Page 137 of Winds of Ruin
But the subtle tick of her father’s watch in my pocket told me maybe she wouldn’t leave me destroyed.
Chapter 52
Elsedora
I’d arrived too late to hear Emmerick’s speech. Sybilla was right—punctuality evaded my nature.
Adoration was baked into Emmerick’s honey-brown eyes as he raked them over me. I fought the fluttering sensation it aroused in my stomach.
Ineverswooned.
Yet I’d just given a man something my father had once held dear, and now he stared at me like I might make his dreams come true.
It tugged at the girlish part of me that I’d buried long ago—the stargazer, the wild-heart in a field of flowers hoping for someone good to come her way.
He had.
And while I’d ultimately need to let him go, I could revel in the momentjusta bit longer.
Stepping up beside him, I waited for him to offer to escort me around the room. His brows shot up.
“Oh!” he realized. Then he held out his arm, and I looped mine through it.
“It’s good to take a spin about once with a pretty woman on your arm—it piques interest. So let me show you off, and then I’ll unleash you on the noble ladies eyeing you from the corner over there.”
As we passed them, I gave the women a little wave of my fingers before setting my clutch down on a table. My hand settled on the top of Emmerick’s forearm.
Flaunting the man came naturally; I enjoyed it a bit too much. He looked good in a crown—even better in the well-tailored jacket I’d selected for him.
I wanted to peel it off him with my teeth.
But he needed to live more and find a woman whose capacity for love wasn’t so stunted. Enjoying kissing someone, or even seeing them naked, had never been a good enough reason to attach myself before.
“Also, if the night should take a bad turn for you—the ladies hanging around Lords Watson and Edger by the punch bowl are from my favorite pleasure hall in Helos. They’re lovely company.”
“Elsedora.” His body stiffened. “Does Sybilla know they’re here?”
I laughed and shrugged. “Will it hurt her any? The madame is a dear friend, and the lords don’t seem to mind their presence one bit.”
He pulled me toward an alcove and spun me to face him before he glanced over at the unexpected guests I’d invited with hesitation. “Which pleasure hall?” he whispered.
“The one on Canter Lane by the bakery.”
His jaw grew rigid; if this revelation wound him any tighter, he may snap. A haunted sort of contemplation crossed his stare as he gazed through me.
“I’ve been to it under Caym’s command. The madam, she looked familiar.” He leaned down and said into my ear, “I killed them... your friend’s previous courtesans. All of them. That place—it was one of my darkest moments as one of Death's envoys.”
Without thinking, I lifted my hands to cup his cheeks and tipped his gaze down to mine. “Youdid nothing. Caym did that. He alone. You cannot carry that.”
He’d mentioned the first night he’d descended into what he thought were horrid dreams only once. I’d been thoughtless with this idea, not putting the pieces together. Leonna, my friend and the owner of the establishment, had shuttered the windows for months. She’d told me an awful accident had killed her girls and that she had received a loan to renovate. But she’d been cagey about who’d paid her.
It had become clear now.
“That may be,” he said. “But I can’t help but think maybe Caym chose that place because the women there had been kind to me once. I was eighteen—had never been with anyone before. The men in my infantry pressured me into tagging along, but I’d had far too much to drink. Instead of losing my virginity, I lost the contents of my stomach into a bucket all night. I paid a woman there to stay and clean up after me.”
Immortality has a way of sneaking up on you.
Sometimes you think a moment is so inconsequential until it slams into you like a two-ton carriage.
