A Broken Inheritance

Chapter 59: Dripping Half-Promises

"Didn't think you'd would," she said finally.

James didn't move.

Didn't sit up.

Didn't look away.

"Yeah," he said. "Me too."

Her throat tightened. "So why did you?"

He paused.

And then—with that infuriating grin already curling back onto his face—he shrugged.

"I forgot my dignity here. Thought I'd come pick it up."

Anastasia blinked, unimpressed. "Not funny."

He nodded solemnly. "Yeah, that one hurt me too."

She didn't smile.

But something in her eyes flickered.

She turned slowly, her arms wrapped around herself again. "I told you. I don't want you to pretend."

"Pretend what?"

"That you're fine."

James tilted his head, pretending to consider. "I'm not pretending I'm fine," he said. "I'm pretending I'm charming. There's a difference."

"You're bleeding sarcasm."

"Better than actual blood."

She didn't smile—but she didn't argue either. Her feet were quiet against the floor. She reached the edge of the bed, arms still crossed, looking down at him.

James was still lying back, one arm tucked behind his head like he was lounging somewhere warm and familiar, but his eyes opened fully when she neared.

Her nightgown brushed her thighs. The hem fluttered slightly as she stopped right beside the bed. His gaze flicked down, then back up.

"Dangerously close to indecency," he said, voice low and mock-serious.

She raised a brow. "You've literally bled on my floor."

"And yet," James murmured, lifting a hand lazily. His fingers found the edge of her nightgown. "I live to see another day."

He ran his thumb along the fabric—just barely. Just enough for her breath to catch.

James chuckled. "I can feel you judging me."

"Because I am judging you," she said, but her voice was quieter now.

James smiled, wide and obnoxious, like he was trying to outrun the weight of everything else hanging in the room. "Feels just like home."

James's fingers brushed the edge of her nightgown again—light, teasing, like he was going to make another joke, something crass and ridiculous about her fashion choices. But then he saw them.

Not just one or two.

Not the usual scrapes or the faint line across her ribs he'd glimpsed once when she leaned too far during a duel.

But the others.

The ones most people didn't see.

The way the dim light caught against the pale silver of old magic burns trailing just beneath her collarbone. The thin, uneven scars on the inside of her thigh—deliberate. Purposeful. The kind that said spellwork, not accident.

Marks across her upper thigh, her side, some small, some cruelly jagged, cutting across soft skin in paths he didn't want to map.

James stilled, fingers hovering just above the fabric. He didn't say anything. Didn't want to make it a thing. She'd hate that. But something in his expression shifted. Just for a moment. The ease slipped.