Shattered by Alexia Foxx Page A

Stark white gloves, two vertical lines against the relative darkness of the room, covered her hands and arms up to her elbow.
    “Take them off.”
    Nathan sat back on his heels, over her stomach, and took hold of one gloved arm.  He pulled at the ribbon on her elbow and slid his fingers beneath the laced cord that ran along the outside of her forearm, undoing both completely before tugging them off.  And as he peeled them back he had his answer.
    Her hands had been burned and twisted.  Most of her fingers were mangled past the knuckle and her left hand was so badly damaged it seemed she couldn’t fully open it.  Twisted white scars ran up her arms and towards her elbows. No wonder she never bound him herself, nor wrote her own letters or removed her gloves.  The handlers weren’t there for him, they were there for her.  Robin was crippled.
    “I tried to take the sword of the man beating my father, ” Robin explained, “but he caught me by the arm as I failed to lift his blade from its scabbard.  How could I have known it would be so heavy?”  She shook her head against the pillow. “He dragged me to the hearth and shoved my left hand into the coals.  And then the right.  And I screamed and screamed, as my brother did, and my mother too, but eventually we all fell silent.  When I awoke again the village was ash.”
    “ I wanted revenge,” she said to the air.  “And I’ve hurt a lot of people and manipulated a lot more to get it.  But whoever said revenge is sweet lied.  Never once has it felt sweet.  It takes root and it consumes everything.  Revenge is a beast that tears you apart from the inside.”
    Nathan took each of her hands in his and pressed them to his cheeks.  She tried to pull them away but he held firm, pressing until her palms cupped his face.
    “ Have you tried forgiveness?”
    Robin gave up her struggle and laughed. “Would you forgive, in my place, would you honestly?”  Dull-grey searched the face she knew so intimately when he didn’t summon up an answer.  He knew better than to lie to her, so he stayed silent instead.  “No prince, there will be no forgiveness, but I think I can finally lay revenge to rest.  I’ve had enough.  I’m tired.”
    Nathan dropped her hands and she curled them beneath the blankets , as though to hide them.  She stared off at the ceiling like it might offer some haven.
    “ I know you never had a choice,” she mumbled.  “But I liked your submission, even though I knew I forced it.  Of everything I did to you, of all the things I took, I wanted that to be real the most.”
    Nathan sighed as he crawled off her and shut his eyes for a full breath.  “I’m not going to be your prisoner anymore Robin.  In the morning I want you to see to it that I go home.”
    She nodded and gradually her eyes came off the ceiling and bac k to his face.  His declaration didn’t even faze her.  Her expression was blank, but Nathan knew better.  He laid down beside her and slid his arm beneath her pillow, leaning over the huddle of blankets that was her body.  He drew her in close, until her face was just beneath his.
    Robin stared up at him.  Beneath the sheet of dull neutral in her eyes was all the hurt she had spent a lifetime accumulating.  Every time she had to reserve a touch, every time she had to ask for help in some simple task, she added to it.  Without vengeance driving her all that sadness lay so close to the surface.
    Nathan cradled her face, laying his hand against the line of her jaw and running his thumb over her cheek.   He breathed in her smell and tried to imagine how it might taste.
    “May I kiss you , Prince Dorthorial?”
    The idea that Robin might ask permission for something seemed so wrong that Nathan couldn’t help but chuckle.
    “ It’s not morning yet Mistress,” he whispered back.
    It took Robin a second to realize what he was saying.  When she did Nathan saw the change in her eyes, a spark of wickedness caught