I have no response for him.
His words aren’t what send a flurry of ice to my belly. It’s that his other hand leaves the wall, where it was flattened, and grazes down the side of my neck.
My wet hair is stuck to my skin. My temples. The curve of my neck. My shoulders. The burn of my cheeks.
Samick peels them off my skin, strand after strand.
I feel every touch like a crisp, cold breath on my pebbling flesh. It’s more than his touch, more than the chill of the air, that’s burning my cheeks.
He turns my face back to align with his—and I look into his eyes.
A breath whispers out of me.
“You lied,” I say, soft, a murmur that shivers.
He looks at me from beneath his lashes. Rich jade green eyes, smouldering with an intensity that I recognise.
I saw it back at the prison, when he studied me.
But I remind him of his prejudice, of his disgust. The assertion he made so long ago in the woods.
“You said we repulse you.” The unease is in my whisper. “You said you’d never want a human, that you’d never desire us.”
That stare burns beneath his lashes.
For a long moment, he is unchanging.
Then, slowly, he draws back. Not more than a couple of inches, but it’s enough to invite a lashing of light from the torch. Pale, unkind light.
It’s kind to him.
So many times I’ve thought of him as sculpted from marble and ice and stone. But it’s always been detached thoughts and observations.
Now…
Now, it’s like I see him. His body. Not as a man or even a monster, but as a male.
But most of the light is still blocked by his towering form, and so shadows swallow most of him.
He considers me, and I consider him back.
He fights the rage frosting over his eyes, lacing and threading, greens spilling over white; a clash in him unfolding right in front of me, and I’m trapped.
A coldness spreads through my chest.
With just one hand, he reaches for the towel, slowly. Holding my gaze.
He grabs a fistful of the towel just above my clutched grip, then tears it. Literally, rips a strip of the fabric, and the awful sound hisses through the bathroom.
My insides lurch.
He gives a final yank—and a strip comes free.
My throat thickens.
Still, my hand is bunched in the towel, holding it to my chest, frayed pieces clinging to my skin.
My fingers are as rigid as metal.
