| BOOK TWO - A COURT OF ASH AND SMOKE | Lovers separated, powers that won't be controlled, a doomed wedding. With the threat of war looming over Prythian, Lucien, You, Tamlin, and Rhysand's Inner Circle must scramble to find allies and prepare thems...
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You weren't sure how long you lay in that bath, letting the warm water wash over you, warm your chilled bones, the soap stinging at your eyes as it bubbled on the surface. It could have been hours - it could have been days for all you knew.
But you still felt dirty, still felt the mark of Hybern's fingers on your skin as if they had left behind a dirty trail. No matter how much you scrubbed and scrubbed at your body, that lingering touch still remained, and it made you nauseous.
Because for the first time in months, you had allowed yourself to revert to who you had been Under the Mountain. You had stood there, unmoving and allowing a male to run his hands over your body as if he owned it. It was the same as you had been - a whore. Only this somehow felt worse, because this time you weren't weak, there was no one there forcing you to allow it to happen and you were certainly strong enough to defend yourself, and yet...yet you had allowed it - allowed him to put his hands on you, to marr and dirty your skin - and you had simply stood there and done nothing.
And why? Because you had been scared - because that male who had stood in front of you in that throne room, he was everything that you had learnt to fear. Everything that you had been told to fear.
He was right. You were weak.
You heard the front door open downstairs, the muffled voices of Tamlin and Ianthe. Lucien had remained hovered by the bathroom door as you bathed, but the retreating thuds of his footsteps against the wooden floorboards told you enough; he was heading downstairs.
Somehow, you were thankful for that. He didn't need to see you like this, to know what the King had reminded you of, how he had brought all of your shame to the forefront for you to wear like a badge of dishonour. He wasn't the first person to have called you a whore, but he was certainly right when he had said it.
You weren't a warrior, not really. No matter how much you wanted to be.
You had told Lucien what had happened, between breathy sobs upon arrival back to his room in the Spring Court. And you had begged him not to tell Tamlin. Why, you weren't entirely sure. If Tamlin knew what the King had done - what he had tried to do - there was always the chance any alliance between Hybern and Spring would turn to dust just as quickly as Tamlin's claws would likely appear.
But...the way he had looked at you Under the Mountain, as if you had chosen that life for yourself, as if you had lost all of your morals. You didn't care what Tamlin thought of you, but you couldn't stand him looking at you that way again - couldn't stand anyone looking at you like that ever again.
The blood from your knuckles ran red in the water, turning it a milky-pink tone; you'd scrubbed at your skin so hard that it had bled, but it hadn't made a difference. You were dirty, and that dirt still remained.
You ran a hand over your face, dunking your head under the water again. Ten more minutes, you told yourself. Just ten more minutes to soak - to wash - and then you would get out.
