Daggermouth

She made it to the bathroom, her hand closing around the doorknob as if it were a lifeline reaching out to her. She put her weight onto it as she dragged herself the last few steps into the room. The door swung closed as she let go of the knob and grabbed on the towel rack.

Only then did she allow herself to sag against the cool wall, legs finally surrendering to gravity. She slid down slowly, each inch a fresh torment, until she sat crumpled on the floor, knees drawn up as far as her battered body would allow, trying to catch her breath.

The marble tiles were cold against her skin, a small mercy in the inferno of pain that was her existence. She stared at her reflection in the glass shower door—a stranger looked back at her. A creature of bruises and blood, one eye swollen shut, the other haunted and hollow. Her face was misshapen, cheekbone possibly fractured, jaw bruised and tender. Her hair hung in matted strands, stiff with dried blood.

This was what remained of Shadera Kael, the Daggermouth. This broken thing on the bathroom floor.

She pushed herself toward the bath, reaching up to turn the faucets with hands that shook violently. Water thundered into the tub, steam rising to fog the mirrors, to blur her reflection into something less monstrous. The sound would mask her tears, her weakness, would hide from Greyson the final dissolution of whatever strength he might have thought she possessed.

Tears came then, hot and stinging as they tracked down her battered face, mixing with fresh blood where they found cuts not yet closed. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs that sent waves of agony through her chest, but she couldn’t stop them now. Everything she’d held in during the beatings, during the endless hours in that cell—it all poured out of her in a flood she had no power to contain.

The water continued to rain down, its roar almost loud enough to drown out the sound of her own shuddering breaths. Almost, but not quite. She needed to get in, to wash away the blood and filth, to feel clean again, if only for a moment. But the thought of removing her clothes, of seeing the full extent of what they’d done to her body, made her stomach heave.

Still, she had to try. Had to at least attempt this tiny reclamation of dignity before they forced her onto that platform to play her part in Maximus’s twisted ceremony.

Her hands found the counter’s ledge, using every last ounce of her strength to pull herself upward.

She gripped the hem of her torn shirt, steeling herself for what was to come. Then, with a quick breath that sent knives between her ribs, she tried to lift it over her head.

The pain was immediate and overwhelming. White-hot agony ripped through her torso as her arms raised, pulling at muscles that had been pulverized, at skin that had been split open and should’ve been stitched back together. A scream tore from her throat before she could stop it, primal and raw, echoing off the tiled walls.

Her vision tu

Arms caught her, breaking her fall, cradling her against a solid chest. She felt herself being lowered gently to the floor, heard her name being called from what seemed like a great distance.

“Shadera. Shadera, look at me.”

Greyson’s voice, urgent and tight with an emotion that didn’t sound like disgust, that didn’t sound like hate. His hand cupped her face, thumb brushing across her injured cheek with impossible gentleness.

The contact broke something in her—some final wall that had been holding back the tide of her grief and shame and despair. A sob ripped from her chest, then another, until she was crying openly, ugly sounds tearing from her throat as she curled into herself.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped between sobs, the words falling from her lips in a desperate litany. “I’m so sorry. For everything. For Brooker. For not knowing. You were right. I am a murderer. I am a monster.”

Her good eye sought his face through the blur of tears, searching for some hint of forgiveness, of understanding, but it refused to focus.

His arms tightened around her, drawing her closer, one hand cradling the back of her head. He held her as she cried, her tears soaking into his shirt, her body shaking against his. He made no attempt to shush her or stem the flow of her grief. He simply held her, solid and present, an anchor in the storm of her despair.

She didn’t know how long they stayed that way—her broken and weeping, him silent and steadfast. Time seemed to lose meaning, stretching and contracting with each shuddering breath. The bathwater continued to run, filling the tub to its brim before the automatic overflow kicked in, maintaining the water level with a gentle gurgling sound.

Eventually, her sobs quieted, exhaustion claiming what remained of her strength. She sagged against him, drained and empty.

Still, Greyson said nothing. The silence between them had changed, though—no longer charged with anger and betrayal, but something almost like acceptance.

Finally, he shifted, his arms adjusting their hold on her but not letting go.

“I’m going to help you,” he said, his voice low and rough, as if the words were being dragged from somewhere deep inside him. “Let me help you into the bath. Let me help you get out of these clothes.”

It wasn’t forgiveness—not yet. It was a man showing that he still had a heart, that despite his own pain the good man she’d come to know still remained.

Greyson’s hands trembled as he reached for the scissors in the bathroom cabinet. Not from weakness—though his body still ached from captivity—but from the storm of emotions that raged beneath his skin.

Anger at his father, at the men who had done this to her. Guilt that twisted like a knife in his gut for how he’d treated her, for the words he’d spoken in cold fury. And something else, something that terrified him more than either of these—a desperate tenderness that threatened to shatter what remained of his carefully constructed walls.

She sat with her back facing him, small and broken, a shadow of the woman he’d first encountered, and every instinct in his body screamed to protect her, to heal her, to never let her be hurt again.

He sunk back to his knees, scissors in hand, her ruined clothes stuck to her body with dried blood and sweat. Her breathing was shallow, carefully controlled to minimize the pain.

“I’m going to cut these off,” he said, his voice gentler than he’d intended. “It’ll hurt less than trying to lift them over your head.”

She nodded once, a small, tight movement that revealed how much pain even that simple action caused her. Greyson swallowed hard, pushing down the rage that threatened to consume him at the sight of her suffering. Rage wouldn’t help her now. She needed steady hands, calm words, careful touch.

He began with her shirt, slipping the blade of the scissors under the hem and cutting upward in a slow, deliberate motion. The fabric parted easily, revealing inches of skin mottled with bruises—some fresh, some already begi

Scars. Dozens of them. Old and silvered with time, crisscrossing her body in a chaotic pattern that spoke of years of violence. A knife wound just below her ribs, puckered and raised. A burn that covered her left side, the skin mottled and uneven. Bullet wounds. So many bullet wounds.

Her body was a battlefield, a record of survival written in scar tissue and damaged flesh.

Greyson’s fingers stilled on the scissors, his throat tightening. These were the evidence of a life lived in brutality, of pain endured and overcome time and again. How had he never noticed? How had he been so blind to the story her body told?

He’d seen some of the scars before, in that black, backless dress, but somehow, it hadn’t fully registered. Somehow this close, with nothing to cover her, he was forced to truly understand the violence that her body had seen.

He wanted to run his fingers across their ridges, let his lips trace the outlines of the tattoos inked between them.

“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” she murmured, her voice barely audible over the ru

She was wrong. She was so fucking wrong.

He had never seen anything so heartbreaking, so beautiful and horrifying at once.

He continued cutting, removing her shirt piece by careful piece to avoid disturbing her injuries. The fabric had adhered to some of her wounds, and he had to wet it with a washcloth to prevent reopening them as he worked. She remained still throughout, only the occasional sharp intake of breath betraying the agony each movement caused her.

When her torso was completely bare, Greyson had to clench his jaw to keep from cursing aloud. The u

He moved to her pants next, cutting from ankle to waist in two long lines that allowed the fabric to fall away without her having to stand. More bruises revealed themselves, more tattoos, more scars—a particularly vicious one that ran the length of her thigh, another that curved around her knee. The story of her life continuing down her legs, a narrative of pain and survival that made his own scars feel insignificant in comparison.

When he’d finished, she sat before him naked and shivering. Despite her injuries, despite the vulnerability of her position, she met his eyes and held his gaze with a dignity that made his chest ache. This was Shadera—the real Shadera, stripped of masks and defenses, of bravado and pride. This was the woman who’d survived horrors he could only imagine, who’d been shaped by pain as he’d been, forged in the same cruel fire that had tempered his own soul.

They were mirror images, he realized. Both weapons crafted by others’ hands, both scarred by the roles they’d been forced to play. Both longing for something they could barely name—freedom, perhaps. Redemption. A chance to be more than what violence had made them.

“The water’s getting cold,” he said, the words inadequate against the magnitude of what he felt.

Shadera nodded, still watching him with that single, wary eye. She tried to stand, her legs trembling with the effort, and Greyson moved without hesitating, sliding one arm beneath her knees, the other supporting her back, lifting her with a care he hadn’t known he possessed.