Chapter 4
When I got back, Adrian was propped at the edge of the tub staring straight at the door.
The second I stepped inside, I noticed two things.
First, there were pearls on the floor again.
Second, he had clearly been watching for me.
I did not mention either one.
I set down the lard, scooped out a little, warmed it between my palms, and stepped behind him.
He leaned back lazily, as if this were his right. As if I existed to care for him.
Maybe I had let him think that.
Maybe I had encouraged it.
The room filled with the familiar scent of animal fat and saltwater and the clean, strange fragrance that always clung to Adrian’s skin.
I let my hands move slowly.
Over his shoulders.
Down his arms.
Across the hard lines of his chest.
His eyes drifted shut. His breathing changed.
My heart thudded against my ribs.
The comments flashed faster.
He’s getting dizzy from it. Look at him.
This village girl is fearless.
If she reaches the reverse scale, she’s dead.
But Adrian did not stop me.
He tipped his head back against my shoulder. His breath came hot against my neck.
My pulse jumped.
I glanced toward the place beneath the water where the glossy, dangerous scales began to shift in texture. The place the comments called his reverse scale.
Carefully, I let my hand slide lower.
Adrian did not move.
I went lower.
Closer.
His breathing went ragged. A low sound escaped him, rough and helpless enough to make heat rush straight to my face.
Hope flared inside me.
He does not hate me, I thought wildly. He can’t.
With my courage already halfway gone, I pushed a little farther.
The next second, everything exploded.
A violent splash drenched me from head to toe. Pain lashed across the back of my hand. Adrian shoved me so hard I nearly hit the wall.
“You touched my reverse scale!” he snapped, face blazing red. “It hurts!”
For a moment I just stood there, soaked, stunned, my hand burning.
Then I looked down.
The skin across the back of my hand was already swelling, scored with a bright red scratch.
I lifted my head slowly.
Adrian’s face looked just as awful as mine probably did. Flushed, furious, breathing hard.
Humiliated.
I glanced at the water where I had expected—what? Proof. Some kind of visible answer.
There had been nothing.
The comments rolled on mercilessly.
Look at her. Still testing him.
Told you. If he liked her, his mating organ would have responded long ago.
She made such a mess.
If she kept going, he’d flood the whole village.
A cold little ache opened in my chest.
I said nothing.
Just went to the kitchen, grabbed a rag, and knelt on the floor to wipe up the water.
Maybe my silence unsettled him, because after a while his voice softened.
“I overreacted,” he muttered. “Come here. I’ll blow on your hand.”
I looked up at him.
At the handsome face. The pale, perfect body. The terrible temper. The tears. The trouble. The distance I could never seem to cross.
And something in me finally gave way.
“Adrian,” I said quietly, “I’m sending you back to the ocean.”
The room froze.
Then all hell broke loose.
He nearly overturned the tub lunging upright, eyes instantly red. “Are you serious? Over that? I said it hurt!”
I laughed once, a sharp little sound that hurt my own ears.
“Over that? Adrian, do you know how much I’ve spent trying to keep you alive? Do you know how many buckets of seawater I’ve carried because river water makes you uncomfortable and well water makes your skin itch? I used all my savings buying lard for you. I rush home every day to rub it on your skin. I let you scream at me. Cry at me. Throw water everywhere. And for what?”
He stared at me.
His face went slowly white.
I kept going because if I stopped, I was going to cry.
“You can shift. I know you can. I saw you standing. But you stay in that tub and make me coax and pamper you while you act like every touch from me is torture.”
His lips trembled.
“That wasn’t real,” he said weakly. “You dreamed it.”
“I’m not stupid,” I snapped. “I know the difference between a dream and reality.”
For the first time since I had dragged him home, Adrian was quiet.
Really quiet.
No splashing.
No muttering.
No crying.
I finished wiping the floor, carried the dirty water outside, and when I came back…
The tub was empty.
Completely empty.
For a second I just stood there, staring.
Then I searched the whole house. The yard. Behind the chicken coop. Around the well.
Nothing.
He was gone.
My gaze fell at last to the floor beside my bed, where a few overlooked pearls still gleamed beneath the frame. I got down on my hands and knees and kept reaching deeper, and deeper, and deeper, until I had pulled out an entire cloth bag full of them.
A heavy bag.
A valuable bag.
Enough, maybe, to buy myself a proper beastman.
A normal one.
One with a good temper.
One who could warm my bed without crying every day.
I sat there on the floor with my swollen hand and my bag of pearls and the emptiness of the room pressing in from every side, and I thought, very clearly—
Fine.
If Adrian did not want me, I would find someone who did.