Page 95 of To Dance with Death

I will try my damndest to restore him to this throne, but I can’t force him to want to keep me forever.

“You can go first,” Anton says, sweeping a chin toward the steaming tub. “I will give you privacy.” He makes for the door.

“Wait,” I hear myself say, my lips running ahead of my good sense. “There’s no point in you leaving.”

He halts—swings back around.

“I—I don’t do well in hot water. I mean…it helps. It feels lovely, of course. But I often feel rather…faint.” The truth, silly as it sounds. “I will have to wait until it’s colder if I’m going to have the stamina to scrub off all this muck. You might as well use the tub first. Unless…”

I hesitate, bite my lip. Then decide against putting voice to what I need.

“Unless?” he prods.

I hook his gaze, intent on telling him it was nothing. Instead I find myself slipping back through time. Here and now—something about the lighting, perhaps—he looks like he did the night Illian demanded I frame Razam for the murder of King Rurik. And I had felt emboldened under the force of it.

The glint in his eyes has always felt like a dare.

“Unless you help me,” I say, despite my revolting heart.

I follow the line of his throat as it bobs. “Whatever you need.”

Needing to let the water cool at least a little, we both pick at the piecrust in silence. Finish off our glasses of wine—which I gulp greedily, if only for the courage it might afford. Then, when I am full and satisfied and jittering with a fresh frisson of nerves, Antoncollects our dishes, setting them on the tray and then outside the door.

It’s only a bath,I remind myself. He took anything else off the table.

When he approaches me, I force myself to stand straight, as if I could prove to myself that I can be brave in this, too.

I untie the cord at my waist, angling so he can reach the buttons I cannot. I slip in a rapid breath as I feel his hands on my shoulders, his fingertips finding the buttons at my nape.

One by one, he pops them free.

A spiral of steam lifts from the tub as my dress tumbles down my legs. Odd, that I don’t hear him breathe as the seconds stretch on.

With a steadying inhale, I reach for the hook at the back of my bralette, and that I remove, too, along with the slip of underwear I wear, during which I whisper a silentthank-youto the dark of the room. I am all but wrapped in shadow, save for the faint, colorful glow at my front, and the smallest flick of candlelight at my side.

Even so, I wonder if he’s fixed on the exaggerated curvature of my spine. Or perhaps my imperfect gait. I find I cannot bear to turn toward him. But when he steps in front of me, he looks…tortured, his chest heaving, even as he keeps his eyes on mine.

“You can’t get in wearing that,” I say, though it comes out strangled. I reach for the laces at the front of his tunic, though I know he doesn’t exactly need help.

Still, I unravel them until the tunic is loose. He leans down, allowing me to pull it over his head, though I avert my gaze, knowing if I were to take him in, my knees would give way. The corner of my eye betrays me, though, and I get a sense of his profile—the cut of his chest, the lean stomach beneath. My swallow is thick when I hear him remove his pants, and I remind myself to breathe.

When finally he joins me, he offers me a chivalrous arm. Together, we step up and into the tub.

It’s larger than I had expected, and hotter, and immediately, my vision crackles with stars. But Anton keeps his focus on my face, cataloging every sign of discomfort.

“Perhaps it would be easiest if you leaned against me,” he says, helping me down.

He’s so gentle, so caring, and it strikes me once again that this—it’shim.This is how he is with or without his memories. Furthermore, it’s proof that he and I…Well, it wasn’t the Gathering that drew him to me. It wasn’t our circumstances, or how useful we were to each other.

It was just…us.

Once again, my eyes sting with the realization, and I love him all the more.

Will he recognize the admission the next time he sees my face?

For now, I lie back against the smooth planes of his chest. I feel so much of him. I feelengulfed.Already my pulse is frenzied, and not just from the heat. He grabs a nearby cloth, soaks and lathers it, and then he’s running it along every inch of me—my neck, first, then my shoulders. My arms, which he takes particular care of, twisting and turning them gently.

Next, he guides my head so that the base of my neck rests against his shoulder. My gaze rises to the stained-glass window: a fragmented rose mid-bloom—or perhaps mid-wither, now that I note the petals strewn around the base of the vase. It reminds me of the glass rose chandelier in Illian’s palace, the one I’d danced under for years before he imprisoned me.