Cold breeze blew into the room.
Nina's heart thumped against her chest as she held his gaze, unblinking, her hands fisting at her sides.
Rodrigo took a step forward and she retreated, one step then another, until her back hit the door and there was nowhere left to go.
Her fingers curled at her sides, digging into her palm as he leaned in until they were barely inches apart, one hand coming up to rest flat against the door beside her head, and then his gaze dropped to her chest.
"I can hear how loud your heart is beating, Sabrina," he said, looking back at her face.
Her face drained of color and her stupid heart raced faster instead of slowing. She bit her lower lip, hard, then looked away from him at the far wall, then she drew a breath and looked back at him.
"I missed my way to the women's quarters and found myself in front of the house. The doors were open and I walked in because I was curious. I inhaled the dust inside and fainted."
His gaze held hers for a moment, then dropped to her lips.
Nina caught the movement and looked away fast. The air suddenly going taut.
She kept her eyes fixed on the middle distance until she heard him straighten. He strode into the adjoining room without a word and pulled the door shut behind him.
Nina's legs buckled. She caught the door handle and stood there, breathing through her mouth in uneven pulls.
Why could he hear her heartbeat? Did he know she'd been lying the entire time? Was that why he had come to the door at all — because he heard it before she even knocked?
She drew a long breath and pushed her hands through her hair.
Breathe. This was none of her business. Whatever she had seen was a mistake, and she would be dead soon. None of it mattered.
She exhaled and stepped further into the room. Then stopped.
There was only one bed.
The king's bed sat squarely in the middle of the room, and in the far corner sat a small couch barely wide enough for one person to curl into.
Her eyes moved from one to the other and back again.
The couch it is.
The bath chamber door opened just then and Rodrigo walked back in, shirtless, his hair dripping water down onto his bare chest, and Nina turned her head away so fast her neck gave a sharp ache.
Heat climbed from her collarbone all the way to the tips of her ears. She fixed her eyes on the wall directly in front of her, pressed her lips flat together, and did not move.
Her eyes had caught enough in that single second that she could still see him clearly on the wall.
Why did he just walk in like that? Like there was no woman standing in this room?
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I was — I was —"
"A few days ago, you were dying to be in my arms. Now you're shying away?"
Nina's cheeks burned straight through and she turned around immediately.
He was still shirtless, watching her with that same flat expression, like he had not just said the most damning thing to ever leave a human mouth.
Against every wish she possessed, her eyes dropped from his face to his chest and tracked lower, moving down the line of his stomach until they hit the waistband of his trousers, and she hauled them back up to his face by force.
"I told you I sleepwalk," she said. "It wasn't intentional. I forgot my bracelet, I didn't mean to — I wasn't trying to —"
He blinked. A light chuckle, barely anything.
"Do you want to sleep by the door?" he asked, cutting straight through her stutter.
The words lodged in her throat. "No," she said, and turned to the wardrobe and pulled out the nightwear Moreen had packed and quickly disappeared into the bathroom without another word.
The door clicked shut and Nina pressed her back flat against it, raising both hands to her cheeks.
Her body had less than a week left and it had absolutely not gotten the message.
She drew a breath.
He was actually very good looking without all the brooding and cold glares.
Her breathing slowed.
He'd smiled earlier. That was the first time she'd seen him smile. It made him look real pretty. Her toes curled against the tiles slowly.
Nina immediately caught herself and pushed off the door, pushing the thoughts away.
By the time she stepped out of the room, he'd put on a shirt.
He sat at the table with a paper spread in front of him, the brush moving across it in slow and deliberate strokes.
Nina stared at him briefly, then her eyes glanced at the bed and stayed there for a second before she walked to the couch and curled herself into it and shut her eyes.
The brush kept moving.
Her back started aching almost immediately. She'd underestimated just how terrible the couch was.
She shifted once, pressing into the cushion, then shifted again when it didn't help.
She was rearranging herself for the third time when his voice came across the room.
"Go to the bed."
She stopped moving.
"I'm fine here," she said.
The brush paused for just a second, then resumed.
"Your shifting around is distracting. You either stop moving or you go to the bed."
Nina pressed her lips together and turned back to the wall. She lasted approximately four more minutes before her spine made the decision for her.
She untangled herself from the couch and quietly crossed to the bed, pulled the quilt over herself, and turned to face the wall.
The room settled back into its quiet, the only sound the slow and steady stroke of brush on paper.
A long moment passed. Then —
"Who is Annalise?" Nina asked.
She stared at the grains on the wall.
The brush stopped.
She held her breath.
"You overheard."
It wasn't a question. Nina said nothing, her fingers curling slowly around the edge of the quilt, and the silence stretched until she thought he wouldn't answer.
Then —
"She's a primordial witch. Who cursed the wolves to the full moon," he said.
Nina turned over to look at him. "The Blood Moon curse?"
Rodrigo set the brush down and reached for the letter, folding it along the crease with slow careful movements, not looking at her.
"You know about it."
Nina blinked. "Yes, but isn't it meant to protect humans from being eradicated by wolves? I don't think she meant evil by putting the curse."
Rodrigo was quiet.
"Yes, but that is not all of it."
Nina's brows creased. "What else?"
He pressed his seal into the wax and set it aside, then lifted the letter in his hands. The room sat very still. Nina's fingers had gone loose around the quilt as she watched him, waiting.
But he didn't answer immediately. He turned the letter over once, then set it down.
"The curse strips wolves of their powers," he said. "After a hundred full moons —"
He paused, turning to look at her.
"Lycans would fully lose their ability to shift back to human form."
Nina sat up immediately, her eyes growing wide.
"Wh — what?"