Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 93948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
It’s only as I fall into step next to them that I fully register the fact that we’re about to walk back into the room where Bastian waits.
There’s no avoiding the coming conversation.
Chapter 9
Bastian
I’m as shaky as a newborn, but I manage to get clean without having to call for help. I don’t think my pride could manage it, which is pathetic considering Siobhan and Nox just launched the rescue mission to end all rescue missions to save me. Hiding in the bathroom instead of facing them sounds like a wonderful idea, but having them come to me here is unthinkable.
All this to say, I’m a damned mess.
I step out of the shower and dry myself off as quickly as possible. Which is right around the moment when I realize I don’t have any clothing that I can bear putting back on my body. I would happily burn the outfit I spent the last however many days wearing.
For lack of a better plan, I wrap a towel around my waist and step carefully through the doorway into the bedroom. Someone has left food for me on the table, and with no one to witness, I fall on it like the starved creature I am. There’s no space for decorum when my stomach is an ache that makes me woozy. I clean the tray and sit back, exhaustion setting in. Even though I bloody well know better, I inhale deeply. It smells like Nox in here. I don’t know how fourteen years aren’t enough to banish the memory of them.
And then the person themself walks through the door, dressed exactly as they were when they saved me, from head to toe in crimson, their blond hair spiky on top from the salt of seawater. They stop short when they see me, and even though I’ve seen better days, their cool gray gaze still skates over my bare chest and lingers where my hand grips the towel.
Then they step aside and Siobhan enters the room. Her presence should be enough to cool the tension that rose between us, but somehow it only makes it worse. She looks between us and then walks over to perch on the edge of the desk. “Well?”
“You left Bastian without even giving him some clothing?” Nox carefully skirts past me to a chest on the other side of the bed. They dig through it for a few seconds and come up with two sets of clothing. The black set gets tossed to me.
I catch it against my chest with my free hand. “Rumor has it that you only wear crimson.”
Nox ignores me and walks into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind them. Leaving me and Siobhan alone. Again.
I stare at her. I wish I were a better man who could put past concerns behind me in the face of this rescue. I’m not. “You went to Nox.”
“I went to Nox.” She crosses her arms over her chest. Her gaze is steady, but I know her as well as I know myself. She never would have broken her word to Nox if she wasn’t desperate, and she was only desperate because I put her in that position. “What happened? You’re not usually careless with your magic, and even if you were, you should have been able to talk yourself out of any mess you ended up in.”
She’s right. I’d done exactly that in the past. “There was a woman—a girl, really—being threatened by two Cŵn Annwn in Mairi. It was a few days after we…went our separate ways.” I clear my throat. “There was a third I didn’t see, and they had a mental shield that my magic couldn’t penetrate. By the time I realized, it was too late and they’d broken my hold on the other two.”
“Bastian.” The censure in her tone snaps my spine straight.
Guilt is a live thing inside me, because I did fuck up, but I’m still so damned angry at her. I don’t know how to reconcile the two. Instead, the feelings amplify each other. “Have you changed your mind?”
Siobhan slashes her hand through the air so quickly it’s almost a blur, her movements jerky and just as furious as I feel. “That is what you want to ask me right now? You were so certain you were right, and the first thing you did was get scooped up by the Cŵn Annwn, which perfectly demonstrates my point. We only saved you by resorting to lies and manipulation—and then running the first chance we got. That won’t work again. It isn’t possible to win an all-out war.”
I should know her words by heart at this point. I practically do. I shake my head. “I made a mistake, and a costly one at that. I’m aware. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m right. Even though they didn’t know about the rebellion before, they’re bleeding us with a thousand cuts. The war isn’t even out in the open, and it’s already a war of attrition.”