He takes an uncertain guess, “You do not become dizzy.”

  My smile is small and bitter. I shake my head.

  “Motivation,” I whisper. “If I spun fast enough and gained just enough speed, I couldn’t see the crowd properly. Their bodies and faces blurred together into one big mess. That way, I could never see that my parents weren’t there to watch me.” I pause to drink heavily. “They never turned up for me.” I turn my head to look at him, my lashes wet. “But you just did.”

  How twisted is that?

  Chiselled jaw tightened, he looks away, leaving the darkness to crawl up the side of his caramel-skinned face.

  My voice is a whisper, wrought with all the battled tears and shivering fear still in my bones, “You killed your own kind to protect me.”

  His sigh is quiet, and still, he won’t look at me. He stares down the end of the aisle, lost in his inner battle.

  Finally, he brings his face to mine and cuts a dark, unreadable look down at the half-empty bottle loose in my hold. “You put up more of a fight than I expected for someone with such a weak stomach.”

  That bitter smile returns. “Sometimes, when I’m scared or angry, I get this … rage,” I say and look down at my hand.

  I flex my fingers as though I can rid them of the urges I felt back in the other aisle, familiar urges that flooded me around Spike.

  “It takes over,” I go on, voice hushed.

  He watches me, his gaze so intense that I’m sure he’s hanging on my every word.

  “It feels hot and ice-cold all at the same time, and it’s like I leave my body and something feral takes over for me. I shut down and an animal takes my place.”

  Dropping my hand to my lap, I look up at him from beneath wet lashes. “I want to hurt when that happens,” I confess. “I want to gouge out eyes and tear skin off faces and claw someone down to the bone.”

  He considers me, his long lashes hanging low over pitch-black eyes. His gaze flickers down to my mouth for a beat before he murmurs, “Yet the gore sickens you?”

  Shame floods my cheeks. I nod.

  Cliff’s jaw tenses for a beat. “The rage controls you. It should be the other way around. If you had controlled it, you could have focused your attention on alerting me sooner.”

  He reaches out a hand for my chin, hovering it near my skin as though tempted to caress me, wipe away the unwanted traces of that other fae. He drops his hand, face hardening.

  “That is what makes your kind weak,” he finishes, shutting down our moment, stomping it out like embers that are sometimes in his eyes.

  “Fuck you,” I scoff and down the rest of the wine.

  He simply watches me.

  “We should move on,” he tells me.

  And just like that, it’s as though nothing ever happened in this shop. I was never assaulted. He never killed two of his own to protect me. I didn’t confide in him, he didn’t ache to caress my face and comfort me.

  All erased, he has me fastened to his belt once more, and pushing out into the darkness.

  At the door, I light a cigarette. He doesn’t so much as toss a glance my way. He aims to forget that I exist altogether, just as he ignores the tears streaming down my face.

  With his back to me, he aims the torch at the curtains by the door and sets them alight. Burning all evidence of his crimes against his own kind. Smart move.

  We go along the edge of the street, sticking close to the walls. He wants to keep us away from others’ sights. He wants to keep us both hidden. But no more dark fae or humans cross our paths as we leave the village and reach the far edge of it.

  But before we abandon the place entirely, and we reach a gravelled road, I flick the cigarette away and murmur, “I want a bath. And a change of clothes.”

  He says nothing, but turns the torch downwards so that the flames go out, and we’re submerged in total darkness.

  “This one time,” his soft voice comes out of the black, “I will grant you this.”

  32

  A fire consumes the village in the distance.

  We are safe from it, far up on the hill where the cottage is planted on the edge of a field. It’s at the door of the cottage that Cliff leaves me (fastened to the porch) as he does a sweep of the inside—apparently not trusting that more of his kind aren’t lurking around.

  From the porch, I watch the fire grow and spread. Seems to jump from one building to another, all so hugged close together. Before I can watch the wretched village burn to ash, the front door to the cottage creaks behind me.

  Cliff unhooks the rope from the post, then takes my bound wrist and steers me inside. The heat hits me like a punch to the face; my skin sears. He’s built a fire in the hearth and tossed the torch onto it. It blazes with freshness and, on a grate that’s fixed on top of the flames, a pot of water boils.

  Slipping my wrists free of the rope, I wander over to the fire. I let the rope fall to the rug as I push the cream coffee table out of the way, then sink down to enjoy the heat.

  “Why are you boiling water?” I ask, my voice hoarse and strangled.

  Cliff comes up behind me; I don’t hear his footsteps, but I feel his breath brush through my hair as he crouches to pick up the rope. He doesn’t restrain me, though. He steps back and sits down on the couch directly behind me.

  “For your bath,” he says. “After that, we will eat… If you are able to,” he adds as an afterthought.

  My mouth falls into a line. “He didn’t really get the chance to touch me.”

  “While that is fortunate,” he says, “I suspect the fright is much the same.”

  I look down at the fluffy white rug and coil a thread around my finger. In answer, I just shrug.

  Maybe he’s right. Maybe not. I don’t know, because most of what I feel right now is total numbness, and the rest is anger.

  I want to watch the village burn, but the curtains are drawn. I want to watch his body rot, but that’s improbable. I wish I’d been the one to kill Fox.

  Cutting into my thoughts, Cliff is standing behind me and says, “The bath is ready.”

  Confused, I blink, then look over my shoulder at him. He watches me with an almost sad tilt to his flat mouth.

  I glance at the fireplace, but there’s no pot of water there anymore.

  Lost in my thoughts, I’ve been staring at the rug for so long that he’s managed to boil more water, fill the tub and prepare my bath all without my noticing.

  “I’m coming,” I mutter and roll around to push myself up. Today, my body aches more than ever. Bones creak and crackle beneath my skin and, as I stand, I lift my arms above my head to stretch it all out.

  Lantern in hand, Cliff just watches me for a beat before he turns around and leads the way to the back of the cottage where the bathroom is tucked away. It doesn’t escape my notice that, as I slip inside, he stays out in the corridor.

  I stop at the side of the copper tub and throw him a baffled look.

  He makes a point of keeping the door open, but leans against the wall out in the corridor, crossing his arms and ankles, settling in there. He’s giving me privacy—well, a lick of it, but still. I’ll take this newfound pity and trust.

  It will serve me well when the time comes to take my pills.

  All of them.

  But not yet. Not today. Even if my numb soul is craving them like nothing else, I push the thoughts of the pills out of mind as I slip the shoulder bag off and let it fall to the floor.

  Not caring that he can see me from the open door, I strip down to nothing but my boots. Keeping my back to him, I cast a glance down at my body. I haven’t seen it since before the bombing, so it should surprise me that I’m smeared with black and yellow bruises, but I can’t summon much care about them.

  The worst one is on my side. It takes a few seconds of frowning at the blotchy patch of purple littered with yellow dots before I recall Cliff’s boot coming in hard on my ribs to flip me onto my back.

  Tentatively, I bring my fingertips to the bruise. Ghastly-looking. But under my gentle prodding, no bites of pain come for me. The real pain is when I press harder and, through a wince, realise that it’s my ribs that are messed up, not my skin.

  A bitter look dawns over my face and I turn it over my shoulder to the open door. Cliff has shifted from the wall and now stands in the doorway, his bleak inky eyes latched onto the bruise. His mouth is tilted into a grim line, creases creeping into the edges of his eyes, and I wonder if he feels sorrow or regret the way that humans do. Hints of it touch his face, and yet no apologies come from him.

  He tucks his gaze down to the floor.

  I kick off my boots then stretch out my leg to dip my toes in the water.

  He must have left me to wallow for some time because the water should be scalding hot, but instead it’s the perfect balance between hot and warm. It’s Goldilocks—just right.

  Stepping into the tub, my lashes flutter as I grip the edges and slowly lower my body into the water. The relief is instant, ribbons of aches and tension unwinding through me.

  I’m in no rush. He’s allowing me a bit of freedom, so I take it greedily, and instead of grabbing the soap from the edge of the tub right away, I sink back into the water and let my eyes flutter shut.

  For a long while, I let the hot water get to work on my muscles and bones. Aches and pains are massaged out of me with the gentle sway of the bathwater.

  I lean my head back against the spine of the tub, feeling the water brush over my heart-shaped chin (that’s a nice way of saying ‘pointy’, right?).

  When I finally open my eyes again, intending on reaching for the soap bar, a silhouette out the corner of my eye catches my attention. My heart jumps with a small fright as I spot Cliff inside the bathroom now—he has silently moved to the toilet, lid-down, parked on it as though it were a throne and he, a dark prince.

  He watches me with tarry eyes, glittering in the light from the lantern that’s perched on the counter beside him.

  With a soft sigh, I reach forward, the warmth of the water gliding down my body. I’m all too aware of my exposed breasts as I slip the soap from the dish.

  As I wash my body, the water starts to darken to grey, like storm clouds. I’m bathing in storm clouds, I live in storm clouds. That is what the world is now.

  I wash the dirt out of my hair with the soap, knowing full well that it’s going to make each strand feel both slimy and gunky at the same time. Better than oily, though.

  I make time for a full-body shave, too.

  Cliff watches my every move, every stroke of the razor over my legs.

  Once I’m all rinsed, I think to stay in the bath as long as I can, but Cliff cuts off my time before I can try. Taking a towel from the rack, he comes to the side of the tub and holds it out like a screen. But since he’s so damn tall, he can see over the towel-shield without an issue.

  Modesty, I’m learning, is selective. If he’d have been Spike, I would have broken his nose. One of the boys at school, put mud in their lockers.

  But there’s something about Cliff that makes me stand from the water with nothing but a slight blush heating my cheeks, little shame at how his eyes shift downwards for a few beats before he turns his cheek away, as though he has suddenly decided that he shouldn’t look.

  Taking the towel, I wrap it around myself like a dress, then cautiously step out of the tub. Cliff’s hands shift towards me for a fleeting moment, but he pulls them back quickly—almost as though he meant to steady or help me before he thought better of it.

  My gaze turns down and lands on the pile of dirty underwear and a torn, bloodied and filthy dress.

  My mouth thins. “Any chance you saw fresh clothes lying around?”

  After a moment of studying me, he walks out of the bathroom. He pauses at the door to look over at me.

  “Come,” he orders, as though I am a dog and he is my master.

  I huff a sigh.

  Before I join him, I scoop up the tub of moisturiser and my bag from the floor and check inside it. Four pads left.

  Satisfied, I clutch the bag to my bandage-wrapped towel and shadow him down the corridor to a closed door. When he opens it, I lean around his buff shoulders to see inside. He pushes the lantern in first before he peels aside and lets me in.

  It’s a bedroom; an ordinary cottage one with nothing noticeable about it. Could pass as a bed and breakfast, really. But I do spot the wardrobe against the far wall and in a few strides, I’ve reached it, pulling open the thick brown-wood doors.

  The inside of the wardrobe tells me that someone did live here. It’s packed on both ends, ‘his and hers’.

  I reach for the ‘hers’ and riffle through old floral blouses and baggy pale-blue jeans until I come across clothes that I deem somewhat acceptable. I settle on an all-black dress (that I assume is meant for funerals) with long lacy sleeves and a knee-length hemline, and a pair of black canvas shoes; the kind for just tottering around the house. But the aches in my toes and heels from my boots warn me off wearing tough shoes again.

  I snatch some fresh knickers from the bedside drawer that fit me close enough, like the dress. Maybe a size too big, but hardly noticeable. Over a year of hunger didn’t help my figure too much, but I still wear the natural curves of my wider hips. They are just bonier now. Less so around the dark fae, since he’s fed me more than my own group did in the time I was with them.

  First, I hide behind the door of the cupboard and generously apply as much of the moisturiser as I can lather onto my body. My skin is streaked milk-white when I’m done, a noticeable difference from its usual pinkish pale complexion.

  After I fix up the pad onto my underwear and zip up the dress at the side, I wander over to the door where Cliff leans against the frame. His black eyes beam with faint orange lantern light, watching me, glued to me. His gaze travels me for a long moment, wandering over the fit of the dress, the flare of it over my hips, the natural shape of my bra-less breasts beneath the lace-front, then looks up at me from beneath long lashes.

  A gasp catches in my throat as he suddenly shoves forward and storms towards me. I stumble back, nearly tripping over my own feet, but he grabs onto my shoulders before I can take three steps.

  He spins me around and pushes me up against the wall, his body following closely. Warm breaths graze over my parted mouth as he slowly closes the meagre distance between us, using his hard, marble body to keep me trapped between him and the wall.

  Eyes wide, my neck aches as I crane it, looking up at him. He’s so close that I can feel his long lashes graze mine and the tip of his nose tickle my cheek as he ghosts his mouth along my jawline.

  “In my world,” he growls, his low tone tangled in restraint, “to kiss means to love.”

  My heart stops dead in my chest, choking me of breath, and my eyes widen that bit further.

  “But here,” he adds, as though speaking aloud to himself, “would it be the same as a human man promising love just to taste another body?”

  The air loosens from my trembling lips, warm aches sprouting between my legs. Flutters ignite in my belly, dancing with moths of fear.

  No, no, no. I can’t feel this—I can’t feel anything—for him, nothing at all. This is a dark, dangerous and definitely deadly line that’s he’s trying to cross.

  “That would be a lie,” I whisper against his cheek, my lips tingling at the sensation of his warm, caramel skin against mine.

  One pucker of the mouth and I could easily kiss him—I could destroy this illusion of self-control I’ve built up for myself.

  What the hell is the matter with me?

  This is Cliff. No, this is my captor. A dark fae warrior who brutalised my people, tortured Spike in front of me just to bring me pain, and dragged me bruised and battered across the country.

  This is a demon, and here I am, leaning into him as his hands come up to the small of my back and hold me lightly.

  Hold me tighter.

  “I am not averse to lies, Cora-lee,” he whispers darkly into my hair, his mouth travelling over my temple. “I lost my honour a long time ago.”

  Gently, his large hands graze up the small of my back to my spine, and I feel so small, so protected in his light hold. The darkest pit of me wants him to wind his muscular arms around my body and lift me up against him, if only to feel safe, to feel something other than the desperate sorrow that follows me everywhere.

  I lean my head back against the wall, my lashes fluttering shut.

  It’s just my loneliness, I tell myself. A line I’ve been feeding my mind and body too many times for it not to work.

  Against my screaming mind, I turn my cheek, grazing my mouth along his jaw. My arms come up, looping around his neck.

  He pauses, a frozen moment of shock at my response.

  “Why do you want to kiss me?” I whisper against his skin.

  Tangled together, I can feel his heart pounding against my chest.

  Then he’s gone, and I’m suddenly cold.

  Cliff has shoved away from me with enough force to slam me back into the wall. He steps back, his eyes murderous, his jaw clenched tight and his hands fisted at his sides.

  “I care only for your body,” he growls, the cruelty on his face matching his words. “You matter no more to me than any other pretty kuri.”

  I swallow back a lump, my bottom lip on the verge of quivering. Stiffly, I nod, a gesture to mask the shattering sensation deep in my chest.

  “Get out.”

  Those growled words catch me off-guard.

  I blink, a frown knitting between my brows as I look at him. “What?”

  He storms forward, snatching my arm in his large hand, yanking me against him. Lowering his curling lips to my face, he snarls, “Get out.”

  I have a mere heartbeat before he’s suddenly hauling me out of the bedroom and down the corridor. He moves with venomous purpose.

  My feet patter beside him, struggling to keep up with his brisk, long strides. And he’s dragging me to the front door.

  “What are you doing?” My voice is a breathless squeak of fear. “I can’t go out there.”