Chapter 31 · Blood on the Line

Torin's blood was hot.

That was the part I couldn't get past. Not the smell — copper and salt and something sweeter underneath — and not the way it kept coming no matter how hard I leaned on the folded shirt. The heat. Like it was still angry about being outside of him.

"Stop moving."

"I'm not moving." He shifted an inch and the breath hissed out of him. "I'm adjusting."

"You're bleeding on my floor."

"Our floor."

"Don't." I put both hands flat on the wadded shirt and pushed until he grunted. "Don't do that. Don't turn it into ours when you're the one who got himself stabbed."

"I didn't get myself stabbed. A man stabbed me."

"Same energy."

He almost laughed. It came out wrong, wet, and he shut his eyes for a second. The storeroom was cold except where he was. All that heat pouring out of him into my knees, my wrists, my palms, and the rest of the room sitting around us like a freezer drawer. Shelves of linens. A dead lamp. His shirt cut open from collarbone to belt because I'd been the one to cut it.