“I don’t want you to touch me.”
“That’s ironic.” His surcoat snaps against his legs as he walks to a nearby shelf and grabs bottles of oils and herbs. “When we first met, you begged for my touch.”
“That was before…” My mouth turns dry as I think of who he is now.
“Before?” He hikes a dark eyebrow.
“Before you…” I wave my hand at his shoulders, to where that livery collar rests.
“Before I was Hector?” he asks, his voice like sand against my skin. So abrasive. So capable of scraping me raw.
“Yes,” I continue, the words bitter against my tongue. “You are Roland’s son.”
Hector is Roland’s son! The man I hated, hunted, and longed to kill.
Nothing stirs behind Hector’s eyes as they meet mine. No emotions. No strands to the man I married.
“How did you hide who you are from everyone?” I ask, desperate for a change of subject.
He shrugs. “Most Bloodstone people didn’t know me.”
“How is that possible?”
“I lived with the Carnelians for many summers.”
He lived with the Carnelian tribe? Maybe that explains his connection to Hero, the Carnelian, who’s always with him.
I do as Hector requested, removing my surcoat and pants. Surprise ripples through me when I slip into the water. It’s hot and muscle soothing. I sink until I’m submerged to the shoulders and sigh as my body relaxes.
In the mercenary army, they taught me to never turn my back to my enemy, but I do it anyway—turning away from Hector. If he wanted to hurt me, he could.
Nobody would stop him.
The water ripples around me as I pivot around to grab the bottle of oil and find him standing near the shelf. He stares past me, his attention caught on the torches. Or maybe something else.
“Are you my guard now?” I pour the scented oil in my hand and run it along my arms, then my neck, and lastly, my breasts.
His gaze still doesn’t move to me as he talks. “If I don’t guard you,” he says in a flat tone. “I’ll have no warriors left to defend us.”
I turn from him and use the oil on the rest of my body, scrubbing it into my skin and cleansing away the miseries of the last week.
“You could just let me go.”
He doesn’t answer.
I sigh and wash my hair. After I finish rinsing with a wooden bowl, I speak. “Where are Alden and the rest of the Bloodstone people?”
“Further in the mountains with most of the women and children.”
I think about Everly, Kassandra’s mother, and grandmother. Maybe they are there too.
As I step from the bath, Hector reaches for a drying cloth and throws it at me. I catch it to my chest and bite back the urge to curse at him.
I use the drying cloth. First, on my face. Then, all the way down my body. Hector keeps his gaze locked on the wall of torches the entire time.
Good. I don’t want him to look at me.
“Do you have clothes for me?”
