65 #3
A smile tugs at the corner of his beautiful mouth. “I never said I don’t want you,” he murmurs. “I said I despise the bond. The chain fate locked around my throat. Around yours. It forced my hand.”
A chain. Like I’m something fastened to him.
Something he never chose. Would never choose.
“You should have let me die. You found the flute without me,” I say bitterly. “But yeah, I know you need the other artifacts too.” I hope my words are dripping with sarcasm, because that’s the only thing left to save my dignity. Or at least a shred of it.
He lifts my chin with his hand. “I did not save you to get the artifacts, Melody.”
His gaze moves over my face like a touch. Slow. Intent. Heat coiling low in my stomach like something treacherous.
“Gods—” I pull back out of his grip. “You just said you dream of hurting me. Killing me.”
Hells, for one terrible second, I wish he could lie. Tell me something soft. Something merciful. I’m still not sure whether he can.
His face darkens, and his eyes flicker with whirling shadows, as if his unholy magic were shining out of his eyes. “I do. Especially when you’re rebellious and stubborn. Or when you court my ire. I don’t know why you insist on doing that.”
Hells, I damn sure don’t like the way he’s angling his head in that predatory way of his, telling me that I just woke his instincts. Goosebumps spread all over my skin.
“Maybe because you make it so easy,” I suggest, as lightly as I can.
“I must admit that I never expected you to be like that,” he drawls slowly, closing in on me again. I can’t read his tone, or the intent suddenly glittering in his eyes.
“I thought you were bored out of your mind after all your eternal years. And that this is what you like—getting surprised. You told me that that doesn’t happen too often these days.”
He purses his lips, pausing as if I’ve made a fair point. Then he studies me like I’m a puzzle he never meant to want.
Like I’m dangerous.
Like I’m precious.
Like I’m both.
And gods—
The way he looks at me.
As if he’d like to eat me. Drink me. Maybe kill me in the process.
And gods, in a fucked-up way, it turns me on. And he knows it.
And that’s the very worst of it.
“I am that girl from the prophecy. Aren’t you afraid I’ll kill you one day?”
His cruel, beautiful lips twitch, as if he genuinely finds me amusing. “Maybe.”
“That might be the first time you’ve ever come remotely close to smiling at one of my jokes,” I say.
He cocks an eyebrow. “Really?”
“And it wasn’t even one.”
“Maybe it was sarcasm,” he offers.
I tilt my head. “Nuh-uh. You possess about as much humor as…well, a fallen leaf.”
“Then you must be right. Otherwise, I’d be forced to admit it’s an unexpectedly apt analogy.”
“Hilarious.”
“Or perhaps a remarkably precise parallel. An incisive observation.”
I just stare at him, too floored for a second to even smile. “That was actually almost funny.”
“You sound almost disappointed,” he says, eyes glittering like the woods at dusk—shadowed and unreadable. “Why is that? Because you misjudged me? Or because you wished I were different?”
“I’m disappointed for all the poor people who never get to see your funny side—only the whimsical, capricious one,” I deadpan.
“If you know me so well,” he says quietly, “then you also know my patience has limits. Even for you.”
I ignore him and study his face. “I don’t think it was sarcasm. You aren’t afraid I might kill you one day.”
“No?” he mocks.
“No.”
“Then what else would it be, little girl?”
I narrow my eyes. “Do you want to die? Because when I slipped into your mind, it really felt that way.”
The words tumble out before I can stop them. I’m not sure what I’ll do if he says yes.
Because I wouldn’t let him.
I’d do anything to keep him alive. Anything.
And that realization cuts deeper than I expect.
Again, he angles his head, tilting it in a way that reminds me of Aris. Suddenly, I wonder whether, if Aris raised him, he adopted that kind of motion unconsciously. That thought comes out of nowhere, but it makes Caryan a little more…I don’t know, not human, but less fae-ish maybe?
But all he finally says, voice quiet, is, “Who knows these days, little princess.”
Anger spills through me, hot and fresh. Damn him! “Can you ever give me a straight answer? Just once? To one single question.”
He rouses himself, ruffling his wings. Still, he’s strangely lenient tonight, letting my sharp tone pass without reprimanding me. And I’m not sure which version of him I prefer: cold and collected, or wild and wrathful and terrifying.
“Ask one, and I shall try,” he grants me.
My eyebrows shoot up. “One question. And you’ll tell me the truth. Really?”
“Is that so unbelievable?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Didn’t I promise never to lie to you?” he asks.
I snort a laugh. “And you stuck to that?”
“As far as I am aware, of course I did. Now—was this your question?”
“No!” I say quickly, seeing my chance slipping away. I think of all the questions that haunt my mind. All the things I’ve always wanted to ask him. But then, I just think about the most important one. The only obvious one. “I mean, can you lie?”
The silence that follows is suffocating in its vastness. Greedy. Hungry and devouring. It’s as if the beautiful woods fall away and there’s only us.
Finally, his mouth twitches with cruel amusement. “What a clever girl you are beneath all the sassiness.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He sneers. But considers.
Then he says—