Fight for me because someone said something cruel about the woman he chose, and his response wasn't politics or strategy. It was blood.
"What about my father?" I ask.
Something dangerous moves across Aidan's face. "I haven't touched him. I wanted to talk to you first."
I stare at him. "You wanted my permission?"
"I wanted to make sure you'd be okay with it. He is your father, after all."
The laugh that comes out of me is short and sharp and holds no humor at all. "He called me a whore, Aidan. He told the council I was damaged goods because he felt ashamed andwanted to curry favor. He tried to match me with Tomaas Linchenko knowing what that man would do to a wife who wasn't pure enough for him." I shake my head. "He's not worth your knuckles. He's not worth the blood on your shirt. He's nothing to me now."
Aidan watches me. Reading me. Making sure I mean it.
I mean it. For the first time, when I say my father is nothing, I feel the truth of it all the way down. He has no power here. Not over me.
"Okay," Aidan says. "Then I’ll leave him alone unless you tell me otherwise."
He stands there, this man with blood on his clothes and raw knuckles and eyes that haven't left mine since he walked through the door, and I do something I didn't plan.
I walk to him. I take his damaged hand and lift it and press my mouth against his split knuckles. Gently. I taste copper and I don't care. He goes completely still beneath the contact, and when I look up, the fury in his expression has been replaced by something stripped bare and aching.
"Come on," I say. "We should get you cleaned up."
I lead him to the stairs, to the bathroom that adjoins our bedroom. He follows without resistance; he lets me take his hand and pull him through his own house.
I reach into the shower and turn the water on. Steam begins to fill the room.
"I made a decision today," I say as I turn back to him.
"About what?"
I start unbuttoning his ruined shirt. My fingers work steadily, one button after another, peeling the blood-soaked cotton away from his skin. He watches me do it with dark eyes and doesn't move.
"I'm going to apply. To the university. The part-time psychology program." I push the shirt off his shoulders and it drops to the tile floor in a heavy, wet heap. "Three days a week. Two years."
Something shifts in his face. Through all the controlled fury, through the blood and the adrenaline and the aftermath of violence, something cracks open and what comes through is pure, undiluted light.
"Yeah?" His voice is rough.
"Yeah." I reach for his belt. "Your sister told me today about the time you gave a boy a black eye for bullying her and never admitted it."
"Iris talks too much."
"Iris talks exactly the right amount." I undo the buckle. "You've been protecting the people you love your whole life. Quietly. Without asking for credit. Without needing anyone to see it."
His hand comes up and covers mine where it rests against his chest. His skin is warm. His heartbeat is fast beneath my palm.
"I see it," I say. "I see you."
The words are his, turned back on him. The same thing he's been saying to me since the night he took me apart in the living room with nothing but honesty and patience. I see you. The most terrifying, most necessary thing anyone has ever offered me.
Now I'm offering it back.
His forehead drops against mine. His breath shakes, just once, and the vulnerability of it, from this man who is steady and sure and built like something designed to endure, undoes me completely.
"Get in the shower," I murmur against his mouth. "I'll be right behind you."
Aidan
