Summary: After Azura’s assassins attack Kenna, Diavolos goes to her room to check on her, and both he and Kenna are forced to face difficult realities of their relationship.
Kenna sat on the rug in front of the fireplace in her bedroom, her knees drawn into her chest. Her eyes were fixed on the flickering logs, but her gaze was turned inward. She kept replaying the events of the night over and over in her mind: Raydan’s sudden return, the assassins’ attack. She’d known the fight with Azura was only beginning, but she’d expected Stormholt to be safer. Knowing those assassins were able to sneak into her bedroom left her feeling vulnerable. Violated. Then again, if she was honest with herself, Stormholt hadn’t felt completely safe for her since the day Luther’s troops snuck in and he murdered her mother. It was her home and she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, but she had to admit things were different now. Maybe once this war was over, she could feel safe again, truly safe.
The fire popped, momentarily breaking into her thoughts and bringing her back to the present moment. The fur skin underneath her was warm from the fire, but her white nightgown did little to keep away the chill that still haunted her. However, Kenna suspected that chill had nothing to do with the temperature of her bedroom.
There was a knock at the door, an urgent bam bam bam upon the wood. Kenna rested her chin upon her knee and wrapped her arms tighter around her shins. She wasn’t in the mood to see anyone.
“Kenna!” a familiar voice shouted on the other side. “Kenna, I know you’re not sleeping. Let me in,” Diavolos called. “Please,” he finally added.
“It’s open,” she called back, her voice thin.
The door practically flew open, banging back against the wall as Diavolos strode in like a conquering hero. He kicked the door shut behind him and hurried to her, dropping to his knees at her side.
“Are you okay?” Diavolos asked, cupping her face in his hands before he dropped his gaze to the rest of her body, running his fingertips over her bare arms to check for injuries.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Kenna said. “Really. Not a scratch on me.”
“What happened?” Diavolos asked, sitting back on his heels. “I couldn’t get a straight answer out of anybody, all I heard was something about Raydan and Azura’s assassins. Gods, if that bastard isn’t dead, I’m going to kill him myself,” he growled.
“Raydan saved my life,” Kenna said quietly. “He’s been working for me this whole time while pretending to pledge his allegiance to Azura. As soon as he learned of her plot to assassinate me, he came back to warn me. Just in time, too. Had Raydan not woken me up, I probably would have never awoken again.”
Diavolos eased himself onto the floor beside her and wrapped his arms around her. Kenna kept hers locked around her knees, but she did allow her head to rest on his shoulder.
“How did they even get in here?” Diavolos asked, his lips brushing her hair as he spoke. Gods, what if he’d lost her? “There are guards at every possible entrance into Stormholt, that should have been impossible.”
“Should have been, but wasn’t,” Kenna said. Diavolos pulled away and looked at her, searching her face.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.
Kenna hesitated, unsure if she should lie or tell him the truth. Before she could overthink it, she chose truth.
“I don’t think I’ve really been okay since my mother died,” she admitted quietly. Diavolos looked away from her, turning his gaze to the fire. There it was, the unspoken divide between them.
Diavolos was not often felled by people or situations. He was an adept leader and he’d earned every scar scrawled across his body in battle. He commanded soldiers with ease, and yet there were only two people in the world that could bring him to his knees, both literally and figuratively: Kenna and his father. With Kenna, he gladly gave himself over to her, dropping his body and soul at her feet to do with what she wished. On the other hand, his father bent Diavolos to his will, and Diavolos had no choice but to obey. Every once in awhile, Diavolos felt Kenna pulling away from him. He used to think it was because of Dom, but Kenna had assured him they were just friends and there was nothing more between them. And deep down, Diavolos knew it had nothing to do with Dom. At the end of the day, Diavolos was the son of the man who murdered her mother. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to make her feel safe or if she’d ever be able to forgive him the blood the ran in his veins. He hoped she would, but now, looking at her in the firelight, he felt a deep despair in always being cursed by the sins of his father.
As he stared at the fire, Kenna let her gaze drift over to Diavolos’s face. The shadows of the flames danced across his face, highlighting every perfect feature. Even the scar above his eyebrow only served to make him that much more handsome. She thought of the way they’d been only hours earlier, all tangled limbs and gasping breaths in the bed she couldn’t yet face after the assassins’ attack. Kenna remembered how he’d tried to persuade her to let him stay, to remain in her arms for just a little longer. Instead, she’d turned him out, insisting it would cause too much of a scandal were he to be found in her bed. Within the hour after he’d left, Raydan had burst into her bedroom and the assassins had revealed themselves. How long had they been in her room? Had they been there when she and Diavolos were together? She shuddered at the thought. What if being with Diavolos was distracting her from this war? Would she have been more attentive to her surroundings had he not been here? Or would she have been killed before Raydan’s return because she would’ve been alone? Even worse, Diavolos would have been in harm’s way, and perhaps Raydan wouldn’t have been the only one nursing a wound tonight.
Kenna studied Diavolos’s face again. She noticed the furrow between his brows as he stared into the fireplace.
“Hey,” Kenna said softly. She reached over and lightly touched the furrow in his brow with the tip of her finger. “I’m okay. Really.”
“You should get into bed,” Diavolos said. “It’s late.”
Kenna shook her head.
“I’d rather not. That’s where I was when the assassins …” the words faded from her lips. Diavolos considered her words. Then he stood up and walked to her bed and yanked off the heavy blanket from atop the sheets before he grabbed a couple pillows. He crossed back to the rug where Kenna sat and handed her a pillow. He dropped the other pillow on the floor and lay down beside her, pulling the blanket up to his waist. Kenna stayed where she was at first, but a minute later she lay down beside Diavolos, facing the fire. Diavolos covered her with the blanket and wrapped an arm around her, his forearm crossing her chest. Kenna finally began to relax into the feel of his chest pressed against her back. She kissed his hand and he tightened his hold on her, burying his face in her hair. Each consumed by their own thoughts, they stayed on the floor together until they finally fell asleep as the fire faded into smoldering embers and the sun began to rise outside.
