Page 48 of The Trials of Ophelia

I tried to breathe deeper and force the memories away.

Dragging my hands through my hair, my head thumped back against the wall. Fucking Spirits, I shouldn’t have asked her about them. What had I been thinking? I didn’t want to know. Even the thought of it…

My chest tightened. I rubbed the heel of my hand against it. Breathe, I coached myself.

How do you breathe again?

Useless, incapable, Warrior Prince.

One hand was braced on my knee, the other on my chest. I tried to focus through blurry vision, counting the cracks in the floorboards.

By the time I got to eight, my lungs had loosened a bit, air working its way back in at a normal pace.

I ran my hand across my jaw—across the small scar my father had left. It was one of the more innocent ones I had, yet it plagued me the most. Funny how that worked, how the bigger moments—the whips, the hot knives—dulled compared to the one slap that left me marked forever, where I had to see it every damn day.

And then there was the thought I’d been avoiding. Wet skin and pristine white lace. It was branded into my brain after one look, and if I hadn’t been so panicked about the scars, it likely would have been my only thought.

I’d been with women since Ophelia and I broke up. Meaningless physical connection to distract myself.

But I hadn’t felt that desire with anyone since her. Not the way my blood was pumping as I pictured what I wasn’t supposed to have seen. I hadn’t looked at someone’s body with the same addiction as when I’d seen Mila, scars and lace and temptation for my own depraved sake.

I wanted to see more. And based on the fact that my cock was stiff, the rest of me did, too.

It was the scars, I told myself. It was my sick fascination with Lucidius’s actions and my own trauma. That was why I cared.

Finally, her voice drifted through the crack in the door. “You can come back.”

I adjusted myself and did my best to act normal—as if I even knew what normal was now.

Mila was leaning against the dresser holding her weapons, now fully dressed. Those golden cuffs were back around her wrists, a navy silk robe falling to her knees.

“Sorry about that,” I muttered.

Now that I wasn’t as distracted, I looked around. With a double bed on one wall and overflowing bookshelves on another, the tiny room was crowded. Made more so by the thoughts screaming through my mind.

“To what do I owe the honor?” Her gently joking tone rolled off the walls and down my spine as I took a seat.

White lace, white lace, white lace, fuck. Would that be the death of me? Her propped against the dresser, robe falling open around her thighs, certainly wasn’t helping.

“Malakai.” She snapped for my attention, a teasing smile on her face. “Eyes up here.”

Fuck me again.

“Right. Yeah.” I leaned forward and braced my elbows on my knees. “I have an offer for you.”

“An offer?” She raised a brow.

“It’s more of a request, I suppose.” I ran my hand through my hair, gathering every scattered thought. “What you said earlier. That you’d teach me.”

Her brows shot up. “You want me to help you train?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “To shut off my emotions. To not let…any of it affect me when it matters.”

“That wasn’t my offer.”

“That’s what I’m asking of you, though.”

Mila assessed me, those turquoise eyes sweeping over my body from head to toe. “All right.”

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