Estrella turned to me the moment the lock finished turning, her eyes wide as she pressed closer into my chest. I wanted nothing more than to rip the shackles from her wrists, to allow her to heal the wounds they’d left behind. To bind her in such a way for a prolonged period of time was unnecessarily cruel, especially when Mab would need to release her from the irons if she wanted to explore Estrella’s magic at all the next day.
My fingers coasted over the sharp edges of the iron, nearly brushing against her raw, burned skin.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, shaking my head. I couldn’t believe I’d been foolish enough to think I could tuck her away before Mab learned of her existence. I’d failed to protect the one thing that was the most important to me in this world, and perhaps Mab was right in some ways.
Death would probably be the humane fate compared to what waited for us, and perhaps we were better off with Estrella killing me in my sleep. With our blood vow, she’d follow me into the Void.
“Don’t,” Estrella mumbled, touching her forehead to my chest. She drew in a deep breath, wincing when the scent of the dungeon filled her lungs. “You stink.”
“I am the God of the Dead, Little One. Does my very nature make you uncomfortable?” I asked, smirking as I ran a hand through her hair.
She tipped her face up, giving me her eyes as a playful little smirk toyed at her mouth.
“We both know that you do not normally smell of the decay of death. I want you to smell like you when you take me to bed,” she said, lifting her hands.
She grabbed the laces of my tunic, pulling them slowly until it untied, so she could carefully raise it above my head. She moved so cautiously; her fear potent in the air. She didn’t want to hurt me, didn’t want to cause me pain with the very shackles that burned her skin with every moment that passed.
For her to be imprisoned in such a cruel way while I did not experience any of the pain she suffered was a fate worse than the pain itself. I would have gladly borne it myself to save her from it.
I took her hands in mine, guiding them up to rest against my shoulders. My skin sizzled as the iron touched my chest, the chains draping over the top of my abdomen as Estrella fought against my grip.
“If you suffer, I suffer too. If you bleed, I bleed as well. If you die, then I will follow,” I murmured, dropping my forehead to hers.
Tears flooded her eyes. Her chest racked with a strangled sob that she refused to release, the mask of strength she wore dropping for only a moment.
The walls inside her head came crashing down, the truth of her emotions flooding into me. Whether she crafted the barricades to protect herself or to protect me from her tumultuous emotions, I didn’t know. I didn’t think it mattered as I lowered my hands to untie the laces stretching up her arms. The fabric fell away from one side of her body, draping from the other arm as I moved my attention to it. The white of it was stained with the deep red of blood, hinting at what she’d done when I hadn’t been there to protect her.
Estrella needed to keep her strength for when she was being watched, never allowing Mab to see her crumble beneath the weight of what was coming for her. She could only do that if she had a safe space with me, a place where she could be herself and reveal all the weaknesses. All the doubts and the worry, all the pain she would undoubtedly suffer.
“Caelum,” she murmured, her eyes drifting closed as the wetness touched her cheeks.
“It’s all right, Little One. I’m here now,” I said, the words hanging between us. We both knew this night was limited, that it would end in the morning.
“I can’t give her what she wants,” Estrella said, shaking her head softly. Her face twisted with the pain of knowing that her own actions would lead to our separation once more, that this night would not be repeated tomorrow, for she would anger Mab all over again.
“No, you can’t,” I agreed as the fabric dropped down from the other side of her body.
It caught at her waist, the flare of her hips snagging the fabric and holding it up so that it didn’t fall to the floor. Estrella dropped her hands to the laces of my trousers, unknotting them quickly and shoving them down my thighs with an urgency that took my breath away.
If I only had one night, I wanted to spend it inside of her. I wanted to be as connected to her as I possibly could while we had the chance, and it seemed my mate understood that driving need more than I could give her credit for.
She knelt at my feet, staring up at me through her lashes as she untied my boots and shucked them off my feet. She tore my pants off my legs, reminding me that her human sensibilities had likely fled. She was still human in upbringing, those notions of inappropriate behavior that I’d worked so hard to unravel still existing within her; but she was also something other.
A creature driven by her nature, with a mate bond to encourage her to claim what was hers.
I grasped her by the chin, staring down at her as she hesitated. If I’d already bathed, I’d have demanded she take my cock into her mouth while she knelt at my feet. I’d have used her to remind me that I was powerful in spite of my position in this court, letting her show me what she and I could be once we were free.
Instead, I ran my thumb over her cheek, lifting until she stood in front of me and watching as she shoved her dress off. She was nude beneath it, not so much as a pair of shoes on her feet to interrupt my view of her body. The faint pink stain of blood that had soaked through her dress tinted her stomach. The sight conjured a vision of her bathed in blood, her nude body covered from head to toe as she strolled through a field of bloodshed, her enemies lying dead at her feet.
Any normal male would not have craved the sight of it so much as I did. Yet, I wondered how much of what I saw was real, and how much of it was a vision from the Fates or the man whom I could no longer see in my memory.
A gift, a token of our future.
I hadn’t wanted to corrupt Estrella, believing her to be my balance in a world that had long since tried to turn me into the villain of my story. But what did it mean if she was already corrupted? If she wasn’t as innocent as I’d originally thought?
I swallowed, stepping away from my mate, knowing that I would love her until my dying breath. No matter what she did, who she was, or the crimes she might commit in her path of vengeance. Stepping into the tub, I turned back to look at Estrella as she watched me.
Her eyes locked onto mine, narrowing slightly as I settled into the warmth of the water. She tilted her head to the side, trying to understand my conflicting emotions as they trickled down the bond. There was something so animalistic about the movement, about the angle of her head as she slowly sauntered toward the tub.
A predator stalking her prey.
Our roles had undoubtedly reversed, with my mate staring at me as if I were something to be devoured. She watched me, her gaze trailing down my body in the water as I grabbed the cloth and ran it over my skin, washing away the stench and filth of the dungeons and the death that occurred within them.
“You’re afraid of me,” she murmured finally, blinking away the creature that had risen to the surface. Her head straightened as she crossed her arms over her chest, looking far too vulnerable all over again.
“Never, min asteren,” I murmured, putting all the warmth I felt for her into the bond between us. Her bottom lip trembled as she nodded slightly, but there was no confidence in it. “I could never fear the other half of myself.”