Gild (The Plated Prisoner, #1)(33)

That slowly creeping crack spreading up from the gash in the glass, it halts. Waits. Wonders.

Because Midas said those words to me before—Let me help you.

Is that why he’s using them now? To remind me?

When I was on the streets, I slept during the day and crept around at night. Hungry, often. Afraid, always. I was too scared to buy anything, to approach anyone. I did so only when it was absolutely necessary.

I wandered alone, stayed hidden. It was the only way a girl like me could stay safe. To make sure I didn’t end up right back in the same situation I’d escaped from.

Bad men. The world was run by bad men.

And as much as I tried to lay low, to be invisible, I couldn’t. I wasn’t.

I knew better than to stay too long in one place. I knew better, but I was tired. Worn down. I slipped up. Got sloppy. I knew it was just a matter of time before something bad happened to repay me for it.

The looters came that night.

With fire and axes, they took the village I was hiding in—the one I should’ve left behind days before.

They took everything and anything they wanted. The farmers who lived there didn’t stand a chance, didn’t have any defensive training. They didn’t even own weapons other than their pitchforks and shovels.

I tried to run. Too late. I was far too late.

Pulled from an alleyway, I was shoved into a cart with the other women who’d been dragged from their beds.

They screamed and cried, but I was silent. Resigned. I knew it was over for me. I knew there was no way I’d escape. Not again. The fates don’t give second chances. So I steeled my spine, and I readied myself to face the life I’d tried to run from.

And that’s when he came. Midas. Like the goddesses themselves had sent him, riding in on a dappled gray horse with a half dozen other men.

At first, I thought the shouts were just continued fighting from the villagers, a last-ditch effort to defend their homes. But then I saw the looters being cut down. And then the cart was opened and the women were running, sobbing again—this time, with tears of terrified relief.

But I had no family to reunite with, no one to run to. So I staggered back to that alleyway. Tense shoulders collapsed against a rough stone wall. I didn’t believe it was over so quickly. Didn’t trust it. But I thanked the stars, all the same.

At some point, the sounds of the fighting stopped. The fires tossed on thatched roofs were put out, the clinging smoke in the air the only thing warming my thin, bedraggled body.

And then a lone figure appeared in the alley. I cowered against stacked crates until he stopped in front of me, and I looked up at his handsome face. He smiled at me. Not a jeer, not a cruel tilt of lips. A genuine smile. It was warm. Just looking at it stopped my ceaseless shaking.

He held out a hand while that smile stayed on his face. “You’re safe now. Let me help you.”

And I was. And he did.

From that moment on, he kept me safe. When I wanted to hide from the world, he gave me his cloak and hood. When I shied away from other people, he made sure we stayed separate. When I clung to him, he held me.

And when I kissed him for the first time, he kissed me right back.

You’re safe now. Let me help you.

I was done being exposed and vulnerable in the world, so he made sure I didn’t have to be anymore.

Swallowing hard, I look up at Midas as our past settles around me, like he’s once again leading me out of that dark alley, like he’s reminding me where we’ve come from. Of what he did for me.

He earned my trust. My love. My loyalty. I wouldn’t be here, in this gilded cage, if he hadn’t.

“Please,” he pleads, surprising me. Midas never pleads. Not since he put a crown on his own head.

I hesitate for a moment, but the past is a powerful thing, so my hand finally lifts, slips inside his grasp, and squeezes. That smile lights up his face as I let him pull me up, let him guide me into the bathroom, and something in me warms slightly. My body stops shaking.

Inside, a golden tub is filled, tendrils of steam curling over the lip, oil poured into the water, making it smell of winterberries.

He stops us in the middle of the room, the hanging sconces already lit, casting everything in its comforting glow. The hanging mirror above the washbasin shows the two of us, shows Midas step up behind me.

I feel his fingers skim up my spine before delving into my ribbons—each silken strand still bound around me.

Carefully, he unwraps me, layer by layer.

My ribbons don’t do anything to help him—but they don’t stop him either, don’t rip from his grasp.

He works slowly, taking his time with each pass, until the last of my long ribbons are let out, draping from my spine to the floor behind me. All the while, I watch him in the mirror, my heart beating quicker than usual.

He helps me out of the saddle gown next, his fingers never once straying, never crossing any sort of line except to simply help me undress.

When the fabric falls at my feet, Midas looks at my eyes in the reflection of the mirror for a moment, before taking my hand once more and leading me into the tub. One leg over, then the next, and I sit down, the hot water shoulder-deep, a few scattered bubbles mingling with the oil that seeps into my skin.

I sigh.

Midas sits on a stool beside the tub with a cloth in his hand, dipping it in the water before his eyes come back up to look at me.