Chapter 209 Wash The Shame Away
(Adelaide & Caelum)
Her fingers curled into fists beneath the water. She felt the tendons in her wrists strain. Felt water push against her knuckles.
She bent forward and scooped water up, dragging it over her shoulders, her arms, her chest. The heat stung where her skin was already sensitive, but she welcomed it. Let it burn. Let it erase.
Water slid down her spine in rivulets, tracing her ribs, pooling in her palms before dripping away. She scrubbed at her collarbone as if she could erase a sentence written into her skin.
She scrubbed harder. Palms scraped down her arms, nails raking faint lines into her skin as if she could peel the feeling away. As if shame were a stain she could scour off if she just tried hard enough. The water reddened, then cleared, like sin learning to hide.
Her breathing went fast, shallow. Steam stuck to her face, making her tears indistinguishable. She hated that too.
I chose it, she thought desperately.
I chose him. I wasn’t helpless. I wasn’t a victim. I wasn’t a thing. I wasn’t.
But the memory of Cael’s closed expression sat heavy in her chest, poisoning the reassurance.
It turned her thoughts sour.
She washed faster. Water splashed softly against the stone as her movements grew rougher, less controlled. She dragged her hands down her stomach, her sides, over her ribs again and again, as if repetition might dull the ache curling beneath her sternum.
Her skin flushed pink beneath her frantic palms. The sound of water slapping flesh became a rhythm, relentless, as if she could beat the shame out of herself by force alone.
Her breath started to hitch. She forced it to steady, tried to slow down. It didn’t work.
Her lungs felt too small. The steam made every inhale thick and heavy, as if she were drinking air instead of breathing it.
The heat of the pool pressed in, amplifying everything. The quiet made her thoughts louder. Steam trapped the sound of her breathing, made it feel too close, too present. Every exhale felt like a confession with no priest to catch it.
Somewhere in the chamber, a drop fell—slow, patient. She hated how it sounded like waiting, like judgment biding its time.
Her hands shook. She scrubbed her arms again, harder, skin flushing under her touch. A sharp sting bloomed where she’d scraped too roughly, and the pain split something open inside her.
Her stomach clenched. Her eyes burned. She tried to blink the feeling away. It didn’t leave.
Her breath caught. Then broke.
The sound that escaped her was small, almost nothing—a thin, broken exhale that slipped out before she could catch it. She froze, shoulders hunched, as if she could pull the sound back inside.
Her lips pressed together hard enough to sting.
Another breath followed—uneven, trembling. Her vision blurred, not from the steam this time, but from the sudden, traitorous burn behind her eyes.
Tears slid down her cheeks and vanished into the wet heat, leaving no proof behind. That made it worse.
Don’t, she told herself. Not like this. Not here.
Not in front of him. Not where the palace might remember.
But her chest tightened anyway. Her throat closed around a sound she hadn’t meant to make. Water rippled faintly around her ribs as she swayed. The pool answered with a soft, merciless echo.
Her hands went to her face, then dropped again, useless. She couldn’t decide what to do with herself, where to put the hurt.
Behind her, at the edge of the pool, Cael went utterly still. He had been watching without meaning to.
At first, it had been instinct—tracking her movement, the way her flame shifted in the water, the way her shoulders tensed. Then it had become something else. Something he hadn’t named fast enough to stop.
His gaze caught on the rawness in her movements—the frantic scrubbing, the way her breath kept failing—and something inside him recoiled, struck hard as if by a blade.
He saw the way she scrubbed at her skin—too hard, too fast—the way her posture folded in on itself, as if she could shrink inside the steam, disappear into her own body.
And he felt it. Not through magic. Through something worse.
A physical, ugly drop in his gut. The taste of guilt rose like bile.
Regret hit him sharp and sudden, slicing through the careful distance he’d wrapped around himself. It cut like a blade blessed by the wrong god.
His fingers twitched as if to reach for her, then curled into fists as if reaching would condemn them both.
What did I just do?
The question came unbidden, ugly in its clarity. He’d meant to be cold. To be firm. To put space between them like armour.
He hadn’t meant to wound. But he had. The wound was visible: in the tremor of her shoulders, the way her breath kept breaking, the small sound she tried and failed to swallow.
He watched her shoulders tremble, saw the way her breath fractured into uneven pieces, and something in his chest tightened painfully. His shadows stirred restlessly at his feet, reacting to his agitation, curling as if they wanted to move closer even as he forced them to stay. They remembered the shape of her before he would allow himself to.
The shadows pressed against his skin, eager and frantic, wanting to cover her, hide her, cradle her in darkness. He held them back with sheer will, the way he held everything back.
Why did I say it like that? Why did I want her to feel it?
The answer made his jaw clench. Because it hurt him to see her choose Apollo. Because it was easier to turn that hurt outward than sit with it. Because distance felt safer than honesty. Because jealousy was simpler than tenderness. Because jealousy didn’t make him feel like he might break.
Another quiet sound slipped from her, barely audible over the water. It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It landed in him like a curse.
Cael’s fingers curled at his sides. This wasn’t a scene. It wasn’t a moment. It was a fracture, and he was the one who split it open.
His throat tightened. He swallowed once. It didn’t help.
He took a slow breath, forcing his instincts back into alignment. He scanned the chamber again automatically—entrances, ledges, steam density—before his focus returned to her.
His mind clung to procedure because procedure was the only thing keeping him from sprinting into the water.
She was unravelling. And he didn’t know how to watch that without breaking himself open in the process.
He could stand in front of a blade without flinching. He couldn’t stand behind her tears.
His shadows stirred, restless. His gaze snapped to the chamber’s entrances, then the upper ledges, then the far pools. He assessed the space in a single breath, confirming they were alone.
Then he checked again, because Hell had a habit of listening through stone.
Then the shadows moved. They peeled from his skin and surged forward, climbing the stone, thickening the steam, muffling sound and sight until the world narrowed to the pool and the two of them inside it. The chamber dimmed, sealed in shadowed privacy. A chapel built from night, hidden from every eye but theirs.
The veil settled like a hood over a confession, swallowing edges, dulling echoes, turning the chamber into a pocket of darkness where even a spy’s gaze would slip away. Cael felt the concealment lock into place and held it there, steady, stubborn, absolute.
Only then did he move.