21. Eshe
Eshe
Perhaps just as shocked as I was, Ezra didn’t think I would run. For the briefest moment, I caught him off guard, giving me a moment longer to get out of here.
My lungs and legs burned as I pushed past him and through his chamber’s threshold. I heard his footsteps behind me, and I internally screamed at my body to move faster.
Down the short end of the tunnel and toward the blue water, I sprinted as if my life depended on it.
Because it did.
I knew Ezra would kill me for what I had just found out. This was dangerous intel. To know an Atrovian and not report it was treason. The fact that he was the Qahl was even more reason why people, especially the surrounding Qahls, would want him dead.
He was the most powerful Qahl with the Atrove behind him. They would all want him dead for the influence he held.
His heavy footsteps echoed behind me in the dark limestone tunnel.
I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his presence thickening the air.
It almost felt like a nightmare, where no matter how fast I was running, I wasn’t getting any farther from him.
Run, I begged my body.
My head was thrown back forcefully as my scalp screamed out in needling pain while Ezra’s hand wrapped in my hair. The slippery limestone quickly gave way, and I fell backward. I grunted as my back hit the unforgiving limestone.
I had barely made it out of the dark tunnel.
Not giving Ezra a chance, I scrambled back, but his iron hand did not waver from my head. Goddamn these Atrovians and my scalp.
“There is only one thing I hate about myself, and it’s the moments that I lose control.
Control is something that I have trained for my entire life.
” His eyes were almost lifeless. I couldn’t recognize him.
“There are three moments in my life where I felt it leaking from my body, and all that was left was a body capable of all things.”
I drove my boot into his shin, but he did not falter.
“One of those moments was when you stepped back into my world, and your idiotic brother thought he’d be able to take you back.
” His free hand bunched the front of my robe and pulled me up, pushing me against the limestone wall.
The impact left me breathless. I kept my hands wrapped around his to ensure distance in the uncertainty. “No one takes what belongs to me.”
An electric shock ran through my body at his words, pooling low in my stomach. My judgement was clouded for only a moment before my blood boiled in my veins and I began to claw his hand off me.
I belonged to no one.
“But now you’ve stepped into the wrong world, little warrior.”
His eyes burned through me, and I could not stop the tremor that coursed under my skin.
“Ezra, I swear—”
Ezra tsked, silencing me. I caught my breath, and my body tensed.
The man who was teaching me new stances in his private arena was not here.
There was no gentle bone when he pushed me further against the wall until he crushed me.
His face was close to mine, and I could feel the heat that raged from his eyes.
“What am I supposed to do with the little fox that spies on my men, on my women, around my palace, and now in my home?” His voice was low and dangerous, filled with threats he would have no problem taking action on.
His other hand slowly wrapped around my throat.
“The little fox that is too untamed for her own good.”
I was going to die.
His fingers pressed against my neck, and I clawed against both of his hands.
“Please—”
“Did I say you could speak?”
The heat rose to my cheeks. I’d never been treated like a low-level commoner, but this was not my home. This was Ezra’s. He was Atrovian and most likely their leader.
He was the most dangerous man I’d encountered, and I was caught in his lair.
“We kill that fox.” His eyes turned murderous, and I couldn’t breathe. His hand slipped behind my neck and pulled me toward his towering body. His breath spread across my face, leaving tingles in its trail.
“Maybe that fox is already dead. Maybe that fox is a ghost and has nothing left in her because all she knew died long ago… You killed my family, didn’t you?
” I couldn’t stop my hands from trembling on his forearms that held me in place.
“And don’t you dare lie to me, Ezra. If I’m going to die here, right now, I want my truth. I deserve that.”
My eyes burned, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of the tears that I never shed. I wasn’t afraid of dying… I was afraid of not knowing. “I need the truth.”
His eyes had not left mine. They were ice in comparison to the heat radiating from his large body that trapped mine.
But something flashed through them just now.
“I did not kill your family.”
“Tell me you swear it, Ezra. Swear that you didn’t.”
“I swear I never harmed them.” His eyes didn’t waver as he continued to stare into mine.
I blinked, then several more times.
He was telling me the truth.
“Then the Atrove did. Before you led them, before you knew. They had to—”
“The Atrove did not.”
I swallowed hard from the intensity of his gaze.
“You know who did, don’t you?”
His jaw tensed. “I don’t.”
“You have an idea, then.”
Silence.
That was all I needed from him to continue.
“Please, Ezra, I need to know,” I whispered.
“You’re never going to stop, are you?”
I shook my head, or as much as I could with his restricting hold against my neck. “No, I can’t—I won’t. And if I have to die here, at least I know that I tried to find the truth.”
“You won’t find the truth here.”
My heart thudded, and I felt like I was going nowhere in my search for vengeance. My family deserved more than this.
“Does that mean you’ll let me go?”
His chuckle was low. He placed his thumb at the bottom of my jaw, lifting it up so he could see into my eyes better.
“If I let you go, little warrior, how will I know you won’t be the death of my men and me?
I don’t trust you. You’re venom in the sands, spreading deep and wide, slipping into every crack in the winds.
I can’t trust how far you will go to destroy me.
And although I admire your fight, I won’t have my death be at your hands. ”
The only sound I heard was the drip, drip of the cave water spilling into the small pool.
“You think I could kill you?” I said quietly.
His lips curved. “You could try.”
My hands lay on his shoulders. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to push him away from me or if I wanted to grab him closer.
This cave had a strange effect on me. Must be the lack of oxygen in my brain.
“I swear I won’t breathe this to a soul.”
His eyes flickered for a moment to my mouth.
Why was the dark tunnel suddenly warm? I needed air.
“Of course you won’t. You’d be dead the moment you speak of this to anyone.”
He was going to let me live.
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I'd held in.
His grip tightened.
“Don’t. Breathe.”
I froze in his suffocating arms.
My world was slowly coming to a halt, and his leather cinnamon scent surrounded me.
I looked up and met his eyes. Gold glitter usually danced across his dark eyes, but now they were dark as the night sky, void of the moon and stars.
“You almost killed one of my men.”
I was sure he could hear the beating of my heart. His face was not a hair's breadth away from mine.
“I’m pretty sure they killed my own guard outside my tent. We’re equal now.”
He hesitated before saying, “Is that what you think? That we’re equal?”
I began to press my hands against his rock-hard chest, but he pulled me closer. My body melded against his, warmth seeping into me. My body shivered. It was like he wanted me to fight just so that he could prove he was stronger than me.
And he was. Completely, thoroughly, and undeniably more powerful than me.
I hated that I might like it.
“You will never be my equal,” he growled and pressed his fingers into my skin. “I should punish you for what you’ve done.”
I pushed against his hold, but somehow every time I clawed and yanked his arms away from me, he kept getting closer to me.
I gave up, breathless.
“How could you say that when your men stole me from the safety of my brother and left me in a cage like I was some criminal? If you expect me not to fight, then you don’t know me at all.”
“The safety of your brother?” Ezra scoffed. “I saved you from him. This is what I get for that? Not even a thank you?”
His words sounded like disgust. Ezra was always disgusted with me. Always treated me like I was some annoying, young, brainless child.
I snapped. “Saved me? From my brother? You have really lost your mind. I need saving from you. Scratch that. I can save myself from you, just as I have saved myself from the darkest moments of my life. But you’re a bottomless ocean that sucks every living, beating heart into your dark traps just so that you can prove them weak against you.
You feast on weakness, but I am not weak, Ezra.
You have picked the wrong woman to break.
You’re insufferable and arrogant, and you think you know everything, but you really don’t. You know nothing about Kavid.”
A moment passed.
And then another.
“Are you done?”
I clawed against the hand that trapped my jaw, my lips pursed.
“I. Hate. You.”
“Keep saying that. You’re really convincing me. And you don’t know your brother as well as you think you do.”
I let out a breathy laugh. “Get off me or kill me, Ezra. Stop being such a stupid, indecisive coward and pick one.”
“I don’t have to do either. In fact, I think I’ll keep you like this until it breaks you apart.
I want you to feel confined. I want you to feel trapped.
I want you to realize that there’s nothing that you can do or say that will take me from you.
I am your fucking shadow now, Eshe, maybe you shouldn’t have come crawling from the mountains in Mongah. ”
“You won’t break me.” My voice was barely a whisper.
Ezra leaned an inch closer, his nose brushing mine. My pulse quickened. A small gasp escaped my mouth.
“What did I say about your breathing, Eshe?”
My hands defied me, and the white robes that I had bunched in my fists were pulled closer.
“Do you want me to die?”
“If I wanted you to die, I would never have saved you all those years ago.” His voice turned quiet. I questioned whether I heard his words correctly.
But I did, and my mouth turned dry. “What do you mean?” I whispered against his breath.
Ezra slowly tilted his head, and my lips begged for a touch. I couldn’t think straight with his body crushing mine. I needed air, but I didn’t want it.
I wanted him to suffocate me until I couldn’t breathe anything but his scent.
Ezra had never paid this close attention to me. His scrutiny made me want to hide inside a hole just so that he could find me again and give me the same look he was giving me right now. I melted in his gaze, and I hated myself for it.
Not much had changed in the last few years.
I was still the hopeless girl he accused me of being.