken a step back if I were standing and not paralyzed.
But I was lying on the floor, with a shiver skipping along my skin.
I finally lifted my back off the floor.
“Stone,” I whispered, trying to control the tremor in my voice. “What happened to you?”
He didn’t say anything. He only held my gaze with a demand in his eyes. Like his biggest secret had been revealed, and there was no use running from it. There was nowhere to hide.
Damp, white strands curved over his forehead and into his eyes. His skin was flushed, sweat slid down his jawline, and his ghoulish stitches had been ripped from his flesh. Blood gushed along the contours of his stomach and dripped from his gloved fingertips at his sides.
I crept back, using space to put a barrier between us. It was all I had left.
“You … you removed your stitches?” I tried to sound concerned and wanted to look away, to pretend that his disfigurement that looked pulled apart wasn’t there, but it was impossible to ignore, and my gaze slung across his silhouette.
If he answered, I didn’t hear him.
All I was consumed by were the scars staring back at me.
A moment of gratitude passed through me. Stone’s ugly was on display when mine could never be seen. I could hide mine. Stow it away. Bury it. But mine had a mind of its own, growing heinous thoughts that scratched out from their corners whenever they wanted.
Stone’s scars were repulsive, and I hated myself for thinking it. So much so that I wished my ugliness were a tangible thing to ball up and pitch into the fire. I wondered if he thought the same about his ugliness.
I felt him in that moment. How fitting that the only people who could ever know and see the horrific parts of us were the ones we decidedly exposed ourselves to. Whether we bare ourselves on the outside or on the inside.
“Did—Did someone do that to you?”
Stone didn’t say anything. He just looked at me.
A dead expression. A cast-iron outline.
Silent and unpredictable in an unnerving way.
But in his eyes, I watched how he slowly dissected my words, the tone in my voice, the cringe I should’ve hidden but didn’t.
He picked it all apart and shook his head. “Like what?”
I didn’t know if he was annoyed I’d asked or if he didn’t know what I was talking about. His gaze seemed far away, and his attention was seesawing throughout the room. Had the infection seized him at last?
I nudged my head to his waist. “Like your dick has been torn apart by a pack of wolves.” I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did. I was angry and scared and, as I’d said, my mind was no longer my property. It was owned by the thing I’d been damned with.
A hot and intense scowl burned his expression.
It was the second time his marble façade cracked and knelt before an emotion.
He took a step toward me. “Do you find me revolting?”
I inched back. “No.” The one word was strong and convincing. I shook my head for good measure, hoping it would ease his mind. “No, of course not.”
Stone took another step closer. “I want to believe you, but your face tells a different story.”
The dagger I’d brought was in my raincoat, but I was no longer wearing it. Although I did not recall ever taking off my coat, it was neatly hung on a hook beside the only exit in the room. There were shards of wood scattered below it. The throbbing in my head continued, as I remembered the hand gripping my wrist and Stone’s mention of this mother.
Is she still here? In this very room?
