Attempting to remove his hand and rise, I shift sideways, but he holds his place, firmly pressed against me. The rough pad of his fingertip traces the scar tissue around the casing. His deep, stormy eyes follow the hollow of my neck until they land on my collarbone. And with a movement so subtle, he turns his hand over and pulls my tunic down, exposing the clamp.
My insides threaten to combust. Every nerve in my body is ready to set the mercury aflame—my dread is complete. I have to force some word from his mouth, some action from him, to end this torment.
Only when he begins to lower his mouth toward mine, I freeze, wondering if he’s merely accepting me because again, we could die, and I’m the last chance he’ll have to be wi
th a woman before then.
But his lips pass mine, brush over my chin and jawline, and instead find the sensitive, scarred skin of my chest. He plants a soft kiss, and then another. My throat thickens. My nostrils flare as a burning sensation blazes behind my sinuses. It quickly subsides when the unshed tears I’m holding back release. I blink, and they quietly trail down the sides of my temples.
Raising a shaky hand, I curl my fingers in his soft hair. Brush the nape of his neck and comb them through. He exhales heavily against my skin, and my stomach tingles at the feel of his hot, caressing breath. His blue eyes meet mine before he turns his head and puts his lips to my suspended wrist. Wrapping his fingers around my forearm, he presses his mouth harder to my skin, working a fiery trail past my cuff and up my arm.
As he reaches my neck, I tilt my head back, and he buries his face as I give him full access. His body moves on top of mine. My legs wrap around his toned back, and I release a breath as his weight bears down, forcing me deeper into the mattress.
He stops, and my eyes fly open.
His face hovers above mine, inches away. His eyes glow a heated white-blue in the dark light, like the hottest part of a flame. “Who did this to you?” he whispers against my lips.
Snapped back into the moment just before he cleared my mind of every rational thought, I groan. “It’s complicated.”
He runs the back of his fingers over my cheek. “Do I need to kill someone?”
So unused to dealing with men outside of my country and their need to be the strong, dominate caretakers, a laugh bursts from my mouth. He squints, pressing his lips together. His serious demeanor causes me to laugh harder, and I muffle the sound with my free hand. I shake my head. “I’m sorry,” I say. “No, Caben. You do not have to have anyone killed.” Then my mind flashes to that night, and the happiness bubbling inside of me vanishes. “My father stole an expensive sample of mercury when he worked in the mines. The authorities tracked him down, and he needed to hide it—”
I stop short. How much will he believe?
He makes at least one connection and anger blooms in his eyes. “You father put it . . . inside you?”
Hearing him say it, it’s almost unbelievable. I nod, managing to confirm the horror. “He injected me with it. Afterward, my mother took me to the temple of Alyah—to a nun she trusted. They prayed over me while a surgeon operated. He replaced my heart valves with a cybernetic clamp—a fix.” I pause, gathering courage. “It filters the poison away from my heart.”
But there’s more, and I’m unsure how much more to reveal.
His brow furrows. “Your mother didn’t take you to a hospital? Didn’t turn your father in? Or the nun or doctor didn’t hand him over?”
Hearing him voice this, an ache shoots through me and my chest tightens. So simple, yet all these years I’ve avoided asking it aloud. I see my mother’s guilty expression the morning of the protector ceremony. The sickness wracking her body, taking over more and more after that night.
I’ve never fully allowed myself to embrace the anger of her actions. But she’s carried the burden of that guilt for the both of us. I forgave her before I ever realized that anger.
“Like I said.” I clear my throat of the ache. “It’s complicated.”
Caben’s body relaxes on top of mine. I feel the strain of his muscles give as he releases a breath. “And the strength?” he questions.
Opening my mouth to deny it, I squeak out a vowel, then bite my lip. “I don’t know,” I admit. “It came on shortly after the incident. But I’ve always restrained it after—” After I made my father crazy? “After I hurt my father once. I’m not even sure what I did to him, but now he’s in a mental ward.”
Fear slams my insides, and I want to retract my words. Having just found out about Caben’s own mother suffering a mental illness and being locked away, I’ve gone too far. Put too much on him all at once, and I’m sure he’s going to storm out of the chamber.
Immediately, my defenses go up. I remove my hand from his hair and wrap my arms around my chest. I want to tell him that I didn’t mean to hurt my father. But I did, didn’t I? My father was hurting my mother. And I knew—somewhere in the back of my mind, somewhere deep inside of me—I knew. I allowed whatever that dark thing was to guide my hands and place them on his head. I allowed it control, and it took my father’s mind.
“He deserved worse,” Caben says, his voice husky.
I meet his eyes, and I can see the questions in them. I don’t have the answers.
“Tell me what you believe,” he says.
“About what?”
He nods his head toward my chest. “You can’t tell me that you believe in the Otherworlders’ deity and children’s stories and no one had an explanation for you.” He swallows. “So tell me what you believe.”
I lick my lips, my mouth feeling dry. “My mother believes I’m blessed. That the Goddess Alyah saved my life and blessed the mercury. The nun believes the same, and that is why she keeps the secret. The doctor believes he is a genius, and that he discovered a rare blood type that accepted the mercury—”