"Curiosity is a double-edged sword, both beautiful, and deadly. There's no telling which side you'll get."
A night of innocent exploration turns lethal as Sorcha's sister is captured by human sailors. In her search, Sorcha rescues one of the humans...
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Water trickled across bloodied knuckles, pouring back into the pink tinted bucket below. Gendry squeezed the soaked cloth with one fist and watched as the distorted reflection of his battered face vanished beneath a waterfall of his own creation. Onyx eyes stared forward, drawn and unseeing. There was no spark of joy, intelligence, or even curiosity dancing behind them like fabled fire sprites amidst a barren winter. It was as if the essence of the Sorcha he knew had scurried back into the farthest recesses of her mind and barricaded herself beneath a landslide of granite.
Goosebumps trailed across her skin in the wake of the damp cloth that washed away the evidence of the earlier atrocity. It had been an inevitable moment, Gendry knew. A moment in which she saw the world of men for what it truly was. When she saw him amongst his people and realized that the man he was when they met is merely who he wished he could be -- not the reality of his character. No man could go through life unscathed, untainted with the blood and dirt of lesser beings -- and none could say that they had never been the lesser being themselves. What a fool he had been to believe she would continue to look at him with such a sparkle in her eyes, with that damned dazzling smile of hers.
Every time Gendry's fingers brushed against her warm ochre skin, he would freeze, his eyes flitting to hers in anticipation of the moment when she would inevitably recoil from his touch. She never did. The water he used had grown cold much too quickly, and he debated ordering another be heated for her. But at the thought of leaving her side, he decided it would have to do. Her borrowed gown was discarded and sent with one of the crew to be cleaned. She remained in the thin chemise that was mercifully protected from the spray of blood.
