I jerked away, pulse racing. Bands of afternoon sunlight sliced through the windows I’d wrenched open. Outside poured in, smelling of fresh grass and tree pollen. I wasn’t sure what had compelled me to rip those curtains down, but in that moment I was grateful for the full force of the sunlight, if only to clear my spinning head.
Rogan stepped back and adjusted his trousers. I turned at the same time, fussing over the towels and soap to hide my flaming cheeks. A razor lay half-open on the table, and I gave it a few experimental swipes on the strip of leather. It was, indeed, dull. Iset to sharpening it. Rogan dragged a chair in front of the window and sat down.
“You do know how to shave a man,” Rogan asked over the rhythmic strop of steel on leather as I sharpened the razor. He was trying to act normal—but his voice rasped uneven. “Don’t you?”
“Nervous?” The metal began to gleam.
“Yes, now, a bit.” He waited. I let him sweat. “Honestly, changeling, do you know how?”
“If I wanted to slit your throat, princeling, I’d have done it a long time ago.” I tested the edge of the razor against my thumb. It was sharp enough. I reached for one of the soft warm towels, meaning to wrap it around Rogan’s shoulders. “Your mantle will get wet.”
With his back to me, he misunderstood my words. He sat straighter in his chair, then pulled his mantle over his head. Sunlight bathed the sculpted planes of his chest in jessamine and honeycomb. A constellation of freckles kissed his shoulders, bunching with muscle as he threw the garment on the floor. Scars etched his thick arms and rippling back, souvenirs of reckless blades and cruel fathers. Some, I’d given him. Some were new. Others, I remembered tracing with my fingertips as sunset bled toward night.
My fingers twitched against the towel, hanging limp from my hands.
“Changeling?”
I dropped the towel, hurrying to pick up the ewer and soap. Water slopped all over the floor.
“Tilt your head toward me.” I hoped he couldn’t hear the catch in my voice.
He did as I asked. I poured warm water over the top of his head. Rivulets streamed down his hairline and pooled in the hollow of his throat. I rubbed the sweet-smelling soap into a lather between my hands. Taking a deep breath, I worked the foam through his hair and beard.
I started on the hair first, combing through the mess, then trimming the ends. Clumps of dark gold fell to my feet. A suddenimage of close-cropped raven hair above moonlit eyes floated into my mind’s eye, and I was briefly tempted to cut it far shorter than would be fashionable. But Rogan would never forgive me if I chopped off his golden curls. I might not forgive myself.
Then I moved to his face, bracing one hand on his chin and tilting his head against my chest. The dampness of his hair soaked the fabric of my bodice and sent a restless chill zipping over my skin.
Short strokes—scritch, scritch, scritch. As I carefully swiped the razor along the stubble-rough planes of his face, I was painfully aware of my stomach pressing against his arm. His lips parting at my touch. His golden eyelashes fluttering shut as he exhaled a sigh of pleasure.
Finally, it was done. I poured the last of the lukewarm water over Rogan’s head, washing away lather in a stream of gray foam. In the moment before I handed him a towel, I schooled my expression.
Rogan briskly scrubbed the cloth over his head and face, then turned to face me.
Sunlight sculpted half of his face from golden stone and threw the rest of him into shadow. I was staring—Rogan’s mouth quirked, and he lifted a hand to gingerly pat his head.
“What? Have I been overpruned?”
I blinked. “No, I just—”
I circled the chair to face him in full sunlight. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten what he looked like without the beard. It wasn’t even that he looked more handsome clean-shaven—although he did—or that he looked so much older than when we were children, with his hard cheekbones and wry mouth. It was that in the simplest way possible—with water, soap, and razor—I’d changed him. With the sun streaming in on him, he seemed newly made, clean edged.
His eyes caressed my face, lingering on the curve of my lips. He took a step toward me. I took a step back, suddenly remembering the last time I’d been in his room.
“You never said—” His voice was low. “You never said how you learned to shave a man.”
He took another step. My spine struck the edge of the windowsill. I swallowed.
“Fionn liked to be clean-shaven.”
“Fionn?” It was less a name than a curse. “Who’s that?”
“The blacksmith’s apprentice.”
“And what,” he growled, “was my little changeling doing shaving the blacksmith’s boy?”
Bitter memories slowed the blood thrumming too fast in my veins. In the year after Rogan left, Fionn had been one of the many toxic substances I had taken into my body. Like the poisons Cathair had fed me, he had changed me. Polluted me. Hardened me. I still remembered the way his face had twisted with shame and disgust when his friends found out we were sleeping together.
Love a cailleach like her?He’d laughed at their taunts.I just like that she lets me do anything I please to her.
