Page 59 of Soul of Shadow
“Is it dead?”
His smile dropped. “No. I only managed to injure it. Took off both its hands, but they’ll regrow. They always do.”
Charlie groaned at the thought of those sharp fingers, her hand coming up beneath the quilt to touch her back. She expected to find fresh wounds, clotted blood, torn-up skin dampening the sheets and blanket… but touched only the cool, raised surface of what felt like scars. The T-shirt she wore to the game was completely shredded, the back hanging so loosely and limply that—
“Wait.” Heat crept onto Charlie’s cheeks. “Was my shirt like this while you were carrying me?”
Elias’s face lit up with amusement. “Oh, please.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re really worried about me seeing the Victorian-era undergarments you have on?”
Horrified, she turned onto her uninjured side, drawing the blanket tighter around herself. “My bra isnotVictorian,” she said. “It’s sensible and supportive.”
“Whatever you say, Charlotte.” He reached out and patted the foot of the bed. Holding in a groan, Charlie lifted her head to look at what he was indicating. His palm rested on a folded sweatshirt. “Don’t worry—I fished something nonshredded for you out of my drawers. Might be a bit big, but at least you won’t arrive home looking like you had a run-in with Michael Myers.”
She groaned slightly, letting her head fall back onto the pillow. “Ofcoursehorror is your favorite movie genre.”
“Who said anything about favorite? I enjoy a wide variety of films, though admittedly there’s nothing better than sitting in a theater full of people nearly crapping their pants with fear. Really gets my juices flowing.”
Charlie rolled her eyes. “Naturally.”
There was a lull in the conversation, and Elias became uncharacteristically awkward, patting his knees and looking around the room. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “Looks like there’s nothing more for me to do here, so I’ll just be…”
“Wait,” she said, panic twisting her stomach at the thought of being left alone. Elias paused in the middle of rising from the footstool, eyebrows lifted. Charlie searched for something, anything, to keep him from exiting the room. “Where’s the vätte? Is he all right?”
“Oh, he’s fine.” Elias stood all the way up, waving a hand. “You’d be surprised at how powerful those little guys are. I’ve set him up down in the kitchen. He seems to have a liking for chocolate chip cookies.”
Charlie laughed, though the motion hurt. “That he does.”
Elias smiled, then started to turn around.
“Wait,” she said again. God, she sounded desperate. “What… Um, what were you doing to my back?”
“Ah.” He turned back to her and lowered himself onto the stool. “You mean with my hands?”
“Yes.” Charlie exhaled in relief. “I don’t understand. My skin should be bloody and ragged, but all I feel are scars.”
Elias placed a shadowy hand on the hem of the blanket, a silent ask if he could lift it from her body. Charlie felt a twinge of shyness but nodded anyway, rolling onto her stomach. Elias lifted the covers, then she bunched the torn-up T-shirt along her sides to expose her back. She twisted, trying to get a view of her back, but the movement hurt too much. She hissed and settled onto her cheek.
“It will be tender for some time,” Elias said, hovering one of his hands over her bare back. “But I was able to heal it enough that you won’t bleed out or get sick from infection.”
“You healed it?” she asked. “How?”
“One of the lesser-known perks of being a mare.” His eyes took on a distant quality. “We can dole out pain and fear, but we can take it away, too.”
“Really?”
He nodded, slowly lowering his hand. Charlie watched it drop, her muscles tightening with every millimeter it traveled toward her naked skin. At last, he made contact, the coolsoftness of his shadow resting atop her spine. A shiver ran the length of her body. A part of her wanted to tell him to take it back, not to touch her after all, but his palm felt so wonderful on her aching body. The same soft air as before began to twirl along her skin, seeping into her muscles, relaxing everything. Yet with every second that his hand remained, there was also a tightening—a clench low and deep in her belly. A hyperawareness that she was almost bare before him, his eyes running slowly down her skin.
Elias inhaled, pulling his hand away as if emerging from a daze.
“Well.” He cleared his throat. “If that’s all—”
“Wait.”
It was the fourth time she had used the word since waking but the first time it had escaped her lips in such a soft and breathy fashion. Hearing her tone, Elias’s eyes snapped up to meet hers.
Charlie didn’t know what was happening. What Asgardian demon inhabited her body, causing her to speak the words that came out next.
“Can you lie with me?”
