Of Thorns and Beauty by Elle Madison

Chapter Forty

Igasp, and water heaves and spews from my shaking body. I steal desperate breaths, eager to take in as much oxygen as I can.

My body works to expel the icy water, and every part of me throbs and writhes with the effort.

Once I’m finished, gentle hands cradle my head.

“Zaina? Can you hear me?”

I force my eyes open, but the movement is slow. Painful, even.

“Zaina?”

A blurred figure stares down at me. It takes several more moments to register that it’s Einar who is holding me. I must say his name aloud, because a hushed prayer of thanks escapes his lips as he pulls me closer.

Even with the relative warmth emitting from the king and Khijhana's fur on the other side of me, I am racked with violent shivers. Einar manages to keep a hold on me, though, gripping me almost too tightly as he clambers to his feet.

"I need to get you to the caves," he says, and I'm not sure if he's explaining where we are going or asking for my permission, but I can't seem to make my eyes stay open or stop shivering long enough to nod.

I slip in and out of consciousness, cognizant of nothing but the jolting motions of my own tremors and the king's rocky trek through the snow. Khijhana lets out a noise between a whine and a meow, and it sounds far away.

I fade again, the world going black around me.

When I come to, the smell of damp earth fills my lungs and I’m lying on a stone floor.

My heart races, and I can practically hear the clinking of my chains and the screams of the prisoners in the other cells. Breathing is difficult, and I gasp and scramble until my fingers find something soft. Something that shouldn’t be in the dungeons of Villa Paradís...

Khijhana?

I force my eyes open to see the chalyx pressed against me on a rock-hard floor. She doesn’t seem to mind that my fingers are tangled in her silver fur.

Taking a steadying breath, I focus on the world around me, confident that I am not in Madame’s dungeons. My muddled thoughts puzzle through the last thing I remember, and I come up short again.

I should be dead.

But instead, I am staring at the ceiling of a cave. I force my weary gaze to the right. Khijhana is nestled against me, blocking a significant portion of my view, but I can see the far edges of the cave walls and notice that they are bathed in a greenish glow.

Rather than flicker like firelight would, this light seems to shimmer and swirl on the walls, though that could just be the way my eyes still jump around from the jarring motion of my shivers.

The room smells like damp rock, like the stones near the beach by the château, only not as salty.

Vaguely, I register that it is warmer in here than it should be, warmer than I would think the shelter of the cave accounts for. Not that it matters, because the heat isn't penetrating my skin. I still feel like I am freezing from the inside out.

With some effort, I turn my head to the left side, and what I see makes me wonder if I have woken up at all, or if I am merely dreaming this entire bizarre scene.

The king is frantically stripping his clothes off, laying some of them out on the floor and putting others in a pile nearby. Again, I think how this cannot be real, because no one is sculpted as perfectly as he appears to be. Each chiseled muscle is accentuated by the shadows in the hazy green light, lending him an ethereal quality.

"What?" I breathe the word out through my chattering teeth.

He turns to face me wearing nothing but his silver chain, and I focus my eyes on the key dangling from the end, the way the light glints off of it, rather than his taut body.

Some distant part of my brain is absurdly grateful that my blood refuses to flow well enough to flood my cheeks. There is no trace of embarrassment on his features, though, only determination with the barest edge of fear around his eyes.

"We need to get you warm." He says it like it's an explanation, like somehow his nudity correlates to my warmth, and the whole exchange lends itself to the unreal quality of this moment.

But the sharp pain, like a thousand needles stabbing me all over my body, manages to permeate even through the numbness brought on by the cold, convincing me of how very real this is.

My eyes close again, and when they open, he is kneeling next to me. His hands go to the hem of my shirt.

"No." The word comes out weakly, but he stops and meets my eyes.

"Zaina, you have hypothermia. Your body is freezing, and if we can't get it warm, you will die. It is warmer in here than it is outside, but that will not be enough to save you." He says the words bluntly, firmly, and whether that's a compliment to the fact that he thinks I can handle it or he is trying to scare me, I'm not sure.

And I don't have the energy to explain to him how it seems that death is constantly courting me, seducing me, and pulling me under with its quiet promises of peace in a world where all I seem to know is pain.

“Zaina!" His tone is urgent, and I realize I have drifted off a little.

"Please," he says in a softer tone, and I think it might be the first time he has ever said that word to me.

Why is he saying it now?

He pulls urgently at my shirt, and I remember.

"Go ahead." I grant him my permission, telling myself that it's only because it's easier than arguing with him, that I know he will do this regardless, and not because a part of me wants to stay here in this moment with him, in this world with him.

He makes quick work of removing my clothing, and there is nothing sensual about it. His gaze rarely leaves mine, and if he has to glance down quickly to find a button or clasp, his eyes move right back to my face.

I don't know what to make of that, because I have not seen this side of a man before, but it feels like, for all I have accused him of not respecting my privacy or my wishes, perhaps in this moment he has lent me more respect than any single male who has come into my life since I was six years old.

Images assault me, like a portrait flashing before my eyes in between each violent rock of my body. A hand that lingers too long on my arm, another man's voice sounding in my hair, whispering crass and obscene things while his breath is too hot, too moist, and too close to me. Rough hands shoving me against the wall while a much larger body presses against mine. My sister’s katana at the man's throat.

That last image almost makes me smile, and I feel my head loll.

"Stay with me." Einar's voice is less controlled than I have ever heard it, and it almost strikes me as funny, because I couldn't go anywhere now if I tried, but I can't stay with him, either. Not really.

All of these thoughts flit around my head like the wraiths my mother used to talk about, my real mother, the one I never allow myself to think about and will never see again. The one who probably doesn't even know that I'm still alive.

Or was, anyway.

“Please.” He says that word again, startling me from my reverie, and I feel his arms come around me.

He lays me gently on the cloak he has spread out on the floor. He presses himself against me, his skin against my skin, and takes the clothes he has piled next to us. He puts something over our feet and another under our head, then pulls the cloak as tightly around us as he can, cocooning us inside.

So many times, I have noticed the way he seems to emanate heat from within, and that was through the fabric of his clothes. With his bare skin next to mine, he is a solid source of warmth, searing its way into my skin and chasing away the ice that has settled down into my bones.

Khijhana's weight settles in behind me, and I allow myself to surrender consciousness again at last.