turned on the light.
I was always pale, but in the mirror I seemed preternaturally so, with blue shadows beneath my eyes. And across the left side of my face was the faint red flush from Balthasar’s hand, from where he’d slapped me.
No, not just that—from where he’d marked me.
Wherever we’d been, whatever we’d done, he’d been able to touch me. To hurt me. And if I hadn’t found my way out of that place when I had . . .
I shook my head. I was here now. I was here now, and he wasn’t. I’d made it out of wherever I’d been, and now I had to deal with it.
I had to find a way to deal with it.
First things first: I’d be damned if he’d mark me. I turned on the faucet, confirmed the temperature with my fingers, and splashed cold water onto my face over and over again until the memory and color had faded again.
I turned off the water, pressed a towel to my face, and when I put it down again, found Ethan standing in the doorway.
The expression on his face was ferociously possessive, and intensely uneasy. “Tell me what happened.”
I nodded but walked past him into the bedroom, felt a pulse of guilt that I’d avoided touching him. But he didn’t mention it.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, gathered my hands in my lap. Ethan stayed in the doorway but pivoted to face me, an uneasy distance between us.
My head was a jumble of words and thoughts, but I tried to order the pieces chronologically. “I was in a bed in an old-fashioned room. I think it was supposed to be like a room you’d been in before. With him. An inn, maybe? He was dressed in old-fashioned clothes, and I was, too. He wanted to talk about me, about you, about himself. He tried to be clever, to romance me.” I paused. “And when that didn’t work, he was suddenly you.”
Ethan grew very, very still, and even the buzz of magic around him seemed to freeze solid.
“He looked like you. Smelled like you.” Tears blossomed again. “I tried to get away, but there weren’t any doors, and the window was barred, and I couldn’t get the brace off.” Panic rose quickly, a shot of cold from stomach to head, and I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to erase the memory of violence at Ethan’s hands. Get it out, I told myself. Get it out, and it’s done, and you won’t have to say it again.
“And he tried to kiss me.” The words flew out and away like startled doves. “He touched me. He tried to . . .” I shook my head, tears dawning again. “Well, he tried.”
Cold magic flashed again. “Did he hurt you, Merit?” Every word was like the snap of a twig in the dark—a sharp, surprising bite of sound. And his eyes left no doubt about his intentions: Had Balthasar been in the room with us right now, he wouldn’t have made it out alive.
“No. No,” I repeated, when Ethan looked as though he might lunge for the door. “He touched me, but he didn’t . . .” Instinctively, I crossed my arms over my breasts, swallowed past the lump in my throat. “He didn’t hurt me that way. I don’t even know if he could have, really.”
Ethan struggled to understand. “You mean to say it was a dream?”
“It wasn’t a dream.” His voice had been kind, the question well intentioned. But it hit me wrong, and my voice was shaking with defensiveness.
I shook my head, collected myself, found my voice. “It wasn’t a dream,” I said again. “It was real. I don’t know how it was real, but it was.”
He frowned. “How are you so sure?”
I lifted fingers to my cheek. I didn’t want to tell him what Balthasar had done, incite him just as I suspected Balthasar wanted me to do, but he deserved the truth. And, more important, we needed to figure out what had happened.
“He slapped me. I could see the mark in the bathroom mirror.”
That flash of cold magic again, but Ethan stayed absolutely silent, clearly holding his temper in check.
I glanced around the bedroom, at the seemingly solid walls, at the fact that I was still in a tank and pajama bottoms, not the white linen shift Balthasar had put me in. But it had felt real. Impossibly real.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter?” His tone was icy now, that