The paper disintegrated in her hands, blowing away in a few pieces of ash, and she raged. The stone in her room rippled with her anger. Her wooden door flew off its hinges, collapsing against the opposite wall. The spot beneath her was tinged with darkness.
Lynx made an angry sound as Isla broke down completely in front of Oro, sobbing into his chest. “He took them,” she said. “They’re gone. They’re all gone.”
BEFORE
Grim was gone. One moment, he was there, so close to her, and the next, she was alone. There had been a breach in the scar, he said.
How did he know? Could he feel it?
It had been hours since he had vanished, and she began to worry.
A part of her, a whisper in her mind like a shot of ink tainting all other thoughts, imagined the worst. It spun possibilities. What if the dreks had defeated him? What if he was stuck on the battlefield, slowly being consumed by the darkness that only her elixir seemed able to heal quickly?
What if he needed her?
She told herself she was worried because if he died, he couldn’t help her at the Centennial. Only for that reason.
Night bled into early morning, and Isla decided she couldn’t sit in her room and wait. She had to do something.
She was wearing one of her nightdresses. Isla considered changing, then forgot it. Grim could be dying. He could be in his room, bleeding out, not able to portal to her ...
She portaled in secret to Poppy’s room to steal more serum and drew her puddle of stars.
Isla had been waiting in his room for half an hour, sitting perched on the edge of his bed, when he finally entered.
Relief filled her, then rushed away.
He looked like a demon.
Grim wore a helmet with spikes that curved down over his nose, his temples. His shoulders had barbs like blades. Touching him anywhere would draw blood. His armor resembled dozens of scales, plated together. He looked like a creature of the night, a monster in the dark. Shadows puddled at his feet, circling.
Isla didn’t dare breathe. She told herself she should be afraid. If she had met him like this for the first time, she might have been.
But when the demon shed his layers, there was a man beneath. His helmet cracked against the floor when he dropped it. He stripped the armor off, with the tiredness of someone who felt suffocated, who wished to be free.
His shirt beneath was black and tight, fabric wrapped around and around. Isla didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed her yet.
All she could do was sit in shocked silence as he took off his shirt. Only when the fabric was over his head did his back tense.
And he slowly turned around to face her.
Isla felt her face go scarlet. He was unharmed. She felt foolish. Of course he was unharmed. Last time must have just been a fluke. He was the ruler of Nightshade; he knew how to defend himself. He didn’t needher, of all people, looking after him.
Stupid. She felt her face heat. She stood from his bed—why had she decided to sit there?—and smoothed her hands down her silk dress. Grim’s gaze dropped. She felt it like a flame, heating her from her collarbones, down her chest, her stomach, to places that made her dress suddenly feel too thin. “I—I just wanted to make sure you were fine,” she got out.
He motioned toward himself. “I’m fine,” he said.
Isla swallowed. “I can see that.” She straightened. Opened her mouth. Closed it. Her gaze slipped down his bare chest. She had seen him without a shirt before, of course she had, but she hadn’t ever allowed herself to truly study him this way. Now, she took all of him in.
He looked etched out of marble. Every muscle was defined by training, cut perfectly. His shoulders were wide. She studied him, and part of her ached to keep watching, to get closer, to touch him—
His words from the ball were right. Late at night, she sometimes thought of him, of his hands, rough against the softest parts of her.
In her imagination, she followed the muscled lines of his stomach, lower, lower, only to awake gasping.
Now he was right here, and he wanted her. She could see the evidence of it, right there in front of her.
She looked away. Suddenly the wall behind him looked very interesting. There was a mirror there, and she saw herself, standing very stiffly in her red dress. She studied her reflection, wondering what could have possibly made him want her in that way when she wasn’t doing anything special, she was just standing there, in a dress she often just wore to sleep.
