The Alpha's Sin

Chapter 7: Pine, Smoke, And Something Feral

THE TASTE of him lingered on my skin.

I curled into the sheets where Icarus left me, the memory of his mouth — hot, hungry — still wet against my chest. My body thrummed with need, but the ache had shifted. No longer sharp and screaming, but slow, hollow, a hunger not fully sated. A wound kissed shut, only to reopen with each breath.

I was ruined, oh Gods, I was ruined completely—I was ruined.

I thought about the way he was with me — and my heart was calling out for him, aching for him, wanting him — and I had no choice in that.

Worse, I was waiting for him to come back, but he did not.

When he touched me, the pain was gone. When he sucked me dry, he made the heat gone. He vanquished the burning inside of me, turning me into a completely different person. I was okay — for a second. For a while. And because I got a taste of not being in pain, of being cured even just for a minute, I became addicted. My body was asking for more, for a release so I would not have to feel this pain anymore.

Hours passed, and the fire in my body simmered again. The wetness returned. I felt it soak through the fresh shift I forced myself into, feel the stickiness between my thighs, the swollen weight in my chest that tingled, tightened, dripped — I was out of it.

Out of this whole ruination.

I bit my knuckle to keep from crying out again.

It was past midnight when soft footsteps padded outside my door.

Not his.

It creaked open, and in stepped the old housemaid — Rhosyn, I think, was her name. She was small and rounded with a creased face like folded linen. Her eyes, however, were sharp. Too sharp. She saw me trembling beneath the sheets. Smelled the sour-sweet scent of me.

Pity crossed her face like a shadow.

“Oh, you poor lamb,” she murmured. “You’re burning again. You’re burning too much. You’re still burning.”

I shook my head, ashamed.

She walked to the bedside and touched my brow with a cool cloth. “There is an old remedy for this sickness,” she said. “Might ease your body, if not your soul. And the heat, it would help.”

“Sickness?” I croaked. I did not think this was a sickness anymore.

She hesitated. “A kind that comes for girls like you, when they grow into something the world doesn’t have the mercy to name. The old blood calls it a fever of longing. I have seen it before, though rarely this fiercely.”

I turned my face to the pillow.

She laid a hand on my shoulder.

“Come. Let’s draw you a bath. Cold water, snow if we must. You will freeze a little, might be to death. But better cold than to burn to ash. It might be better than dying in this state — Moons, it’s turning you into a boiling cauldron. Come, come. Come before you end here.”

~ ~ ~

She brought me to the servants’ bathhouse — a stone room neared the back of the estate, half-forgotten and unadorned. It looked simple, but dark, sophisticated, like it was built years ago. Classy. Timeless. A single candelabra burned, dripping wax onto the cobbled floor. The iron tub in the center steamed faintly from the evening frost that clung to the stone.

Rhosyn dumped blocks of ice into the water. The surface hissed. I watched the water sizzle, the ice blended right into the water. Smoke of ice came out, turning into fog in the small chamber.

“Strip down, girl,” she said gently. “Modesty won’t save you now.”

My hands shook as I undressed. Each inch of fabric peeled from my skin made me tremble harder, not from cold — but shame. The way Icarus had looked at me. The way I had wanted him to. The way he touched me — and it burned right through.

Rhosyn helped me into the tub.

The cold hit like a scream.

I gasped, teeth chattering as my body arched away from the water. But I forced myself to sink deeper. The freezing shock was a relief. Gods, it helped me, like it was a security blanket, wrapping around my flesh where the fire had taken hold.

“You’ll stay in until your lips go pale,” she instructed. “Then come out, and we will wrap you in snowcloth.”

I nodded, swallowing back a sob.

She left me there, mercifully alone.

~ ~ ~

My skin went numb.

Gooseflesh rippled over my thighs and arms, but the pain in my chest dulled. The leaking slows. My mind fogged from the cold. For the first time in days, I did not feel consumed. I rested my head against the rim of the tub, letting the shadows of candlelight flicker over my wet skin.

Then I heard it.

Footsteps. Heavy. Unmistakable. Gods, I knew him, every part of him, every inch of him. The door creaked open. I did not move. I could not. A low curse cut through the silence. And then— “Soraya.”

His voice was a blade. I flinched. He saw.

Icarus stepped into the light. His eyes widened, then narrowed. He stared like he was seeing a ghost. Or a sin made flesh. His gaze trailed from my bare shoulders, down to where the water laps just beneath my breasts. He saw the milk still clinging to my skin. The pale sheen of it on my collarbone. He swallowed.

Hard.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered.

“I could ask you the same,” he replied, voice raw. “You vanished. I smelled your scent, the heat. I thought —“ he cut himself off. “I thought something had happened.”

Something had.

I had walked through fire for him.

“You’re naked,” he said like a prayer. Or a curse.

“You have seen me before.”

“Not like this.”

He circled the tub. My heart pounded. The candlelight painted gold across his cheekbones, but his eyes were all shadow. Hungry. Haunted.

“You should go,” I whispered, pulling my knees to my chest. “Please.”

“Why?” he rasped. “Because I might lose control again?”

He knelt beside the tub, close enough that I smelled him — pine and smoke and something feral.

Oh, Gods. I hated the way he looked at me.

“I’m trying,” he said, voice tight. “I’m trying so hard to be the man I swore I’d be. But then I see you like this — aching, needing — your little body so full it leaked — and I forget why it’s wrong.”

I bit my lip to keep from crying. “Do you hate me now?” I whispered, after what happened. After what we had done — or perhaps, what I forced him to do.

“No, I —“ he breathed, hitched. “I hate myself.”

His fingers curled against the rim of the tub, white-knuckled.

“You’re my responsibility,” he said. “I am your guardian —“ he choked. “I fed you, and now,” he laughed bitterly. He shook his head. “Now I dream of drinking from your swollen buds every night and waking next to you — hell —“ his voice broke.

I let out a broken sob. He leaned in. “I should turn away,” he said, shaking.

Silence fell between us like snow. My lips trembled. His hand lifted, hovered over my cheek. He did not touch me. But the air between us burned. “I’ll ruin you.” He inhaled sharply, taking in my scent.

My lips trembled. I leaned into his palm.

And with the raspiest voice, I said, cursing the forbidden line between us, and let go. “Then we break.”