Page 24 of Flirting with Darkness

I pursed my lips.

…No. No, I didn’t want mercy on their behalf. I’d been distraught that I was too weak to end them myself.

I threw back the covers, but Vale crossed the room faster than I thought it was possible for a creature to move, yanking them back.

“You’re in no condition to be up.”

“I have work to do.”

“Three days ago you were near death,” he bit out. “You will stay right here.”

My eyes widened. “Three days?”

How had I been out for that long? I couldn’t be away from home for—

“Why were you going to undress for those people?” he demanded.

What?

I shook away that strange question. “I need to go. I have to—”

“You aren’t going anywhere.Whywere you just going to let them do that to you?”

Everything in the world seemed too loud and too sharp right now, but sharpest of all was Vale’s expression, like he had been desperate to ask me this question for the last three days. For a moment, I glimpsed the version of him I’d seen in the forest.

“How was I going to stop them?” I said. “It’s just a dress. Just a body. Would you rather I refuse and let them kill me?”

I’d always felt disconnected from my body, like it was a strange vessel that only sometimes cooperated with me. It had been my enemy from birth, after all.

Vale looked appalled.

“You could have—”

“What? What could I have done?”

I posed it like a real question, and his mouth shut. I could see the moment he realized that he didn’t have an answer.

I blinked and saw those dead bodies. “Was robbing me a crime punishable by death?”

“Raping you would have been. Killing you would have been.”

“They didn’t do either of those things.”

“Yet,” he snarled. “I’ve killed others who deserved it far less.”

Oh, I believed him.

I looked down at myself. Only at the discussion of my dress did I realize that I was wearing different clothing now—an inordinately frilly nightgown that looked to be at least a century old and like it had never been worn before.

“You undressed me.”

“I thought it wasjust a body,” he jeered.

Fair enough. And I’d meant it before. But the idea of Vale seeing me naked… that felt like more.

“I preserved your modesty best I could,” he added.

I didn’t have time to think about this. “I have work to do,” I said, firmly, half to myself.

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