Page 130 of At the Mercy of Midnight
“Winslow?”
Amelia glanced over to him. He still had his back to her, his black pants sitting low across his hips, the muscles of his back shifting and flexing as he gripped his shirt with one hand and leaned forwards onto the table with the other.
“I’m alright,” she promised.
“Did you bring your salve with you?”
Amelia stared at the back of his head, stunned. She couldn’t begin to fathom how this man knew her so well, so completely. It was both terrifying and euphoric to think of.
She cleared her throat. “Um, yes. I have a jar in my satchel.”
“Are you decent?”
“Just a moment,” Amelia said, pulling the cold, damp shirt from her skin and laying it over an upturned chair before she took the blanket and draped it around her, covering her peach-coloured underwear. “Alright.”
When she turned again, Silas had his own blanket around his shoulders, and she suddenly registered their mutual states of undress.
Amelia felt frozen to the spot, trying, and failing not to imagine the hard, muscled planes of his lean body beneath the blanket, or what it might feel like to press her own naked body against him, feel his skin sliding over hers…
Her eyes snapped up, finding his blue gaze on hers, a curious tilt to his head. Her next breath was unsteady, and she could only hope that he wasn’t feeling the warmth that spread through her lower stomach at the unbidden thoughts that had raced across her mind.
Amelia moved to the fire and sat gingerly on the uneven couch, hoping it didn’t collapse beneath her. Satisfied that it would hold her weight without disintegrating, she settled back into it, folding her arms tightly beneath the blanket, clutching the edges together to keep the warmth in as she shivered violently.
Silas moved to sit next to her, holding her satchel in his lap, his own blanket pooling around his waist so his entire chest was bare to her, illuminated by the flickering firelight, casting shapes and shadows across the various dips and planes. The tattoo of a tree caught her eye, closer than she had ever been to it. Amelia studied it curiously.
The branches, dark and twisting, sprawled across his pectoral and left shoulder, the trunk and roots shifting down over the left side of his abdomen. She wondered at the gnarled look of the tree, and what it represented to him. It was beautiful and macabre in equal measure.
Silas pulled out the small jar of her salve just as Amelia looked over the little sequence of stars sitting above the treetop.
She reached for it before she could think on her actions, touching a cold fingertip to the warm skin where the stars were joined by a delicate line. His shoulder twitched and he took in a small breath at the touch.
“What does this mean?” she asked, voice soft and curious. Her eyes lifted, finding him watching her intently, the tip of her finger still resting near the sharp line of his collarbone.
“It’s the Orion star sequence,” Silas said, voice low, an edge to it she couldn’t interpret. “I had it done after my father disappeared.”
Amelia swallowed her sympathy as she looked back to the little stars inked into his skin. She trailed her fingers down, over the tops of the branches, fascinated at the way his skin sprung out in goose pimples in the wake of her touch.
“This is lovely, but also…sad,” Amelia remarked of the tree. Silas’ hand was suddenly around hers, pulling her away. He let her go, and Amelia’s hand moved to take the side of her blanket again, feeling her cheeks flush. “Sorry, I just—”
“I’ll put this on for you,” he interrupted her, and motioned with his hand for her to turn away from him.
Amelia searched his unreadable face as he waited for her. She sighed and twisted on the lumpy cushion until she faced the front door of the cottage, her back to Silas.
She shivered as she felt the gentle whisper of his hands that pulled the edges of her blanket away, revealing the runes between her shoulder blades. She heard his small intake of breath and knew what they would look like. They had pained her all day, and the salt water had stung the open wounds even more so.
She heard the jar opening and after a small pause, his soft fingers brushed the ointment into her skin. The relief was instant, soothing, and warming. Amelia sighed, eyes fluttering shut as the tension left the muscles around her shoulders.
“You can ask, you know,” Silas said in a low voice.
“Hmm?” Amelia hummed, eyes blinking open again.
“Ask me,” he said again, “when they begin to hurt. I can help you with this. Don’t just…sit in the pain. Ask me for help.”
Amelia pressed her lips together, heart thrumming unevenly in her chest as he finished. When his fingers left her skin, she shimmied the blanket back up her shoulders, fastening it in front of her chest before turning back.
“Thank you. I’m just so used to relying on myself,” she admitted.
“I know, Winslow.” He averted his eyes as he re-screwed the jar closed and put it away, setting the satchel aside on the dusty floorboards. There was a weighted emotion in his tone, eyes cast low, like he didn’t want to look at her. Her fingers twitched, wanting to reach for him, to ask him to explain, to understand this moment and why he seemed so distant from her. She watched him swallow, his throat shifting with it. Silas looked into the fire, the flames reflected in his eyes, like they, too, were on fire, blazing with emotion. “I wish I could be someone you could rely on.”
