TWENTY-THREE #3
“Right.” Her spine straightened against the wooden door. “You don’t touch me without permission. You don’t glamour me, or alter my memory, or treat me like a specimen in a science lab.”
“I agree,” he said immediately.
“And I want a plan to protect my aunt. Not some vague promise. I want to see an actual plan I’ll understand.” She wasn’t going to let the enemy use her aunt as a tool to get to her.
“Done.”
“And I’m not fighting in your war.” Angela didn’t know how to fight her way out of the tangled curtain of a dressing room. Which made her realize how silly it was for her to hold the fire poker like a weapon.
“I don’t want you anywhere near Katarra,” Zarek snapped fiercely. “I will not risk you like that.”
“And if someone orders you to?”
“I still won’t. Even if it means breaking rules, I vow no one will ever harm you while you are under my protection.”
Heat rolled off him in a low, steady wave; she could feel it through the door. Not enough to burn her. Yet, it carried an unexplainable, strained weight that pressed outward, as if it wanted to wrap around her like a shield.
There wasn’t any bravado in his promise, but there was some hidden cost in his words.
She could almost taste it the way she could taste the air change before a storm, and how the pressure built against her ribs.
It was his magick coiled beneath the surface like something wild and restless he was trying to control.
Rules mattered to him. That much she’d realized from the way he spoke of the Accords, of his duty and the realms. Zarek was a soldier; a captain. Hierarchy was not optional in his world. And no doubt oaths were not so easily shared.
And yet, it was as if Zarek was stepping outside of that hierarchy by somehow placing her above it all. It was enough to make her shoulders tighten from the strain.
Why would he do that, risk everything for someone he’d just met?
What’s worse is she shouldn’t be feeling any of this, as if they were connected—but she did, making it harder to rationalize the impossible.
Most of all, she hated that she believed him. And the irrational urge to reach for him, when she had every reason to recoil from him… instead, she wanted to soothe him.
What is wrong with me?
The bathroom filled with silence, and also her thoughts. One stood out: He who asks a question is a fool for a minute; when he who does not remains a fool forever. She’d found that saying in a fortune cookie and had stuck it inside her notebook when studying law.
Thinking of fortune cookies made her stomach rumble. She never did get her Chinese food. But to find her answers, it was enough for her to slowly rise from the floor. And with the fire poker still in hand, she slid back the lock.
When she opened the door, Zarek was exactly where she’d pictured him, with his back against the wood, knees drawn up, hands loosely holding his gloves.
“Right. Let’s do this properly, shall we? You explain the Accords and the rules of this place. And you stop making unilateral decisions about my life.”
The corner of his jaw flexed as he got to his feet. “Agreed.”
She held out her hand. It wasn’t surrender, and she hadn’t forgiven him either, but they had to start somewhere.
Zarek went utterly still. “I can’t touch people.”
“But I did when I fixed your wound.” Her gaze dropped to the side of his leather armor.
It was covered in the same markings carved into the stone walls that stretched behind him.
They ran along the doorframes, across the beams, and even along the bed’s headboard in a repetitive pattern, like a spell.
“Those staves on your armor and in this room… I know some staves are for protection. Are they about you?”
Again, his jaw flexed as he nodded. “Sometimes, I lose control. When I was younger, I’d burn the bed in my sleep without meaning to, until we found the right staves to contain the flame.” The sole of his boot scraped across the floor, scored with markings deep in the black slate.
“So, your magick burns?” She remembered the flare of red fire the night he’d fought the Black Cloak, like a violent weapon hidden beneath his skin.
“Yes.”
“But it didn’t burn me. And you slept in my bed and didn’t burn that.”
He dropped his head briefly, as if the memory unsettled him. “The Poison Blade steals our power.” Then he looked up again. “But it didn’t this time. I returned healed. Stronger.”
“Was it this Poison Blade that allowed me to touch you? Or…” She didn’t finish.
“I think it’s your immunity to magick. But I won’t risk testing that theory out.” He stepped away from her as he slid one hand into a thick glove.
She frowned. “What are you doing?”
“My touch can burn flesh. And my gaze…” His jaw tightened as he pulled the glove tight onto his hand like a second skin. “If I lose control, my sight can overwhelm the mind. It fractures thought. I’ve driven men mad without meaning to.”
“And yet,” she whispered, holding out her bare hand, “I’m still standing.”
“Angela—”
“I won’t ask twice.” She wanted to test his theory. If he burned her, it would show how wrong they were and she could go home. “Go on. Do it.”