“I’ve never been more scared in my life than when you forced me and Marcus out of the room.”
“Me, too.” I swallowed hard. I don’t know what made me do it, but I pulled my hands free and slipped them between my knees. “How is Marcus?”
“He’s hanging in there, but he’s going to be relieved once he learns you’re awake.” Aiden leaned in, his breath warm against my cheek. Every instinct insisted that I lift my chin a fraction of an inch to meet his lips, but I couldn’t move.
There was another pause, and the words he spoke next were heavy. “I know why you made sure Marcus and I were out of that room when Ares attacked. It was incredibly brave, and so like you.”
My fingers dug into my stiff denim jeans. Gods, were they the ones I’d worn during the fight? Patches of dark dried blood covered the legs like paint. Squeezing my eyes shut, I was sickened to find that the images of what has caused the stains lingered.
Aiden took a deep breath. “But if you ever do anything like that again, I will strangle you. Lovingly, of course.”
I almost cracked a smile at the same thing I’d thought about him not too long ago, but the smile never made it to the surface.
He wasn’t done. “We promised each other we’d face this stuff together.”
“Ares would’ve killed you,” I said, and it was the truth. Ares would’ve killed him and Marcus if they had stayed in that room, and he would’ve relished doing so.
“But I would’ve protected you,” Aiden countered. “I would’ve done every godsdamn thing there was to save you from having to go through what you went through in there. When I came into the room and saw you…” He broke off, cursing under his breath.
“You would’ve died trying to protect me. Don’t you get that? I had to do it. I couldn’t live with myself if you or Marcus died—”
“And do you think either of us can live with ourselves knowing what that bastard did to you?” Anger snapped through his voice. So did frustration. “Look at me.”
At a loss of how else to explain the obvious to him, I shook my head.
“Godsdammit, Alex, look at me!”
Startled, my head jerked up and my eyes met his. They were a furious shade of gunmetal gray, and they were so open. Raw pain flowed from them, and I wanted to look away from that, to take the coward’s way out.
“My heart stopped when that damn door closed on me. I could hear you two fighting. I could hear him taunting you, and I could hear him breaking your bones. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.” He placed his hands on the sides of my legs. Tension rippled through the muscles in his arms. “You never should’ve faced something like that alone.”
“But you would’ve died.”
“And because I love you, I am willing to die to save you from that. Don’t you dare take that decision away from me again.”
My mouth opened, but there were no words. So much was going on inside my head and chest. What he said had split my heart wide open and then stitched the wound closed. But what would I have left if he’d died? I would’ve been beyond heartbroken, and I couldn’t even bear to think about his death without hurting. If I had to do it over again, I would make the same decision because I loved him. So how dare he expect me to do anything less?
I knew I needed to say those words to him, but they…they just couldn’t get past the ball in my chest or pop the lid on the pressure inside me. I shivered, numb and chilled to the core.
Aiden went to grasp my shoulders, but he stopped, his fingers curling around air. “You have my heart, and you also have my strength. Make no mistake, I am willing to die for you, but you have to trust that I don’t want to leave your side. Ares wouldn’t have taken me out easily, because I would’ve fought to stay alive and be there for you.”
I heard him, and I felt what he said, but all I saw were the Guards that Ares hadn’t even touched. Dominic, whom he’d snapped in two with the twist of his hand. The Dean he’d tossed out the window with a wave of his arm. All the wanting and needing in the world wouldn’t have saved their lives.
He let out a ragged breath when silence filled the bathroom. “Say something, Alex.”
“I…understand.”
He stared at me, dumbfounded.
The numbness had seeped into my muscles. “I want to take a shower. I need to get out of these clothes, and I need to bathe.”
Aiden blinked, and then his gaze dropped. Some of the color brought back by anger drained as if he’d just realized I was in the same blood-splattered clothing I’d worn when I faced Ares. “Alex…”
“Please,” I whispered.
He didn’t move for the longest time, and then he nodded. Rising fluidly, he stopped halfway and pressed his lips to my forehead. My heart thumped heavily, but then I realized his lips were touching those scars and I winced.
Aiden pulled back immediately. Concern etched into his striking face. “Do they—did I hurt you?”
“No. Yes. I mean, it’s tender.” Truth was, it hadn’t hurt at all. Not like the rest of my body did. At first, it had actually felt nice. “I just need to shower.”
He hesitated, and for a moment I thought he wasn’t going to leave, but then he nodded again. “I’ll get something for you to wear when you’re finished.”
“Thank you,” I said as the door closed behind him.
I stood slowly, feeling like I was ninety as my joints popped and my muscles stretched. Stripping off the soiled clothing took an indecent amount of time, and as I turned the water on and steam filled the bathroom, I stepped in. Hot water doused me from head to toe, pricking my raw skin.
The water coursed through my hair and down my body, filling the tub with red and circling the drain like a grotesque raspberry swirl. I washed my hair twice, going through the mind-numbing mechanics until I was satisfied when I didn’t see a hint of pink in the bottom of the tub.
Only then, as I turned off the water and felt the spray lessen until it dripped down the plastic walls, did I look down at my body. From my toes to my collarbone, with only a few places where there were no bones to break, I was covered in the thin lacing of pink scars.
Good gods…I’d never seen anything like this before. I looked like one of those patchwork dolls.
I stepped out of the shower, legs shaking as I twisted to the side. My back was much worse. The coloring was darker along my spine, where many of the vertebrae had been smashed. Had all these bones broken the surface, or had the injuries burst blood vessels? There had been too much pain when it’d happened for me to tell.
Apollyon or not, I couldn’t believe I’d survived this. None of it seemed real.
The numbness in my chest spread like a weed. Maybe I was struck stupid by what I saw, because I had known it was my body that looked like this, but the knowledge had only sunk through a layer or two.
A strange mark on my back, near my hip, caught my attention. Colored like a pale pink rose, it didn’t follow the typical pattern of the rest of the scars.
Swiping the mist off the mirror, I twisted to get a better look at the mark on my lower back. My mouth dropped open. Holy Hades holding hockey sticks, it was the shape and distinct form of a hand.
“What the hell?”
“Alex?” Aiden’s voice came from the bedroom. “Are you okay in there?”
Heart pounding, I grabbed a towel off the rack and wrapped it around me. That was the last thing I wanted Aiden to see. Opening the door, I forced what I hoped was a reassuring expression. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
The look on his face said he didn’t believe me, but then his gaze dropped. It wasn’t the towel that had caught his attention or the fact that so much flesh was exposed. Deep down, I knew why he stared and why his lips thinned. I knew that, when he saw me, it wasn’t my body that held him immobile.
It was the patchwork of web-like scars that now covered almost every inch of me, and it was the first time he was really getting to see them in all their glory.