But it hadn’t been easy.
Worse? Du had known it. He’d always known how women coveted his body, and that devilish smirk on his face confirmed it as he cut a glance toward her sister. “Actually, it’s exactly what she’s thinking, love. I was buried to me hilt inside you when she arrived to disturb us. Damn shame she couldn’t have tarried a bit longer.”
Vine had blushed an even a darker shade of red than Marcelina. “Why are you being so cruel as to taunt her?”
Refusing to answer, he’d let out a deep sigh, then gotten up to wash himself off without dressing or covering any part of his anatomy.
He was a shameless barbarian, after all.
But it was only then that she’d seen the horrendous scars on his back and across his buttocks. Deep and ridged, they’d made her jaw go slack as she tried to imagine the horrendous beatings he must have endured to be marred so grievously.
Vine pulled her dress over her head, then rushed to Marcelina’s side. “He’s not so awful, sister.”
As if! She knew better than what Vine proclaimed. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see—”
Vine had cut her words off by placing her fingers over Marcelina’s lips before she led her into a dark corner. “You are the one who told me that no one is beyond redemption or unworthy of forgiveness.”
Mara had choked on those words being thrown in her face. While she believed that where others were concerned … “He’s a different beast!” Most assuredly!
Those whispered words had caused him to glance at her with a sneer that had chilled her all the way to her soul. Snatching at his black robe that had been cast to the floor with careless abandon, he’d thrown it over his head, and left them to speak in private.
But not before he’d given her a look so cold and malevolent that it had rattled her all the way to the marrow of her bones.
“What were you thinking?” She’d scowled at Vine.
“That an enemy leashed is better than one who wanders, unwatched.”
“Meaning?”
“We have no one to protect us. You are bound to him. Forever. Since you can’t leave and I have nowhere else to go, I was trying to woo said beast and tame him.”
Marcelina had gaped in horror at the very thought. “Are you mad? There are some beasts beyond taming. And I’d plant him firmly at the top of said list.”
“You don’t know him.”
“Neither do you.”
Vine shrugged and stepped back. “Maybe, but he’s the best chance we have at survival. You know it as well as I do.”
She’d rolled her eyes at Vine’s naiveté. How could her sister be so stupid?
So blind?
And against all her protestations and rationale, Vine had pursued Dón-Dueli until he’d convinced them both that he was harmless and in love with her sister. Like Vine herself, Marcelina had bought into those lies.
Though he’d never been overly affectionate toward Vine, he hadn’t been cruel to her. Which for him was a miracle, as he was a bastard animal to everyone else.
Everyone.
Even fiercely trained, massive warriors had scuttled away like terrified rodents at his approach.
But to her and Vine, at least, he’d practiced restraint. So long as Marcelina had lived in his home, he’d treated her with deference and had gutted anyone who showed her anything less than their best behavior. His protection over Vine had been even more extreme. To the point that some of his savagery still haunted her.
Honestly, Mara didn’t know what had finally happened to tear his marriage apart. Or why her sister had chosen to kill him. Vine had never explained herself. While Vine had been high-strung and at times overemotional, she hadn’t normally been that extreme, reckless, or cruel.
Of course, Du tended to bring out the very worst in all beings.
And since their return to the mortal realm, Du had been even more distant and hollow than while married to her sister.
