She flared her nostrils. “Care to share what you lied about this time, or will I have to settle for some cryptic answer now and find out later?”
“What do you think, Nya?”
He was moving closer to her, cutting across the deeper middle portion of the pool. She ignored the flutter of heat in her belly at the sight of his bare torso and kept her eyes from wandering any lower below the water.
“I don’t know,” she whispered as he stopped directly in front of her. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
He lifted his hand slowly, and her breath hitched loudly as he traced his fingertips lightly over the spot just above her collarbone where he’d bit her. The sensation was jarring; the spot was much more sensitive than it should have been.
“I lied about intending to do this, for one,” he murmured. “That damned demi-god daughter of Juno brought it up to me in the first place before she performed the marriage ceremony.”
“Ana?”
He dipped his chin, eyes fluttering shut. “I told her I wouldn’t do it, even if it made some sense strategically. I doubt her reasons had anything to do with politics, though. Children of Juno are always annoyingly cryptic and meddlesome.”
“So whydidyou do it?” Nya whispered.
The scarred column of his throat worked. “I couldn’t get the idea out of my head once she put it there. You hate me and have every right to. I knew it then and I know it now.” He rested his hand over her neck, not tightening his grip, just feeling her rapid pulse beneath his palm. “You’ll probably always hate me, and, selfishly, for just a second, I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t leave me regardless. I…I’m sorry, Nya. It can’t be undone, and you’re the one paying the price for my moment of weakness.”
Her lips parted, and his gaze dipped to her mouth. He looked away quickly, but still, she caught it, just like she caught the wayhis eyes darkened as his pupils spread. With a sharp inhale, he moved away, settling a few paces away against the ledge to her right. Before she could stop herself or think too much about just what she was doing, she stood, the soaked white material of her shift clinging to her skin as she approached him, heart in her throat. He went completely still as she lifted a hand to his jaw, tracing the hard edge of it and then ghosting her fingers over the curve of his neck.
“Are you alright?” she whispered.
He didn’t reply right away, his eyes dipping and then bouncing back to her face, as if he was trying not to look at the places entirely visible through the water-sheer fabric but couldn’t quite stop himself.
His voice was gruff when he said, “What?”
She slid her hand down, brushing her fingers over the angry-red mark on his chest. “From earlier? You were hurt.”
“It healed fine.”
She nodded, biting her lip. “You couldn’t breathe.”
He gently tugged her lip from her teeth,tsking. “And you’re going to hurt yourself constantly doing that.”
“Morgen. You were coughing up blood.”
He shrugged. “My lung got punctured somehow, I think. There were lots of sharp things around, and Varax hit Heles pretty hard when we portaled. I tried not to, but it’s hard to be precise when I’m distracted like that.”
Her eyes widened. “You punctured your lung?”
“I presume, yes. One of the more unpleasant injuries to heal, for sure.”
“Did you at least pass out while it was healing?”
He brushed a tangled strand of her hair back. “I never do. The embers always keep me conscious when my body’s healing, though I’m not entirely sure why.”
“So you still felt all the pain? Just without the dying part?”
His brow creased. “You don’t have to pretend to be worried.”
A small, disbelieving laugh escaped her. “Do you think me heartless?”
“I think you are angry with me.”
Her hand was still pressed against his chest, and she pushed hard against his skin, shaking her head. “My anger doesn’t cancel out everything else. Iwishit did. It would make convincing myself to hate you so much easier.”
“Do you hate me?”
