Page 52 of Empire of Dark
Her cheeks turning red, she shoved off from the wall and took two jerking steps around me. “I—I need to go. I need—” At that moment, her body gave out, collapsing against me.
My arm instantly went around her back to stop her fall and I bent, sliding my right arm underneath her knees, and I lifted her. No battle. Not a single one of her muscles tense and ready to fight me.
Just resignation. Exhaustion.
So much so, her body curled into my chest, her eyes slipping closed as I turned to walk out of the storage room and through the bowels of the castle.
My shoes clunked against the dank floor, echoing against the ancient stones. The only sound in the cavernous space, each thump a hammer to my gut.
How in the hell had she been awake and in that much pain for two days straight without sinking into pure madness?
Fury lit through my chest at the thought. That I’d let this happen. Let her suffer like this when it was so damn easy for me to fix her.
I carried her up the multiple flights of steps to her bathroom and set her into the empty tub, but kept my left hand behind her back so she didn’t feel the cold porcelain on her skin. True, I’d just scraped her off the chilly stones in the undercroft, but she was now in such a state of relaxation that I didn’t want to ruin it for her.
With my right hand I reached out and flipped on the hot water, then tempered it with the cold water.
She let me drag off her tank and bra and then strip down her yoga pants without so much as a whimper in my direction. I left the titanium cuff around her upper right arm in place. I’d never seen her without it on, so I didn’t think it my place to remove it, though my fingers did trace along the curves of the raised triple infinity mark for a long moment.
When the tub was full, her body submerged deep into the water, I finally dragged my hand out from behind her back.
I stood, not certain if I could leave her just yet.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood next to the tub, staring down at her. But it was long. Too long.
Her eyes opened slightly and she looked up at me. “I swear I won’t fall asleep in here.” She paused, swallowing, her stare on me raw and genuine. “Thank you. You don’t know…what that meant to me. How it helped me.”
I nodded, suddenly uncomfortable at the pure, honest gratitude in her words. And uncomfortable at my body’s reaction. I looked down at my left hand that seemed to already miss the feel of her body against it.
Uncommon. I never wanted to touch a female after I made them come for me. They were vessels for my seed. That was it.
Yet my hand hadn’t wanted to leave her back, hadn’t wanted to stop touching her.
Ada was nothing more than a vessel. A pathway to the next generation. To the future.
That was all.
The vessels had their purpose, whether malefic or panthenite, and then they were not needed in my life. It was always the way, since long before my time.
Always the way.
I needed to remember that.
She was forbidden.
Not my kind.
Chapter Thirteen
{ ADA }
I was once more at Damen’s table.
Only this time, I was terrified I’d take a bite out of the devil’s apple.
Hell. I probably already had.
Damen had let me sleep this morning, well into the afternoon. When I opened my eyes, I was greeted by—of all things—my dagger on the bedside table that he’d tossed away in the undercrofts, and just behind it, a plate of chocolate glazed donuts.