The Diamond Scar by Lisette Marshall

Author:Lisette Marshall [Lisette Marshall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2022-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

‘What?’ Hythra said.

She had misheard him. She must have misheard him. The call of the sea in the background – the rush of the blood in her ears – whatever distorted the sound of his words…

But when she looked up, he sat staring at her with an expression that came dangerously close to his wonder of last night.

‘What?’ she said again.

Stunning. Had he said stunning? He was ill in the head after all. Stunning was what the other girls at the balls were, with their flawless skin and their normal-coloured hair – what he was, sitting half-naked by the fire, the light playing over his lean, muscular body. The incredulous smile hesitating at the corners of his lips. The awe in his eyes as they danced back to the ugly marks on her skin, and back to her face, and back to her bared shoulders.

Awe.

A strange warmth flickered through her despite the wet dress still sticking to most of her body, despite the cold numbing the feeling in her limbs.

‘Who in the world ever told you that you were hideous?’ he said, sounding dazed.

‘I am…’

‘Oh, no.’ He jumped up, and she caught a glance of powerful thighs before he wrapped his blanket tighter around his waist. ‘Time to set a few things straight, Captain. You are… spectacular. You are…’

‘Circus curiosities are spectacular too,’ Hythra said bitterly.

‘Stop that!’ He gestured wildly at her with one hand, still clutching his blanket with the other. ‘Hythra, listen to me. You’re a marvellous little miracle. You’re … You’re…’ Another agitated gesture. ‘Other people wear jewellery to look pretty. You are the jewellery, don’t you see? How could you be anything else than gorgeous?’

She bit out a laugh, clutching her arms over her cold chest. ‘You’re overdoing it.’

‘I’m not overdoing anything, and stop hiding from me!’ His voice rose louder. ‘Look at yourself! You’re like… like a living gemstone! A human diamond!’

‘I’ve got a piece of a murderous sea stuck into my skin, you mean.’

Cai snorted triumphantly. ‘Don’t you hear how glorious that sounds?’

‘Glorious? I’m a freak!’

He scoffed. ‘You’re a marvel.’

‘I’m a grotesque aberration,’ she snapped, ‘and I’ll cost my father a fortune if he wants any man to marry me. You know that’s true.’

‘If you ever try to marry a man who demands payment for you, I’ll personally punch him off a cliff,’ Cai declared, so heated that she nearly burst out laughing over the absurdity of it. ‘You deserve better than that. You deserve someone who looks at you and sees the tough little fighter who’s going to sail to the edge and see things no mortal creature has ever seen, someone who won’t believe his luck waking up with you every morning again, and if you can’t find that person, for the love of the gods, please don’t marry anyone at all. Anything else?’

She stared at him.

He pressed his lips and glowered at her, looking as though he might have demonstratively folded his arms if he hadn't still been holding his blanket.

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