“She knows,” Gwin spat. “But like us, Red also thought you would show up dead.”
He didn’t answer her. My eyes stopped at the shadow beneath his collar, where a bloodstain marked the shirt.Is it his blood?
My legs moved instinctively but froze mid-step as my gaze darted back to the room. The staff members were scrutinising Reagan. Only Cerridwen scanned me, brows raised.
“Good. He’s alive then,” I said, willing my voice to sound indifferent. Without waiting for a reply, I turned away. “Good night.”
No one answered me. Cerridwen’s expression remained bewildered as I walked out of the room, lumbering toward the staircase, wishing I’d waited to hear his voice instead of barging in.
I let out a silent breath.
He was fine. Alive.
As if in response to my thoughts, the stiffness in my shoulders loosened. The tension from the past few days ebbed, though not all of my worries faded.
The murmurs of their conversation reached me as I hesitated at the top of the stairs, but they were too low to make out.
I continued until I reached my room, stopping just outside the door. Thoughts crossed my mind—thoughts I tried to push away. A different reason for my breath to quicken. Another explanation for my slackened mouth and the urge to go back.
Leaning against the opposite wall, I took a deep breath.
Relax. Just bloody relax.
I’d think about this tomorrow. Tonight, I was too tired to make sense of anything. Too on edge.
Movement to my side caught my attention, and I jerked upright.
Reagan stood at the end of the hallway and began moving toward me.
My heartbeat surged again under the weight of his intense gaze and the unspoken questions behind it.
He stopped between my bedroom door and me. A shadow of stubble lined his jaw, probably from days without shaving, and dark circles hung under his eyes.
It seemed like he didn’t know what to say either, or he was waiting for me to speak, because he stepped back, leaning against the door of my bedroom. His hands rested in front of his body, fingers folding and stretching.
I went to speak, but nothing came out. My eyes roamed the hallway, and a strange, restless flutter stirred in my stomach.
There was no reason for him to be here. This was not the way to his chambers. And it was the middle of the night.
Straightening, I peeled my back off the wall. “Good to see that you’re fine.”
His forehead creased. Reagan stepped away from the door, the handsome planes of his face illuminated by the candle sconces. The woody scent of the forest reached me when he stopped a breath away, and I inhaled.
“Do you want me here?” His voice was rough, rougher than in the dining room.
I didn’t know if he meant in Mountheim Hall or in this hallway, and I didn’t ask. My gaze lowered to his chest.
“Yes. Everyone was worried about you.”
“Evenyou?”
I paused, warmth sweeping through me. Instead of answering, I lifted a hand to his collar, where blood stained it. “Whose blood is this?”
He cocked his head. “A very unlucky creature.”
I swallowed, the sensation catching in my throat. As if moved by its own accord, my hand slipped from his collar, brushing against the bare skin of his chest. Warm, firm. Reagan didn’t move.
The last time I let myself touch him like this was in the Pool of Quintessence. The need I felt then surged through me just asstrongly now, at the scent of him, at the sheer feel of him. And I knew I wanted this.
