Chapter 20 #2
Kitty awakened with a start. Sleepy eyes frantically searched her surroundings as awareness slowly returned.
Her wealth of dark hair fell messy and unbound about her shoulders, woven with errant strands of yellow straw.
Those heart-stopping gold-green eyes of hers landed on him.
Kal felt his blood burn in his veins, swelling in places he refused to acknowledge.
“Kal?” Kitty’s rasping voice caressed him, standing the hairs on his neck. The sensation stoked his ire.
Kal tossed his purchase into the cell. Kitty rubbed her eyes and fingered the fabric, frowning.
“What’s this?”
“A kindness,” he said, voice not kind at all.
Her expression became guarded at his tone, and Kal waded into the depths of his self-loathing.
“Choosing a physical trial was a mistake,” he said. “Reconsider. Tell Saul you’ll submit to the verbal inquiry.”
Determination colored Kitty’s features. “I can’t do that.”
“Then you’re an idiot,” he growled.
Hurt flared in her eyes before she masked it with anger. “Do you feel better? Does belittling me help you deal with your own unwelcome emotion?”
His lip curled. “No. I just thought you could do with a little honesty. I know it’s a foreign concept.”
Kitty shoved to her feet, defiance written into every tempting curve of her figure. Kal’s wrath became a wild, writhing thing within him, almost as feral as his longing.
“I know why I’m here, Kalevar Kaine. Why are you?”
Why indeed? Did he think she’d change her mind? That she’d reveal her true identity to him? Help him make sense of this tragic misunderstanding? No. The woman he wanted was a stranger in every sense of the word. He pursued a ghost.
Kal didn’t have an answer for her. So, he ignored the question altogether. “You need to shift before your trial.”
Kitty’s eyes flared in surprise. She hadn’t expected the turn in conversation. “Saul said I’m permitted a weapon.”
“You are,” he said. “I’m telling you to shift. Your second form will be more effective than any blade or bow.”
Kitty glanced down at the fabric in her hands, brows drawn together. “I’ll take my chances with Daybreak.”
Kal pivoted away from her and raked his fingers roughly through his still-wet hair. As he turned back, he saw Kitty’s eyes track the movement. “I know a thing or two about how to win a fight, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Her gaze narrowed. “I have not.”
He knew she was remembering Cindamar. The battle he waged in the desert to get her back.
What had come after. He’d crossed a line that night, made his interest clear.
His kissing her had only been a fraction of what he’d wanted to do.
You wanted more than her body, his recalcitrant conscience reminded. He’d wanted her devotion.
Kal leaned in closer to the bars. “Good. Because I wasn’t pretending.”
Kitty winced, but only just. Her arched brows flickered with tension, and the corners of her eyes pinched briefly.
“I know what you’re facing today,” he said. “Do as I say and shift before you enter that ring.”
Kitty set his gift aside and shook her head with weary resignation. “I can’t.”
“Of course, you can,” Kal argued. “It’s not fucking difficult.”
She refused to look at him, refused to answer.
“Fine. Do what you want,” he bit out. Stubborn ass woman. He pointed a finger at her. “But wear that garment. You’re going to shift once you get in that ring, whether you plan to or not. The fabric will stretch to accommodate your second form.”
Kitty looked down as though seeing the clothing for the first time. A strange expression washed over her features, one that Kal could not place.
Her beauty in that moment gutted him so thoroughly, with hay sticking out of her hair and sleep lines imprinted along one cheek, that he turned on his heel and walked away.
If he lingered there a moment longer, with the scent of her dried tears burning his nose, he’d lose control.
He’d rip that cell door off its hinges and carry her out of the depot into the boundless breadth of Stillwater Wood.
Fuck the Conclave. Fuck the trial. And fuck her secrets.
Give him mere minutes to find the truth.
He’d have her so thoroughly hazed with pleasure that she would welcome him into every hidden hollow, every dark corner of her soul.
All of her, every deceitful inch, would be bared beneath him.
When he finished with her, Kitty wouldn’t whisper her secrets—she’d scream them.
Kal’s tremor returned with a vengeance, and he felt his pupils dilate. He was growing really fucking tired of doing the right thing.
“Alright there, sir?”
Kal glanced up at Beaumont, who blinked at the gold in his irises. He’d been so engrossed in his conversation with Kitty that he hadn’t heard the man return to the entrance of the cell block. “Don’t call me ‘sir,’ Stonehaugh.”
The guard shrugged broad shoulders. “You oversaw the weapons training of my retinue. It’s Sir or Battle Master.”
Kal grunted. “I left clothing for Kit—” he buried a rush of annoyance, “—for the prisoner. See that she wears it for the trial.”
“And if she refuses?”
Kal ground his molars. “Then pray to the divine for her obstinate soul. For there’s nothing more I can do to help her.”
Beaumont’s shrewd, steely eyes assessed him. “You’re sure of that, sir?”
Kal didn’t answer. The truth was, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore. So, he left. Stonehaugh’s question ghosted after him, long after the sound of his retreating footsteps faded in the growing dawn.