“The children had fallen into our realm. The teachings of my parents are why I stopped and saved those children. I brought them home and they became family. A brother and a sister, however… human,” he says, and his mouth twists.
He lurches his gaze back to mine.
Like I’m to blame.
I sink back into the tiled wall.
“I tolerated them for the sake of my teachings,” he tells me. “For the sake of my mother and father. But those children do notdevote themselves to Dorcha or the gods as they should. They are spoiled, stumpy things that demand and expect, and would eat the worlds whole with their greed and self-pity.”
The chill rises in the air and nips at my flesh.
My skin is prickling all over.
Slow, I slip off the edge of the bath, the sudden urge to create space pulling me into a retreat.
The water suddenly rushes as he pushes up to stand. And I forgot, just for a dangerous stupid moment, how massive he is.
My insides twist.
“I killed my brother,” he says and takes a step out of the bathtub. “It was his own doing. But the blame fell on me. I was pushed out from the only family I had ever known.”
His lashes lower over those sharp eyes, and the look he gives me is a dark, chilling one.
My feet slide over the tiles—until my back hits the wall.
Samick follows, step after step, dripping with the bathwater, hair stuck to his face.
He stops, towering over me, and practically growls, “But you tell me I do not know loss.”
THIRTEEN
Samick’s hand shoots through the air like a blur of mist and snatches my chin.
Already, my back is pressing against the wall—but his grip is firm, and he closes the slight distance between us, until he’s pushing my spine too hard against the tiles.
A guttural sound escapes me, a blend of pain and cold fear. Almost as cold as the ice sheeting his eyes.
I grab onto his wrist, nails cutting into his flesh. But it’s as though he doesn’t feel it at all.
His eyes are sleet. Slushed snow and ugly winter.
A rage I haven’t seen on him before.
It tugs the breaths out of me unevenly, a shuddering rise and fall of my chest.
My other hand keeps the towel in place, fingers tightly clutching it to my breasts.
“You sacrificed your friend,Emily,” he enunciates her name, like it’s a dagger unsheathed, “for your own safety. And you would do it again, woman. But you judgeme.” His fingertips dig into the flesh of my jaw, pursing out my lips. “You are the most self-pitying human I have come across in these lands. You pass judgement on others too freely.”
The pad of his thumb drags over my face, from my jaw to the corner of my pursed mouth. The pressure of his touch digs into my skin.
And his gaze drops—watching as his thumb drags along my lips, smushing them.
“You believe your pain is the only pain that matters,” he murmurs, like his mind has been swept away, elsewhere, and he hardly hears his own words. “That it is the currency of the worlds. But I have felt pain and suffering in most.”
His thumb slides back to the bone of my jaw, then presses, hard. His grip readjusts, angling my cheek to him.
“You are not special.”
