Page 33 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

Zarek nodded at the bowl. “What are you going to do?”

She dipped a cloth into the water. “I’m going to wash the wound with salt water.”

“Why?”

“It cleanses. Sterilizes.” She pressed the back of her hand to her nose to give her sinuses a fleeting break. “And it gets rid of that smell.”

“And burns Black Cloaks,” he murmured, faintly amused. “You carry salt with you. Why?”

“Not normally. But lately I have.” She scowled. “Ever since that night.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know! Because I could still smell it on my clothes and in my house. And now I can smell it on you, and I don’t like it, so don’t argue with me.” She walked out to grab some towels from her bathroom.

“Right. Take your shirt off,” she ordered as she re-entered the room.

He tried. But failed.

She helped him sit up, her fingers trembling as she reached for the buckles across his chest. The leather was thick beneath her hands, unlike any jacket she’d ever felt before. It was surprisingly warm, its smooth surface deeply etched with markings. “What are these?” Her thumb brushed over the etchings.

“Staves.”

“I’ve seen staves. I just finished repairing this Nordic book on them. Some of them looked like snowflakes…” She traced her finger over one of the scored staves that her aunt had called spells. “This doesn’t look decorative.”

“They’re not meant to be. They are there to contain me. Without it…” He swallowed, turning to look down at his armor. “I would burn through clothing or anyone who accidentally brushed against me.”

Angela’s fingers paused on the stave. “Right.” But she didn’t feel any heat or danger, just his pain, and his fear of hurting her.

She went back to easing the leather off his shoulders. The heavy jacket dropped to the floor with a solid thud. Beneath it, he wore a tight black undershirt with silver threads woven on the cuffs into some sort of geometric pattern, different to the staves on his armor.

But the way the fabric clung to him like a second skin, outlining every muscle across his chest and shoulders, the curve of his ribs, the strength in his arms even as they shook from pain.

“Take this off too,” she said, trying to sound normal, but failing.

He tried to move.

Again, she helped him, her fingers sliding beneath the edge of the shirt to peel it up. The heat of his smooth skin hit her palms first, making her want to pause as she lifted the fabric slowly over his head.

And then he was bare.

Angela forgot to breathe as her eyes trailed slowly over his broad shoulders, the hard planes of muscle and a chest that looked carved. There were faint lines across his skin where the staves from his armor had left ghostly impressions, as if his body remembered their shape.

He wasn’t just strong.

Oh, he was beautiful.

But in a way that looked dangerously sexy and utterly out of place in her bedroom. In this little house, in her quiet suburban street, he’d become the thief stealing snippets of her breath, making unknown music with her heartbeats. She bit her bottom lip and forced herself to look away. “So, um, I’ll put this stuff down and clean up that wound.”

Zarek watched her through half-lidded eyes, as if feeling every flicker of her reaction.

Oh, hell no. If she could feel him, could he feel her too?

The heat in her cheeks flared.

But his eyes never looked away; in fact, no one looked at her the way he did. It was enough to unleash the wild butterflies to tickle her lower belly.

Focus.