Page 25 of Beyond Those Gilded Walls

“That’s quite a pair of questions,” he replied. His coat rustled as he removed it, draping it over the back of one of the chairs. The sleeves on his shirt were cuffed just beneath his elbows, displaying his powerful forearms and the Death marks that encircled both of them. “Ones I don’t quite think you’re ready to hear the answer to.”

The cat brushed up against my leg again, seemingly nudging me towards the chair. He was likely right, but ignorance was a death sentence in Castle Auretras. “Tell me anyways.”

“Why are you not afraid of me?”

I didn’t reply. Iwasafraid of him; couldn’t he see that?

“You act like you don’t believe me. I know what fear looks like, Odyssa. I know what it tastes like in the air, how it bends the body to its will. It’s unmistakable. And you, little wolf, do not fear me.” He held his hand out. “For now, let me tend to your hand.”

Carefully, I laid my hand in his, wincing as the torn flesh pulled. It was deep enough for me to see it would need stitching, even in the low light from the fire. “Do you know how to do stitches?” I pulled my hand back slightly, but his grip on it was firm. “I really should just go to the infirmary.”

“Just sit here and get warm,” he said, rubbing at the base of my thumb. It sent tingles down my wrist and arm, uncomfortable pinpricks of irritated nerves offset by the warmth of his skin against mine. “You are not an inconvenience to me. Let me help you.”

It’d been so long since another person had touched me besides my mother. I locked my muscles to keep from leaning into the touch, to keep from chasing it as he set my hand gingerly back into my lap and stood.

I let my eyes watch the fire while he rummaged in the room behind me. Even the fire seemed wrong here, the flames too yellow and flickering like they were pretend. I wanted to thrust my hand into it to see if it was truly a flame, despite the wash of heat that breathed against my body.

“Here.” Tallon’s return pulled my focus back to him. The silk of his shirt rippled like waves of night when he moved to set down his supplies on the table in front of us. My eyes were stuck on his forearms still, tracing the twisting vines of black that adorned his hands, his wrists, covering more skin than they left bare. A clearing throat startled me, but he was again smirking at me, his face much closer than I’d realized. For a moment, I thought his eyes flicked down to my mouth, but then I blinked and his head was bowed, his attention on my hand. “Surely you know it’s rude to stare, little wolf.”

My face flushed and I ducked my head as I stuck my hand out to him, ignoring the sharp pain until it faded back into its dull throb. “Your marks…” I trailed off, not knowing how to finish the question without seeming invasive.

“What about them?” His stitches were neat, and though I could feel every pull of the needle and every slide of the thread through my flesh, I kept still and quiet as he worked. And I kept my eyes on my own skin, no matter how much they wanted to wander to look at him.

The marks on his skin were similar yet so different to mine, and I was desperate to see what they looked like. Mine were shapeless, meaningless lines like spilled ink across the pale expanse of skin. His were patterned, forming a larger shape with detailing. I had only seen a glimpse of his wrists and forearms, and based on the intricacies there, I could not imagine what lay beneath his shirt. My trail of thoughts caught up to me and I wanted to slump down and disappear into the chair. My cheeks burned hotter than the fire before us, and I struggled to overcome the urge to shift nervously in my seat. I did not need to see what was beneath his shirt, did not want to. The marks were what interested me, not him. “They look like mine.”

“Do they?” His eyes flicked to my other arm. “Hmm, I suppose they do.”

“How long ago were you sick?” I asked. The castle had been closed off for nearly a year now, and I was curious to know just when he’d joined the prince’s collection. His needle hit a sensitive spot on my hand and I flinched.

“I apologize if it hurts,” he said. He didn’t raise his head from his work, and his breath was warm against my palm. “We’re nearly finished.”

I did not repeat my question.

He tied the last stitch with a neat knot and cleaned it before beginning to wind a bandage around my palm. It was far less neat than the stitches had been.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” I asked, trying to peer around his large hands to see just exactly what he was attempting to do with the bandage.

“I think I might like you, little wolf,” he said, tying off the end of the bandage. “You are not at all what I thought you would be.”

“What did you think I would be?”

The dark smirk was back on his face and he leaned in close. My heart hammered in my chest as he held my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “That hardly matters now, does it? You’re exceeding those expectations, just trust that.”

A faint scream flew in on the night wind through his open window, and it set my teeth on edge. I knew that scream, the pain in that voice that had drifted up from Jura. Someone had died.

With startling clarity that nearly made me dizzy, I realized just what I was doing. I was here, in the prince’s castle, wearing clothes he’d supplied, in the room of one of his friends. All the while, my brothers were alone. They’d likely not started to starve yet, but they would soon if Emyl had not figured things out. And the cough I’d heard as I left… What if one of them was sick? And I was sitting here, imagining Tallon without his shirt.

It could not happen again.

It would not.

I would die before I let my mother down, before I left my brothers to die. I’d sworn to them before I left that I would do whatever it took to keep them alive. And not three days had passed and I’d forgotten my oath.

What a pitiful excuse for a daughter and a sister.

I pulled my hands into my lap, discretely digging my thumb into the flesh just above the stitches. The pain offered more clarity, and I knew without a doubt I needed to get out of this room.

I needed to find the treatment, get it back to my brothers before the faint cough became a bloody gag, and end the prince’s reign of cruelty.

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