Chapter 15 Chapter Fifteen
The chamber shook when Asher let out those words that sounded harsher than he probably intended.
“I didn’t want to scare her,” he added softly.
Aquila’s expression softened. Then a slow grin spread across his face.
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“That you just got jealous.”
Asher froze in the water. If Aquila didn’t know any better he would have thought Asher was cut out of the same stone they’d built the pool with.
“You are, aren’t you?” Aquila’s grin only widened. “You got all protective when I licked her wound and carried her in my arms. When I touched her.”
Asher drew in a sharp shuddering breath then sank into the water to rinse himself off. “Don’t get it twisted, why would I be jealous-”
“But you are.” Aquila interrupted. “I’ve tangled with too many jealous partners enough times not to recognize one when I see him.” he laughed.
“Then perhaps you should stop taking what does not belong to you,” Asher murmured under his breath and Aquila burst out laughing, doubling over as he held his sides.
“I fucking knew it! You are jealous that I touched your woman.”
“She’s not--” Asher’s voice was strained. “She’s not my woman. A woman. But not mine.”
“Not yet she’s not.”
Asher turned slightly. Just enough that Aquila caught the scar cutting across his face.
“I don’t know how to talk to her.” Asher finally admitted the bitter truth. “You make it look…easy.”
There was a certain vulnerability to his words that made Aquila’s grin soften into a fond smile.
“Because it is. You start with a ‘hello’.” his voice gentled. “And go from there.”
Asher turned his face back. “Did you see the way she looked at me?”
She looked utterly dumbstruck.
“She probably just recognized you from the auction.” Aquila moved towards the door.
“So she thinks I’m a buyer?” The mere thought of being seen as one of those people railed him.
Aquila shrugged. “I don’t know. And neither will you if you keep avoiding her. I guess I’ll just tell her you’re a coward.”
“Aquila--”
“A coward,” Aquila repeated cheerfully. “Afraid of a woman half his size.”
He was almost out when Asher’s voice stopped him.
“Fine.”
“Fine, what?”
“I’ll talk to her.” Asher’s shoulders sagged. “Just don’t tell her stupid tales.”
“Good.” He grinned. “And try not to look like you’re attending a funeral.”
Asher’s response was a low trill as he combed his fingers through his hair, scrubbing the base of his scalp with his eyes closed. Aquila left, smiling to himself because he knew his best friend was a proud man.
ASHER
When Aquila left, my hands slipped out of my wet hair and dropped to my side in the water that was starting to cool. A heavy silence fell upon me as I stared at the door he’d just left from like it would burst open again with Aquila dragging the girl behind him. It wasn’t beneath him to embarrass me like that.
But nothing like that happened. Still, my own thoughts went back to the girl who slept as though she would never wake up again. In the days I monitored her closely, she got increasingly paler. Her skin was almost translucent and if it weren’t for the steady rise and fall of her chest and the subtle twitch on her face as though she was trapped in a terrible nightmare, I would have thought she had already died. But there she stood in one of my shirts that hung off of her small frame like a sack, with ivory shards at her feet looking like a child caught with her hand in the jar of cookies. And her eyes looked brighter than I remembered them to be.
Those eyes. I thought when she looked at me. It was as though I’d been pulled back into the past. To that night at the auction when we locked eyes and her gaze made me feel vulnerable in a way that had scared me. There was recognition in them, but also something else…curiosity?
It might as well have just been a few seconds, but for me, it lasted an eternity. A trance-like state that was broken the second Barron came into view and then I left.
Crystal Noir.
Then I found her again, slumped back against the oak, and even near death, she had that ethereal look about her. I knew then, I had to protect her, even though I couldn’t understand why, but I was compelled, by something I’m too afraid to name, to bring her home when she was not my responsibility.
Even when she looked at me tonight like something to be afraid of, I felt my chest tighten painfully as new emotions swelled within it. Her beauty had captured me in more ways than one. That much I could tell, but…
My eyes dropped down and I caught my own reflection in the water's surface and my brows knitted together in a heavy frown as that hideous face stared back at me. A scar that cut diagonally from the top left side of my face down the right side of my cheek.
What would she do if she saw my face that wasn’t as handsome as Aquila’s?
“No!” I roared, bringing down my fist on the water’s surface, scattering the image of my face around. She can never see my face.
“Never,” I whispered to myself.
But of all the rubbish that Demon said before he left, one point was clear though, I couldn’t avoid her forever. She was my…guest and with the bounty on her head, she might as well not have anywh
ere else to go. The life she knew back at Covenant City might as well be over.