Wren never expected her life to change the moment she set foot in the Riders Quadrant at Basgiath War College. But everything shifted when she met Liam Mairi. Loving him was effortless, bright, and full of promise. Losing him was shattering.
His dea...
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By the time I scrubbed my hands for the fourth time, there wasn't any blood left on them.
There hadn't been any blood left after the first.
I knew that. I could see it in the clear water disappearing down the basin in my room, could see every line of my palms beneath skin that had gone angry and pink from the soap and friction, but knowing something and believing it had apparently become two entirely different things. I rubbed my thumb over the center of my opposite palm again, searching for something that wasn't there, and the skin burned beneath the pressure.
Jack was gone.
His blood was gone.
His power wasn't.
I could still feel it somewhere beneath my skin.
Not the way I'd felt Ridoc's ice. That had been terrifying because it had been unexpected, because one second I'd been holding my friend's wrist and the next his signet had answered me as though it had always belonged there. But there had been something almost clean about the cold, something I could understand once I'd stopped panicking long enough to listen to it.
Jack had been different.
Jack had felt dirty.
I shut off the water and braced both hands against the edge of the basin, staring at my reflection in the small mirror above it. Damp strands of dark hair clung to my neck from the shower I'd already taken, another failed attempt at washing away something that apparently didn't exist anywhere soap could reach. I'd scrubbed my arms. My neck. My hands until they hurt. Still, every time I closed my eyes, I could feel the frantic beat of Jack's pulse beneath my fingers.
Worse, I could remember how much I'd wanted it to stop.
Not because I wanted him unconscious.
Because I'd wanted him dead.
The thought turned my stomach.
I pushed away from the basin and crossed my room, but there wasn't enough space to outrun a thought in here. Three steps brought me to my bed, another two to the desk, and turning around only put the basin back in front of me. Usually I liked the smallness of my room. After spending most of my life in a house where privacy had been something other people decided whether I deserved, having four walls and a door that belonged only to me had felt like a luxury.
Tonight, it felt like being trapped inside my own head.
"You are going to remove your skin if you continue."
Ryuu's voice moved through the bond with none of his usual amusement.
