The sensation was not new to her. In fact, she had once grown too accustomed to the need to purge herself of anything and everything that proved to be a reminder of her past. Dirt. Cold. Darkness. Rough stone.
That it returned now, thanks to Loren Gard, the man who once made her feel safe, only angered her more. Yet she could not stop herself any time the urge to cleanse arose—even in the most inopportune moments.
The evening Phulan approached her and Azriel about her plans for Algorath was one such time. As the mage spoke, her voice drifted farther and farther away as Ariadne fought back thememories of sand sticking to her skin. It clawed its way across her arms and face, dragging the echo of Kall’s laugh along with it, before the phantom grains turned into hands that held firm to her wrists.
Spouting a quick acceptance of what Phulan suggested—hardly taking note of the small team she planned to take with her—Ariadne turned on her heel and rushed back to her room, the world narrowing into nothingness.
After clarifying several pieces of information with Phulan and ensuring they would be taken care of by Lhuka and Jakhov, Azriel followed Ariadne’s path back through the keep to their room. The question of what had caused her sudden departure had his mind spinning and the bond roaring for answers. That he’d been able to keep his head on straight while solidifying the details with Phulan was, unto itself, a miracle.
Logically, Azriel knew it hadn’t been very long since Ariadne’s sudden departure from their conversation. He knew she could be, at most, two minutes ahead of him. Yet as he made his way through the halls, time slipped through his fingers. It stretched out around him in a maze of heartbeats that separated him from his distraught wife, and before long, he lost track of it entirely.
So when he fumbled for the latch to the door of their shared room, Azriel’s breaths burned in his lungs. All he could hear aside from the thunder of each pump of his blood were eight words, repeated over and over in Ariadne’s voice.
I hate you more than you hate yourself.
Cursing under his breath, he burst through the door and scanned the room wildly, seeking any sign of her.
The cry that escaped him was akin to a wounded animal. Azriel kicked the door closed before launching across the room to where Ariadne sat half-clothed in their massive tub, the water so shallow he could not see it until he got closer. Except it wasn’t all water. Where he expected the liquid she sat in to be clear, he found it to be swirling with ribbons of crimson.
“What are you doing?” Azriel cried, unable to contain the panic in his voice.
But Ariadne didn’t respond. She didn’t look up at him. If she registered his presence at all, he would’ve been surprised. Instead, she sobbed openly as she dragged a coarse brush meant for scrubbing stone floors over her arms again and again, peeling away her skin so it shone raw and bloody.
Azriel fell to his knees and grabbed her wrist over the brush-wielding hand, only to release it the moment she screamed. It wasn’t a scream of pain, but one of terror.
“Alhija,” he gasped, grappling for the brush. She yanked it out of his reach before sliding it across her chest, then up her neck. Streaks of red blossomed in its wake, then slid down her fair skin. His stomach churned at the sight, the monster inside unable to locate the source of her distress.
Forcing back the horrible memories of their first encounter, Azriel grit his teeth and grabbed her arm again. Ariadne’s scream tore through him like a blade, ripping the air from his lungs. Still, he held on. Still, he forced her hand to stop its incessant scrubbing.
Ariadne thrashed. “Let go of me! Let go! Let go!”
He ripped the brush from her grip, and she threw herself forward in an attempt to snatch it back. Instead, Azriel wrapped his arms around her, hauled her from the tub, and held tight as she writhed in his hold.
“Letgo!” The screams grew louder and louder, and the way she moved was not that of a trained fighter. A trained killer.Each desperate motion, fueled by something he couldn’t see or confront, was identical to that night a year and a half ago when he’d dragged her from the Harlow Estate to these very halls.
“Ariadne, listen to me,” he choked out, his hands slipping over the blood that still streaked her healing wounds. “You arehere. You aresafe. You aremine.”
Again, she screamed, and this time, she threw her head back. Her skull collided with his nose, and he silently cursed himself for not protecting his own face. Though his eyes watered, no metallic taste followed.
“Let me go!” The words faded from shrieks to a cry of desperation before fading into a defeated moan. “Please let me go…”
“Sabharni,alhija,” he breathed as he held her steady.
When her knees gave out, Azriel sank to the floor with her. Enduring her sobs wasn’t new to him, yet each time broke him a little more. His bond throttled him, blaming him for every ounce of her pain.
“You are here,” he repeated, bending the words she so often used to calm him after Algorath. “You are safe. You are mine. Only mine.”
Again and again, he said the words, watching her self-inflicted wounds heal to leave behind pale scars that would disappear within hours. The minutes trickled past, slow and steady and agonizingly loud as a blacksmith’s hammer striking an anvil. Yet as sure as the formation of a fresh blade, Ariadne’s pulse slowed. Her breaths evened out.
Sure enough, she relaxed into his arms with a long exhale, her body shaking from the exertion. From there, she cried, nearly silent.
When she’d calmed enough to hear his words, Azriel whispered, “I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to keep you safe.”
Ariadne whimpered, then said, “I was not strong enough. I tried. I promise I tried.”
A thousand possibilities ran rampant through his mind at that. There was so much she hadn’t said, so much she’d kept to herself, so much from which she’d tried to protecthim.
And wasn’t that a horrible realization?
