Of Thorns and Beauty by Elle Madison

Chapter Fifty

This is glorious. Einar explained it to me while he was turning it on, something about how the water travels through the same kind of rocks that were at the festival in layers so that it's warm coming out, but I was only half listening, because he still hadn't put a shirt on.

Steaming water cascades from the faucet, falling like one of the warm rain showers on the island. Einar has an array of soaps on a raised tray, so varied that I am almost amused. There is a bar that smells like citrus and has a grainy feel, and a lavender one so soft it is already losing its shape.

I wonder if someone else stocks these for him or if he specifically requests soaps in seven different scents at all times, but I take a moment to sniff each one before I decide on sandalwood. The one that reminds me of him.

I staunchly refuse to think about how today will end, about the fact that I have less than twelve hours left with the only person who has made me feel safe in sixteen years.

Instead, I focus on collecting little pieces of this place to take with me, to wherever I will go next. Einar's voice surprises me out of the line of thought.

"Shall I plan to serve your breakfast in here, or do you think you might be finished anytime soon?" There is laughter in his voice, despite the high-handed words.

"The former, thank you," I shoot back.

He chuckles, a deep, growling sound that I react to low in my abdomen.

"I'm not sure how to turn this off," I offer more seriously, though that is hardly the reason I'm still in here.

"That's all right. I was going to rinse off once you are finished."

I frown, although he can't see me. Last night, he was right. We were both tired. But I am beginning to wonder if he regrets what happened in the caves.

I know that I should, but I can't quite bring myself to.

With all the boldness of the ticking clock my life has become, I call out before he shuts the door.

"You could just rinse off now."

I can't see him, but the door freezes in its path. One beat of silence, and then another, an interminable stretch that makes me wish I could pluck the words back from the air and swallow them before they reach his ears.

The door eases shut, and I am certain my humiliation is complete. But then, I hear solid footsteps, the whisper of cloth sliding against skin, and then he is standing before me.

His gaze is fixed firmly on my face, and what was respectful before is beginning to feel insulting in the wake of the past couple of days.

I don't know how to put into words what I want to ask him, though, so I say nothing, only move aside to make space for him under the wide stream of water.

He steps under the cleansing rain, but carefully keeps a solid couple of inches of space between us. And I know I'm not imagining it, the way he is trying so hard not to touch me. I just can't figure out why.

I stare, transfixed by the rivulets of water rolling down his body, by the way he moves the cedar soap he chose in a circular motion across his chest. His eyes burn into mine, and I am so caught up in this moment that I find myself asking what I want to know in the bluntest way possible.

"Why won't you look at me?"

His eyes widen, and the soap falls to the floor.

"I am looking at you," he replies with a strained sort of calm.

Slowly, pointedly, I let my eyes roam from his tousled white-blonde locks down the muscled planes of his chest, all the way down his body before dragging them back up again. I raise my eyebrows.

His lips are parted, questions and lust vying for attention on his features. Then, his face hardens in resolve.

In a challenge.

It's the face he gets when we are playing chess, and every part of my body tightens, even before he lets his gaze drop. And though I am the one who initiated this, I suddenly feel very unsure, because I have spent the better part of a decade keeping a tight rein on my emotions. I am not used to feeling so out of control.

A frenzy of feelings runs wild through every inch of me. Desire and revulsion war with one another while I drink in all of him, soaking this image into my memory to save and hold on to, but nevertheless being terrified of wanting him. Of wanting this.

But that's what Einar does; he makes me want things I never thought I would.

His eyes linger on each inch of my skin like a caress. They travel down, and he doesn't stop or pay any extra attention to the stark white scars decorating my abdomen.

Which is just as well, because I don't want to pay any attention to them right now, either. By the time his eyes meet mine again, they are filled with a heat so intense, it is more like lightning. He leans down, his mouth hovering just above mine when he whispers.

"Because when I look at you like this, it's all I can do to keep my hands off of you."

I hold his stare, my chest going tight and every fragment of me burning with desire.

Then don’t.For as bold as I thought I was feeling, I can’t seem to voice the words aloud.

Slowly, he reaches toward me, and I have a moment of panic before I realize he’s reaching around me to turn off the stream of water.

Einar steps out of the space and grabs a towel to wrap around my shoulders, pressing a kiss to my forehead as he does so. Somehow, the gesture makes me want him even more, even as I wish I could crawl into a hole and die.

After wringing out his hair, he grabs one for himself as well, quickly wiping down his muscled body before wrapping it around his waist. He gestures to where he has left my clothes on a vast counter before turning to leave.

I am unreasonably irritated by his thoughtfulness, by the way he seems to know my mind better than I do. Heart still racing, I take my time getting dressed.

By the time I emerge, I tell myself there will be no more encounters like this. I tell myself I don’t care, that I never did.

I lie harder than I’ve ever lied before, and still, I don’t believe it.

I study Einar over breakfast, and I sense his scrutiny in return, but neither of us speaks until we are both finished eating. We had gotten dressed in a charged silence, one with more questions than answers, questions neither of us had voiced aloud.

Khijhana is back, but she is curled up in his chair again, napping. There are no sounds aside from the scraping of his spoon against the bowl and the sharp crack of me breaking off another piece of my flat bread.

"I don't regret the caves," Einar says out of nowhere.

Sometimes, I feel like he really is reading my mind.

"You just aren't anxious to repeat them?" I don't look at him when I say that, because I don't want him to see whatever emotions are swirling in my eyes.

Besides, you don’t care,I remind myself again. And it soon won’t matter, even if you do.

But he reaches over and tilts my chin up until I am looking into his eyes.

"I am not anxious to do anything you are not entirely ready to do."

My lips part in surprise, both at his words and the sentiment that no man has ever expressed to me before.

"Perhaps I have misled you." I point to the chain on my face. "I know I said this was to symbolize purity, but I'm not -- I haven't been considered pure in some time." Nine years, to be exact.

"You don't have to explain yourself to me. I'm not concerned about your past."

I look at him for a long, drawn-out moment, long enough to think that life is even crueler than Madame for showing me a man like this and making sure he can never truly be mine.

"You never asked about the scars," I say quietly.

His expression doesn’t change, not a single trace of consternation at my abrupt change of subject.

"And I never will. As I said, your past is your own, Zaina. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to tell me." He says the words with such sincerity.

I want to tell him everything, give him every truth that's in me, but I know that isn't possible. So, I settle for this one.

"Someone gave them to me... on the same night he took something else from me."

I thought I had seen the king angry, but the rage that enters his gaze now is on another level entirely. I'm grateful. If it was sympathy, I'm not sure I could go on.

"I was thirteen." I don't know why I said that except that I know how he feels about choices, and I want him to understand how very few I had.

"I see," he bites out in an ominous tone. The words sound more like a death sentence than anything, and I wish I could tell him who was responsible to watch him carry it out.

When was the last time someone was furious for me rather than at me?

My sisters and I empathize with one another, but we hardly have the energy for the kind of righteous indignation the king shows now.

Khijhana growls, and I wonder if she is picking up on his emotions instead of mine for a change before I catch the telltale trembling of my fingers. Not with fear, but a singular, all-encompassing rage that always seems to thrum just below the surface.

"So, you see," I finish up, fiddling with the chain at my nose to hide my reaction. "I never should have worn this to begin with."

He blinks several times, the fury in his eyes warring with another emotion I can't quite put my finger on, and all at once, it is too much. I shake my head, sliding my hand across the table and reaching up to touch the chain around his neck.

"More importantly," I force my tone to be breezy. "You never did tell me what this was."

He stares at me for another moment, and I wonder if he will give me the out I am practically begging for. Finally, he nods.

"It would be easier to show you."