Asterie rubbed healing salves, which she’d gathered from palace healers, over the bruises on my ribs. She cleaned away all evidence of the pain I had endured that day—it seemed to be restoring her as much as me.
Her brow was still creased with worry. I wanted to kiss that crease away.
“You’re fretting over me…” I teased as she rubbed dirt from my chest with a rag. I grabbed her wrist and gently pulled her toward me. “And you’re wearing entirely too much while doing so. That is my only complaint.”
When she joined me in the stream of water, my bloodied green cloak grew wet and heavy on her frame. Asterie hadn’t bothered to undress, too busy tending to me. Her scowl was replaced with a half-hearted smile that could knock me dead. She braced her arms on the shower wall behind me, her lips just inches from mine. Our breath mingled, and my heart pounded.
“I almost lost you.” She whispered the words into my mouth as her eyes welled.
“I can say the same to you. But we are here.”
“Just let me tend to you. It is helping to keep me grounded—helping to convince me it is really over.”
I answered, “Let’s tend to each other. Alright?”
She nodded, resting her head on my forehead.
I stood and backed her out of the stream of water only long enough to undo the buttons of the wet cloak and let it fall. Beneath it was that damned nightdress, which clung to her wet body, showing me her peaked breasts. I’d have peeled it off with my teeth if she hadn’t begun to unbutton it herself. The evidence of where she’d been harmed remained caked in blood over her heart and down her thigh. Her skin still glowed that iridescent blue, though it was fading, and her color was returning.
So close.I’d been too close to losing her too.Never again.
“My fallen star—I’m forever yours. Let me rinse you off, and join me for a soak in that tub because there are things I’m too tired to do while standing right now.”
She dropped the nightgown and stepped into the stream of water in front of me. As I ran a cloth over every inch of her, blood rinsed away, coloring the water a rust hue as it ran down the drain. When I was finished, she led me by my elbow to the tub, finally passing an appreciative look over my bare body as I stepped in. I smirked, biting back a comment.
When I sunk into the heat of the water, a hiss escaped my lips.
I leaned back to take her in as she stepped into the tub. Water ran off her naked glowing form like rain sliding down a lit window pane.Sources, she was devastating.
“I love you, Asterie. I mean that. I can’t say it enough.”
“You barely know me.” It wasn’t denial. Her softly stated words were vulnerable as she met my gaze. I needed to find a way to prove to her that she could trust me.
“So are you saying that you don’t love me after all?” I teased.
“That is not what I said,” she responded sternly before pausing there over me. “I am serious, Fen. What if this is fleeting or just the aftereffects of our brushes with death? There are plenty of logical explanations that could feel like love.”
Taking her hand, I shook my head. That type of doubt gracing her lips was not allowed. Not now when my mind was so sure that she was everything to me.
It still pained me that she did not bring up my claim over her power, that she might feel a need to hide it. But I didn’t want to talk about a stupid fucking blood oath now.
“Love often isn’t logical. I plan to spend eternity proving my devotion to you.”
I pulled her down abruptly and caught her as her knees buckled around me with a splash. The whole tub lit with her presence. A laugh escaped her lips as she slipped into my arms, and the water rippled over the tub’s edges. That laughter, a sound more beautiful than any music, anything nature could create—it made everything we’d endured worth it.
“Does this feel fleeting?”
She shook her head as her hands found the back of my neck, and she let her lips brush my temple in a kiss so gentle it nearly brought me to tears. She quietly answered, “Not in the least.”
Her resolve removed the final weight of worry.
She added, “I think you might be stuck with me for a very long time, Fen.”
“Good,” I said. “I didn’t want to have to chase you around the realm begging on my hands and knees.”
“I might enjoy that,” she teased back.
A groan escaped me as she shifted her weight in my lap—positioned exactly where I needed her. “We’ll save that for another time.”
