The knob turned and she jumped - only to release a deep, easing exhale. Her blood in the warrior's body announced his arrival even before his scent came upon her nose or his body filled the jambs.
He still didn't have a shirt on. Or boots upon his feet.
And his stare was dark and desolate as the corridors of Dhund.
"Where have you been," she whispered.
He ducked both her eyes and the question by going into the bathroom. "I'm late. Wrath's called a meeting. "
As the shower came on, she gathered her robe and drew it over her shoulders, knowing that he was uncomfortable with her in any manner of undress out of bed. But that wasn't the cause of his mood; he'd been as such afore he'd even looked her way.
His beloved, she thought. It had to have something to do with his beloved.
And she should probably leave him be.
But she did not.
When he came out, he had a towel wrapped around his hips, and he went directly to the closet without sparing her a glance. Propping a palm on the doorjamb, he opened up and leaned in, the name upon his shoulders spotlit under the ceiling fixture above him.
Except he didn't take any clothing out. He hung his head and fell still.
"I went home today," he said abruptly.
"Today? As in. . . during the daylight hours?"
"Fritz took me. "
Her heart beat hard at the thought of him exposed to sunshine - Wait, hadn't they lived together here?
"We had our own place," he said. "We didn't stay here with everyone else. "
So this was not his mated room. Or his mated bed.
When he didn't say anything further, she prompted, "What did you. . . find there?"
"Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. "
"It had been emptied of your things?"
"No, I left it all exactly as it was the night she died. Down to the dishes that are clean in the dishwasher, the mail on the counter, the mascara she left out right before she took off for the last time. "
Oh, the agony for him, she thought.
"I went there looking for her, and all I got was an exhibition of the past. "
"But you are never far from her - your Wellesandra is ever with you. She breathes in your heart. "
Tohrment pivoted around, his eyes hooded, intense. "Not like she used to. "
Abruptly, she straightened under his gaze. Fiddled with the edge of her robe. Crossed her legs. Uncrossed them. "Why are you looking at me like that. "
"I want to fuck you. That's why I went back home. "
As No'One's face registered high-octane shock, Tohr didn't bother to temper the truth with pretty words or apologies or any kind of fanfare. He was just too done with everything: fighting his body, arguing with destiny, wrestling with an inevitability that he had been refusing to yield to for too long.
Standing in front of her, he was naked in a way that had nothing to do with a lack of clothes. Naked and tired. . . and hungry for her -
"Then you may have me," she said in a soft voice.