A/N: thank you for always reading the book everyone<3 Today's chapter is longer!
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For a moment, Cassius didn't move. Instead, he watched her. He watched how her fingers curled tightly around the medicine box and how her lips pressed together as if steeling herself against him. So cautious. So determined.
Then, with slow deliberation, he shifted. His muscles tensed as he turned his back to her, the fabric of his bathrobe slipping lower until it stopped around his hips, revealing the raw, angry cuts marring his pale skin.
Arabella inhaled sharply, her fingers twitching. The wounds looked worse up close. Those thin, precise slashes that had scabbed over in places, while others still glistened with slow healing blood. Each of the wounds was deep, it wasn't a normal leather whip, but something worse and heavier.
When she imagined being whipped, her back already shuddered but when she imagined what kind of object had hit Cassius it made her heart sink even lower.
