“Yes. You are sad now. Why?”
I run my tongue along the inside of my cheeks.
The annoyance buds in me—that he dares to even ask me that.
But why wouldn’t he?
My questions can sometimes be more invasive than ‘why are you sad?’
I give a dull-toned answer, “I just thought of my mum, that’s all.”
His eyes crack with frost. “She is alive?”
I shake my head. “Dead. Has been for years.”
If he gives a shit, he doesn’t show it.
He watches as I dunk myself underwater, shake and sway my hair around, then rise with a splash.
He says nothing as I lather the shampoo through my hair, then rinse, then repeat. Still, he watches me, even as I soap up the facecloth and scrub over every inch of my skin.
And I’m done.
I climb out of the tub with a splash.
Water strikes the tiles.
Samick hands me a towel from the rack—but as he does, he makes no effort to hide that he looks, that he runs his gaze over me, head to toe.
I snatch the towel and wrap it around myself.
He watches as I stalk for the towel rack and snatch up another. My hair is soaked to the core, spilling water too freely to the tiles.
So I attack it with the towel.
Samick starts to unzip the sides of his leathers.
He strips—right here in front of me.
I face the mirror, cheeks hot…
And an uncomfortable coiling sensation disturbs my gut—because I watch him in the reflection.
The first time I saw them, these fae creatures, they made me sick to my stomach. The off-ness of them made my bones feel icky. I saw their wrongness, their almost humanlike appearancedistorted.
I still feel that way.
For all of them—but for Samick, that disgust is lessening. Maybe it’s gone completely.
His white blood doesn’t revolt me anymore; the points of his ears don’t cringe me anymore—and as he strips to the bare flesh, smooth and marble all over, no scars or blemishes in sight, just pure slinking muscle as he steps into the tub, I feel something in my belly that should be disgust… but isn’t.
Samick throws his gaze to me.
I look down at the sink.
Flames eat away at my cheeks, a shame that even reddens my freckled chest.
I wrap the towel around my head, let it soak up as much water from my hair as it can.
