he sheets were all slippery and satiny. He was never sure he'd ever get used to that fabric sliding along his skin.

He'd actually once slid right off the bed and landed in a heap on the floor. She'd prolly never once slid off those sheets. There was most likely even a class at the Academy that taught her how not to go slipping off those fancy sheets.

The color was also something he'd never get used to.

Rose red...

He wondered how many men had scattered rose petals across those sheets. Petals the very same color as those sheets. Lain her out across those petals.

Blood red...

Red to hide the times when there was blood.

He was not above admitting that some of that blood he'd drawn himself in the heat of passion. The first time he'd come to her, all broken and lost, he'd drawn blood off her shoulder. The tang of it in his mouth told him he was alive. He'd apologized afterward, all guilt and remorse, but she'd shrugged it off, told him it didn't matter.

Did it really not matter, or had she gotten so used to bloodstains on those sheets that she'd accepted it as inevitable?

Had she been lain out herself her first time on sheets that color? Sheets that hid her lost innocence. That made her forget that all things worth having come at a price, blood or coin.

Only difference being that blood costs more in the end.