Page 144 of Golden Queen
"I mean...they used magic to make me...intact again."
The air that whispered across my skin was like a knife to my chest as he backed up, looking at me horrified.
I was wrong. I was so fucking wrong.He was disgusted with me. I could see it on his face.
I turned over and reached for the blankets, trying to cover myself as shame washed over me.
I got the quilt over me and dared to look at him. His expression had not changed. He was standing there, wide-eyed, horrified. His chest rose and fell in great bursts of air.
A sob tried to escape, but I refused to let it, shoving my hand over my mouth and biting down hard. I heard a whimper from my throat, one I knew would turn into a scream if I didn't do something to stop it.
I turned my face into the pillow, curling myself into a ball, wishing I was anywhere, anywhere in the world. Being in the bed of the fucking Prince of Penjan would have been better than being the cause ofthatlook on his face.
"I'm sorry," I whispered raggedly. The words were weak and pathetic to my own ears. All the reasons why I had wanted to be with him sounded inane and utterly selfish in my own head.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
His tone surprised me. I had expected derision and scorn, disgust, and maybe even pity. All I heard was sorrow.
"I just...I thought they had shattered the part of me that...felt this way. And when I realized they hadn’t...I just needed you." It was all the explanation there was. It was all the excuse I had. "I'm truly sorry, Io—for everything."
"No," he said, slightly incredulous. “Gods no, Sera.I’msorry.”
I stared across at the wall, unable to look at him. I felt so empty and hollow all of a sudden that even the tears had gone.
I felt the bed shift with his weight as he moved behind me, laying his body next to mine. "I didn’t know, Sera...I’m sorry…fuck," he exclaimed in a voice gone harsh with emotion. "I'm sorry for the way I was so rough with you."
I felt a tentative hand at my side as though he was unsure whether he should touch me. "I was angry,” he admitted. “Angry at you and angry at myself for wanting you—for needing you. Fuck, Sera. You say you need me,but I feel like I'm being burned alive every moment by how badly I need you." His hand slid around me, pressing against my stomach through the blanket as he leaned his head against mine, breathing out a long, ragged breath.
The sound of his voice, nearly broken with emotion, almost destroyed me. "I'm sorry, Sera."
"You did nothing I did not want you to do, Io," I said, swallowing the painful knot in my throat. "I should have told you..before, so that it wasn't so...jarring to find out that I’m vitiated," I finished.
"Vitiated?" he said, puzzled.
"It means..."
"I know what it means, Sera. I'm just confused why you would call yourself vitiated."
"I don't know. It feels like I'm corrupted inside, broken. Truly ruined as they claimed I was…by all the things they did to me. Not just what they did between my legs, but all of it. I was so helpless, so weak, and I never thought that about myself before. It made me...less than I was somehow. Like it took away what little strength I had. And...I saw the disgust on your face. It’s not something you can—"
He cut me off. "Fuck, Sera! How can you even think that? I was not disgusted with you. I was disgusted with myself for the way I treated you—the things I said. I was...I wanted to hurt you," He admitted. When I glanced over my shoulder, he was massaging his temples with his thumb and middle finger as though the memory pained him.
He dropped his hand from his head and laid it against my cheek. "You are in no way less. You're the strongest person I know. I'm the one who's weak. I'm the one who's been silently praying that you'd give me even the slightest excuse to touch you. And when you did, I punished you for it."
I turned and raised myself up so that I was beside him, sitting back on my bent legs, still holding the blanket around myself. "You didn't hurt me, Io. I told you, you didn't do anything I didn't want you to do."
"Just fucking stop it, Sera," he said, surprising me by reacting with anger to words that were meant to assuage his guilt.
"Stop what?" I asked, unsure what I’d done wrong.
"Stop trying to make me feel better. I hurt you, and your response is to reassure me—to makemefeel better. I don't deserve it, Sera. I have never deserved that kind of—"
"Love?" I supplied.
His eyes were like bottomless pits of misery.
I leaned up and laid my hand on his cheek. "I do love you, Io. I could no more deny that than I can stop breathing. Both would kill me just the same."
