A Dowry of Blood (A Dowry of Blood #1)(5)

Rooms passed in a blur of grey stone and tapestries. I would come to know them all, in time, but that night I could scarcely tell them apart. The house seemed bottomless, endless. I had never set foot in a building so large, and we seemed to be the only living creatures inside it.

Well. If you can truly call things like us living.

“Are you alone here?” I asked quietly. My filthy feet were leaving a trail of blood and mud on the carpet, and I wondered who would clean it up. “Where are the servants?”

“Fled or dead,” you said, and offered no further explanation. “We ought to get you cleaned up, shouldn’t we?”

You led me into a small room, and methodically began lighting candles. There was a long, shallow brass tub in the middle of the room, with buckets for ferrying water beside it. Tiny bottles of oil and perfume were scattered about on the rug, the kind of bottles one might find in a queen’s bedroom.

“This is for me?” I said quietly. My voice was shaking. My feet stung from the long walk and every muscle in my body sang with the pain of dying slowly into a new life. With my bloodlust spent, I was unsteady on my own two legs. The whole night started to feel like a blurred, ecstatic dream.

“Of course,” you murmured. “You deserve every bit of it. I’ll draw your water.”

I sat stunned as you filled the bath with steaming buckets of water, alternating boiling and cool until the bath was the perfect temperature. Then you pulled me to my feet and began to deftly unlace my outer dress.

I jolted away with a strangled sound. I had been willing and limp as a doll in your hands up until that point, accepting every touch, every kiss. But fear rose in my throat.

“Don’t,” I cried. “I don’t want… I’ve never been looked at before. Like that.”

Your brow furrowed in concern, or perhaps baffled irritation, but either way you lifted your hands gently from my clothes.

“I will never lift a hand against you, Constanta,” you said quietly. “Never in anger, or in lust.”

I nodded, swallowing hard.

“Thank you. And thank you for handing those monsters over to me.”

“I would deliver a dozen men a day to feed your appetite if you asked me. I would round up every man, woman, or child who ever said a harsh word to you and trot them out for you on their hands and knees on a short leash.”

“Thank you,” I said, quiet as a prayer.

“Do you want me to leave you?”

“No,” I said, clutching your arm. “Stay. Please. Just. Give me a moment.”

You nodded and bowed shortly at the waist, then politely turned your back as I unlaced my dress and stepped out of it. My clothes were heavy with misery and dried blood, and I kicked them into a corner as they fell off my body piece by piece. I never wanted to see those clothes again.

Then I stepped one trembling bare foot into the tub, sinking into the warm, delicious embrace. Within moments, the clear water had turned blush-pink and then hawthorn berry red, obscuring my nakedness below.

“You can look now,” I said.

You knelt by my side on the ground, bringing one of my wrists up to your lips.

“Still beautiful,” you said.

You bathed me as though I was your own daughter, rinsing the blood from my hair. I soaked in the tincture, perfumed by the agony of my abusers, and let you comb out every snarl.

“Tip your head back.”

I did as you ordered, letting the water run through my hair. I always did as you ordered, in those days.

I had never even seen a bathtub any finer than a rough-hewn wooden trough before. The gleaming brass was cool against my skin as I shut my eyes and drifted, lost to the gentle touch of your hands and the dull throb of pain leaving my body. I felt as though I was floating above myself, watching you trail those long nails through my hair. It was tempting to slip away entirely.

“Come back to me, Constanta,” you said, turning my chin towards you. “Stay here.”

You kissed my mouth with an insistence that was already becoming familiar to me, until I melted under your touch and parted my lips for you. Water streamed from my body in rivulets as I enfolded you in my arms, suddenly emboldened. You ran your hands over my slick skin and made a sound like a man agonized. I knew then I would chase your tiny moments of weakness all the way into hell and back. What is more lovely, after all, than a monster undone with want?

“Let’s get you dry before you catch cold,” you murmured, still chasing my kiss. Your lips traced the curve of my chin, the slope of my throat.

I sat awkwardly in the bath as you retrieved a heavy housecoat and held it up for me, turning your face away behind the cloth. I stood and let you wrap me up, squeeze the water from my hair inch by precious inch. We left the bloodied dress on a heap on the floor. I would never see it again, after that night. I often wondered if you burned it, along with the final vestiges of the name my parents gave me. Either way, you enfolded me in your arms, pressing me to your body like I might disappear if you didn’t hold me tight enough.

“Take me to your room,” I said, clutching your clothes. It was an improper thing to ask, but you had already dissolved so many of the taboos of my previous life in one fell swoop. What indiscretions were left, after the sins we had committed together?

“I’ve prepared your own rooms for you,” you said, mildly. Ever gallant, ever pacing the stage of your own design, saying the right words.