Page 55 of Bound

Slate glared. But it was a soft glare, and it soon fell to take in the blood drying over his skin. Some of it had baked into the net burns.

He sighed and raised a claw to rip a tear into his void.

“Ah-ah-ah,” Ruby said. She batted his hand away. Then, after some thought, she pushed the dog spirit into his arms.

“I’llget the portal,” she said.

She bent to slide her dagger out of its holster. She expected to find Slate glaring again when she straightened, but when she looked over, he was watching her with something so wondrous her breath stopped in her chest.

Fifteen

“That spot is already clean.”

Ruby startled and looked down at the patch of chest she had been rubbing with the cloth. Itwasclean, just like the rest of his chest. She had been wiping at it so long the bath water had gone from steaming to lukewarm.

“Just making sure,” Ruby said.

She looked up to find him staring at the ceiling, as he had been doing since Ruby settled on his lap and started wiping him down. He had been quiet since they got the dog spirit back home. It had tried to run off into the woods, only for Slate to usher it into the protected castle instead. Ruby occasionally heard paws skittering in the hallway as the dog entertained itself.

Ruby sat up, stretching to scrub his shoulders in a way that exposed her breasts. But Slate didn’t bother to watch the bathwater bead around them as she had hoped.

Ruby gave up and laid her chin on his newly cleaned chest. “We’re safe. You can stop worrying.”

“Safe,” he repeated slowly. He shifted, water lapping around them as he moved. “Those demons were lost souls once. Theywould not have turned if I was watching over this realm as I should.”

Ruby bit her lip. It wasn’t like she disagreed, but she didn’t want him berating himself over it.

“Slate,” she tried.

“They were suffering,” Slate continued sharply. “I should have been there for them. I am one of the eldest Skullstalkers, and I was given this realm for areason.I cared about helping them, once. Iwantedto guide them. To show them where they were supposed to be. And now what? Lost souls decay and shrivel into shades while I sleep.”

Ruby stroked his ribs, her fingers catching on stray flecks of dried blood she hadn’t reached yet.

“You won’t bury yourself again,” she told him. “Not after they showed you the consequences.”

Slate grunted. His lips parted below his mask, and Ruby watched the pink tinge on his teeth. He hadn’t washed out his mouth yet.

“You underestimate how long Skullstalkers live,” he said quietly. “I am sure I will be an effective guide for a few centuries. But vows fade.Everythingfades with enough time. Someday I will forget why I cared so much.”

The words chilled Ruby to the bone. She knew, logically, that Slate would exist long after she was dead and gone. But to hear him talk about centuries so carelessly…

She swallowed. Even if it wasyearsbefore she could take his knot, it would still be a fraction of his long life. Would he even remember her name in a thousand years?

She tapped his chin. “Lean to the side.”

He did. She scrubbed at his neck, then at a stray drop of blood on the hinge of his skull mask that she had missed earlier.

“Will you visit?” she asked, unable to hold it in any longer. “When I go back to my realm.”

He fixed his black eyes on her for such a long time that Ruby shrank against him.

She opened her mouth to take it back, but he was already talking.

“If you wish. And I will do my best to keep track of time. So, I don’t…” He stopped, his jaw snapping shut so loudly that Ruby jumped.

He stroked her bare back in a silent apology. Water ran down her spine, and Ruby shivered. The water was warm, but his skin was as cool as ever.

“I would hate to lose myself in a dream,” he said slowly. “And return to the human realm to find that you died eighty years ago.”

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