Page 36 of The Withering Dawn
“We should sleep.”
I finally glanced back at him as he settled against his pillow. After a few moments of gathering my nerves, I laid beside him, trying to figure out what had changed. I still desired him. I still wanted to feel his touch, but my body protested.
Utter confusion consumed me as I tried to close my eyes and rest.
I rolled onto my side, my back facing him, and stared at the door, shoving my thoughts down into the dark chasm where I usually put them when they were being too insistent. That familiar sense of numbness washed over me and eventually gave way to sleep.
I woke with a weight across my chest, pinning me to the floor, but it wasn’t unpleasant. I peeled my eyes open and found Nazario’s face mere inches from mine, blanketed in early morning light from the window. He had that crease between his brows again. His arm was across my body, holding me close to him, clinging to me. The rapid, harsh beat of his heart reached my ears. I lifted my hand and smoothedit over his forehead, trying to relax his brows in the same way I had done last night. He twitched subtly at my touch. I didn’t have enough time to react before he sucked in a ragged gasp, his hand shooting up toward my wrist.
His eyes burst open and the moment he saw me, he froze, becoming fully aware. When he realized what he’d done, he groaned tiredly and released me, rolling onto his back and pinching the bridge of his nose.
I was saddened to feel the warmth of his body leave my side.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be,” he said, climbing over me to stand. “I am not used to sharing a bed with anyone. Or a floor, for that matter.”
I watched him grab his shirt off the back of his chair, but instead of putting it on, he turned to look at me, sweeping his hair back from his face with one hand. He raised a brow and then ran his free hand across his body, from his chest to his stomach.
“I am in one piece,” he said. “You did not eat me.”
I frowned, cocking my head, but the way Nazario smirked made me think he was waiting for a reaction.
It was a jest…
I forced a faint smile, trying to engage, but the attempt felt awkward.
Draping his shirt over his shoulder, he began gathering his thick hair into a low ponytail, tying it off with a strip of red fabric. My eyes roamed over the perfectly sculpted contours of his body from his broad shoulders to the narrow taper of his hips. His pants hung low and I followed the lines that plunged into his waistline, my heart beating a little faster at the thought of what was beyond it. He had a few scars on his work-hardened body, the most notable ones being on his forearms and along his biceps in rows, which seemed odd.
And I wondered how many were there because of Antonio.
My fists curled against the sheets beneath me when I felt a burning anger toward someone I’d never met and that was new to me. It didn’t make sense. I wasn’t there to see any of it and yet my teeth weregrinding imagining what I’d do if I saw the man that had hurt so many young boys. I had never thought of myself as a killer, but perhaps I could be. I’d already killed two men. Although, just because it was easy didn’t mean I enjoyed it.
I lost myself for a moment in the foreign thoughts before my eyes climbed again to see Nazario staring at me.
“What has you so tense?” he asked.
“The man who hurt you. Will you kill him if you find him?”
“As thoroughly as I can. Would you not do the same to the men that hurt you?”
I shrugged one shoulder, imagining myself returning to the island from which I came only to slaughter every last man who had kept me chained, beaten, and starved. But then I thought of the time I would waste getting there and the effort it would take to murder dozens of men, and I didn’t feel I had the stomach for it. I just wanted to stay away.
And then I looked at Nazario and the anger I felt over the things Cathal said made me more vengeful for his sake than my own and a strange, second-hand desire to get revenge filled my thoughts.
“Do not look at me like that,” he whispered. “It weakens me.”
“Like what?”
“Like you see all of me.”
“I don’t see all of you. But I feel you. It is an Yri trait, I was told.”
“You keep saying things like that and I’m beginning to believe you. Is that why you said the doctor was a sick man? Because you could feel him, too?”
I nodded. “And it is, perhaps, why my gut told me to come aboard this ship.” He narrowed his eyes, canting his head to one side. “I know Antonio haunts you. I want to help relieve that burden. I believe you to be a very good man under your hunger for revenge.”
He scoffed, shaking his head. “How can you know that when my hate for the man is all I have?”
