Page 49 of Bond of Passion

Chapter 17

Tavin held in a groan as he separated from Deja and leaned against the bathroom sink. At least he didn’t have to get undressed. He wasn’t sure his muscles were coordinated enough to get clothes off. Heck, he wasn’t sure he could get into the shower by himself.

How humiliating.

Good thing he was too exhausted and in too much pain to care a whole lot.

As if Deja could read his mind, she brushed past him. “Here, let me get the shower going for you.”

He wanted to protest out of sheer pride—the way he’d rejected her help earlier. But fuck it. He was tired. Achy. Probably stinky.

None of that kept him from noticing her long, muscular legs and the way her ass looked in his boxers, though. She must have cinched the hell out of them to keep them around her waist. She looked good. Good enough to take his mind off his pain for a second.

She tested the water with her palm and turned to him. “It’s warm but not hot. Do you need help getting in?”

The shower was three feet away. Seemed farther than that. “No. Thanks. I can manage.”

“Okay, but if you need anything, yell.”

He waited until she closed the door behind her before he stepped inside the warm spray and moaned in pleasure. The water turned red at his feet as it washed away the dried blood. Maybe the memories would wash away too.

Because that had not been fun.

Years ago, he’d been contracted out to heal one of Satan’s prisoners, a human who was now mated to one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The same human he’d later been contracted to kill. Arik had been imprisoned and tortured relentlessly, and it had been Tavin’s job to heal him so he wouldn’t die.

That had been one of Tavin’s worst assignments, second only to Gristlen’s.

He’d watched that human suffer day after day and had decided right then that torture was something you should try damned hard to avoid. So, he’d healed the guy over and over, even when Arik asked him to put him out of his misery. As much as he’d felt for the human, killing him would have gotten Tavin tortured in his place.

Arik would probably get a kick out of hearing what Tavin had just gone through. Especially since Tavin had nearly killed him later after Arik escaped Satan’s prison. Nothing personal. Just another assignment.

Just another contract.

He spat bitterly into the drain.

“You doing okay in there?” Deja’s muffled voice was barely audible over the sound of the shower, but he still jumped as if he’d been goosed. When had she snuck back in?

“Yeah.” Tavin grabbed the soap and futilely tried to scrub the last twenty-four hours off his body.

“Your brother stopped by to see you just now. He would have waited for you to get done showering, but he was on a break from work and had to go.”

Grim had never been one to wait for anything, so the work call was probably bullshit. “I’ll call him later.”

He expected her to go, but a moment later, she said, “Um, I don’t know if those demons told you, but the bomb at the hospital was meant for you—revenge from someone you killed. You know. Before. When you were an assassin.”

“Ah, yeah, thanks. I know when I killed people for a living.” He also remembered a little of the battle after the viper had bitten him, and the sight of his sword cutting through Mako was crystal-clear. And satisfying.

Her shadow shifted on the other side of the frosted shower curtain. “Sorry.”

She didn’t sound sorry. But she didn’t need to be. She’d saved his life, and he owed her more than defensiveness and snark.

“Anyway,” she continued, “how much do you remember after the fight?”

Besides Mako’s entertaining demise, he remembered getting free of his shackles and shutting down Anius with them. He recalled the serpent biting him. There were bits and pieces beyond that, screenshots of him ripping a guy’s throat out with his teeth and exploding eyeballs out of people’s heads.

His signature move, the exploding eyeball thing. Man, that was a game-changer in any battle. It was hard to fight when you couldn’t see.

And were in great pain.