My breasts are smashed against the mattress from lying on my stomach, and I feel tickling fur on my cheek. Cracking open an eye isn’t as painful as I anticipated though, because the room is blessedly dark. I suppose there are some perks to having a house inside of a cave.
I roll over, but the tug against my back makes a grimace pull at my lips and a pained groan slip free. That small noise in this quiet room seems to be amplified, and when I look up, my heart sinks.
Slade is sitting in a chair beside the bed, watching me.
There’s a book on his lap, its pages fanned out like he wasn’t really reading at all. His legs are spread before him, one elbow bent and leaning against the armrest, finger and thumb cocked against his jaw.
I sit up the rest of the way, forcing the grimace off of my face, though I immediately notice that nothing is gilded. Not the blankets, not the pillow, not my clothes. Is it still night?
“How long was I asleep?”
“I’m not certain,” he tells me. “But you needed the rest to sleep off the wine. Plus, your body is still recovering from the power drain, among other things.”
I let out a noncommittal noise because the “power drain” and “other things” are firmly in the I’m not talking about this yet territory.
“I was hoping you could show me the cave today,” I tell him as I get to my feet and look around the room. The only light is coming from the low-burning fire and glowing blue just outside the window. “Are there any shoes I can borrow? Do you think Lu has anything?”
When he doesn’t answer, I risk a glance at him, just to find that he’s still watching me steadily, the greens of his eyes pitched in something heady and attentive. The silence of his study makes my skin crawl. Because somehow, despite not knowing him for long, he has always been able to sift beneath my surface and find truths I thought were long-buried.
“…Is that a no on the shoes?”
He carefully tosses the book on the floor and gets to his feet, and I find myself backing up a step. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, because I don’t want him to get closer. I don’t want him to start to dig in my depths.
The second he sees me back up, he jerks to a stop and something unsettled flashes through his expression before he shutters it.
I hate that I’m standing here, putting distance between us. But distance is the footpath of avoidance, and it’s the track I have to cling to for my own sanity.
Because if he gets close, he’ll see the truth. He’ll see how the ground at my feet is riddled with potholes and bumps. He’ll see the stark fear in my trembling lip and the guilt in my eyes as I try to keep backing away. He’ll see the reality of the destruction that surrounds me, while I desperately try not to trip. Distance is all I have between me and having to come to terms with the carnage that’s piling up to my knees.
But leave it to Slade, because I swear, he can see this too.
“We need to talk.”
Just four words from his lips, and heat presses against the backs of my eyes and makes my nose burn. Shoving them back, I shake my head at him, try to straighten my shoulders. But I can’t. I can’t, because it hurts, because—
“No.”
The word wrenches out of a cinched throat, lashed from a whipping tongue.
His lips press together in a thin line, and I see the first peeks of his roots moving beneath the collar of his shirt.
“I want to go see the cave,” I say, my voice stronger this time.
But what is the value of strength when it’s just a facade?
After a long moment that stretches between us, Slade tips his head. “Alright, Goldfinch. I’ll show you the cave.”
Relief pilfers through the stack of my anxiety, stowing some of it away for later.
“I have some boots for you in my closet, so we’ll need to go into my room first.”
I look around in surprise. “This isn’t your room?”
He shakes his head. “Your gold has taken up residence there for the time being, so we’re staying in here.”
My gold—what? But then the other part of his answer snags my attention. We’re staying in here. We.
“You slept in here with me?”
To say I’m taken aback is putting it mildly. The idea that he would stay with me makes me feel oddly vulnerable.
He cocks his head. “Where else would I be if not with you?”
My breath catches, heart twisting.
“But the daytime…”
“I was up before dawn,” he assures me, the shadows cast in the room making the sharp angles of his bearded jaw more pronounced. “Does that make you uncomfortable?”