He laughs low. “You’ve already tried to kill me. It didn’t work.”
“So why bring me back?”
“I look at you and I see the loneliest girl in the world.”
My chin ticks up. “I have a stone heart, Kyon. Nothing touches it.” It’s a lie that I need to make true again.
He watches me for a moment. I somehow feel like he knows all there is to know about me. “Maybe it’s your tragic innocence that made me keep you alive. Maybe I want to see it die screaming my name.” He leans his lips closer to mine. My hand grasps his wet hair. I tug on it with enough pressure to get his attention. His eyes shift from my mouth to my eyes.
“You have to earn me.”
Water streams over the sharp angle of his cheek to drip from his chin onto me. His black tattoos rope around his corded muscles and run down his neck. The thick lines bunch, forming a coiling sidewinder at my words. He lets go of my legs, allowing me to slide over his tattoo where it winds down his abdomen until my toes touch the hard stone floor.
“I don’t have to earn you, Kricket. You’re already mine.” He waves his hand in a dismissive gesture. The hovering shower heads turn off and descend to resting positions on the ground. He leaves me where I am for a moment as he walks to a recessed alcove. Pulling a sheetlike towel from a pile of them, he strips off his wet clothes. I turn away, blushing. My fingertips grip the rough, wooden slat that separates me from the sea beyond. I peer through the gap. How do I escape from here?
Kyon moves behind me; he’s so quiet that I don’t know he’s there until I feel him grasp the edge of my sopping nightgown. I shy away from him, bumping into the splintered wood. “What are you doing?” I gasp.
He has a dry towel draped over his arm. The other towel is wrapped low on his hips. “I’m taking care of you,” he replies, holding fast to my hem.
I try to swat his hand from it. “I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“It’s my duty,” he replies, not letting go.
“I absolve you of it,” I say through my teeth.
“It’s my right.”
I struggle to get away, but as I turn my back to him, he presses his hand flat against my shoulder, holding me against the wooden slats while he lifts my nightgown. He moves his hand to pull it over my head. I shiver again in the cool breeze as my back rounds away from his touch. Kyon’s fingers skim down my back—a caress. I don’t look at him. I can’t.
He wraps the length of thin fabric around me, covering my bare skin. Tucking the end into the top, his hand reaches for mine. I pull my fingers back, but he latches on and holds them fast until I look up at him. His expression is stoic. He waits for me to figure out that he’s not going to let my hand go. I relent. He turns and takes me back toward his house.
We enter the bedroom through the wide opening in the wall. He leads me directly to the large bed. The bed is still unmade from where I’d climbed from it earlier. He straightens the sheets and holds them back with a gesture for me to get in. When I don’t immediately comply he says, “Do you want me to make you get in?”
I sigh and climb into the bed wordlessly. Lying on my side I pull the blanket up to my chin while I turn and face away from him. Moving around the other side of the bed, Kyon gets in too. I immediately turn away from him again and move to the edge of the bed. His arms wrap around me. He pulls me to him and tucks me close to his body. My muscles go rigid. Kyon kisses my hair and snuggles tight against me. I begin to struggle and try to pull away from him.
“Don’t move.”
“I don’t want you to touch me.”
“I don’t care what you want. This is what I want. You need to know that I’m the only person to whom you can turn.”
“I don’t need you.”
“You will.”
Realizing that struggling only makes him hold me tighter, I relax and try to pretend his body isn’t molded against mine. I can’t reason with him. At the moment, the only thing he’s capable of grasping is me. The warmth radiating from him is not unpleasant though. The stress and the struggle to survive are catching up to me. My eyes grow heavy—I fight to keep them open.
Kyon says, “Sleep.” It’s as if he reads my mind.
“I can’t. Who’ll protect me from you if I do?” I murmur wearily.
“No one.”
I struggle to stay awake, but it has been such a brutal night that I eventually drift off to sleep in the arms of my enemy.
CHAPTER 3
HOLLOW WELL
My cheek presses against bare skin. I shift to see the broad expanse of his chest. Moving my fingertips, I notice they’re resting against a sliver of a silver scar. I trace it, not knowing what it is right away. When did Trey get this? I gasp. My fingers curl on his flesh and I quickly look up. “Kyon!”