Chapter 23 #2
“Your body language matters,” he said. “Every nuance of your mannerisms bolsters your hold on someone’s whims. You have to be confident.
Desirable. Forbidden. Untouchable. Everyone always craves what they can’t have.
You have to seem unobtainable, and only fulfilling your wishes will give someone the chance to have you. ”
Anna sighed. What he described truly was seduction in its most basic form, and she’d never possessed the inkling to so much as kiss a person, much less seduce them.
She didn’t know how to tempt, how to entice, how to tantalize.
She couldn’t imagine herself using her body to wheedle someone’s free will from their grasp.
Which meant…
Coercion wasn’t something at which she’d ever excel.
“I can’t do that,” she said.
“You can,” he replied, tone beyond certain. “You have a face worth trusting and blue eyes that are hard to look away from. You just have to want it. You have to make me want it.”
Anna reached forth and slipped her fingers around his wrist. She tilted her head to look up at him through her lashes, reaching a tone that was almost embarrassing to hear spill from her mouth. “Stand up for me, David.”
Even in the low light, she saw the moment the magic hit him. His eyes went dark, and he rose from his chair, still linked to her at the wrist.
“Now sit.”
He sat at the edge of his chair so their knees touched. Was he really feeling the magic, or was he indulging her? What if she asked him to do something he didn’t want to?
“It’s weak, but it’s there,” he said. “Find a way to strengthen it.”
Her grip tightened compulsively on his wrist. “How?”
“Think. What do you want most from me right now?”
“Your secrets,” she said at once.
His brows rose a fraction, and inside him, the icy emotions warmed with surprise. “They’re not good ones.”
Perhaps it was the darkness that gave her the courage to tell the truth, but she found herself saying, “I don’t care. I want them anyway.”
The edge of his mouth quirked. “Then take them.”
She lifted her hand to his face and looked deep into those soft green eyes. Her fingers wandered to the gold strands at his temple, soft like she’d imagined. Her thumb brushed his scar. “Tell me how you got this, David.”
Resistance sharpened his expression. He blinked several times. “Granite.” The word escaped just before his mouth clicked shut.
“Granite?”
Green hardened to emerald. Shaking out of her grip, he relaxed into his chair. “You really want my secrets? Try harder.”
Disappointment coursed through her. Heart squeezing tight, Anna took a steadying breath. “Maybe I don’t want this.”
The grin turned wicked. “You don’t know what you want.”
And if that wasn’t the absolute truth. Acknowledging it, however, was terrifying.
If she wanted this, if she wanted him to teach her to coerce, to seduce, even to block these forsaken emotions, she’d have to offer him more of herself than she was willing to give.
She’d have to place herself at the mercy of Galadaine Manae’s progeny.
She’d have to open her chest, show him her beating heart, and trust him to take care of it.
This man was beguiling, enigmatic, but utterly impenetrable. So how could she trust him? Letting all that magic inside her flimsy walls could dismantle her, and she’d barely leave a scratch on his ice.
Anna stood, let a few seconds of silent staring pass, then fled. She sensed him following as she shuffled along the rough earthen floors.
“Running away.” He tsked behind her. “Not very brave.”
“This is madness,” she replied. “I don’t want this power.”
“I had to learn the hard way… Sometimes it leaps out when you don’t want it. At the worst possible times. It’s better to control it than let it control you.”
She reached the spiral staircase and climbed toward the light, his footsteps hushed on the steps behind her. Everything about him was soft yet sharp. A blade sheathed in satin.
At the top of the stairs, she paused to gawk at him. “I never had a problem until you showed up.”
Eyes alight, hair gold as the chain around his neck, David Berkeley was tempting her to take his hand and fall with him. “You never had a challenge until I showed up.”
Blessed Mother. This man could see right through her.
“Come on, Anna,” he said softly. “Since when has a challenge scared you?”
“Since now, I guess.”
“Your emotions are ruling your life, aren’t they? You need to learn control. You need this.”
“I need no such thing,” she argued. “I’m fine.”
He stepped closer, just a tad, just enough that no one could hear if they strayed too close. “If I stop throwing fights on the training grounds, will you let me teach you this?”
She paused, intrigued.
“Come with me,” he said, voice still soft and magic-free. “You won’t regret it.”
A huff of laughter escaped, and she started toward the exit. This person who hid behind the ice was too tempting. Too fascinating. Every day, he crept deeper inside, and she wasn’t even sure when he’d found the door. “Why do I get the feeling those words have ushered many persons’ downfall?”
He smiled. “I can only lead them to the path. They’re the ones taking the steps.”
Anna shook her head, smiling despite herself. “Dangerous man.”
“Coward,” he shot right back.
“Stop peer pressuring me,” she said, pausing at the door.
David raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have to if you’d just surrender.”
Some strange zap of sensation sizzled low inside—something uncomfortable and hot and foreign. She glared at that raised eyebrow.
“Don’t run from me.”
The man was infuriating. And right.
She was running. She was a coward.
Anna didn’t care. Her back was already at the door, her hand finding the handle. He smiled in challenge, daring her to stay.
She left—and ran straight into his mother.
“Ah,” Elenya said, steadying Anna by the shoulders.
She bowed her head, tapping her temple. “Lady Elenya. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s no matter.” A gentle smile softened her face. “You are just who I was coming to see.” Her gaze moved to David still standing in the doorway.
The teasing light disappeared from David’s eyes, and his entire demeanor iced over. He was frozen, unblinking at his mother.
“Oh?” Anna asked, trying her best not to wince at the hostility brewing between them.
Elenya’s minty green eyes, the same shade as her son’s, flitted back and forth between Anna and David. “Might you come with me? We’ve matters that need discussing.”
“No,” David said, voice sharper than Anna had ever heard it.
Elenya’s shoulders drooped. “Please, David. I was hoping you would bring her to me—”
Oh.
This was about her.
Elenya knew.
“Why the hell would I do that?” David asked.
She sighed. “This girl here… She’ll need our support.”
Anna would have panicked if she wasn’t so distracted by David. Something fractured inside his emotions, but it was far too complicated for Anna to interpret under these circumstances.
On impulse, she brushed a thumb over his hand. “Don’t be a coward,” she whispered. “Come with me. You said she could help.”
His gaze moved to hers, and he chuffed in disbelief.
“Please?”
He blinked, and behind the ice, she sensed a small shift. With a sigh, David dipped his chin in a stiff nod. He followed his mother, and Anna trailed along, nerves brewing.
Elenya took them to the Sunshine Room, warm with afternoon light, balcony doors held open to allow in a cool breeze. Several people sat about the room, chatting, but Elenya brought them past all that, into the hallway few dared breach.
Galadaine’s private study.
She unlocked the door to a small, well-used sanctum that reminded Anna quite candidly of David. She could picture him there at the desk, book in hand. It even smelled a bit like him—books and spice and a hint of mint.
The next room, the one in which Elenya invited them to sit, boasted stained-glass windows that threw rainbow panels across the furniture and floor.
After the three of them settled into chairs, Elenya looked at Anna. “Autumn tells me you’ve been blessed with Morgan’s magic.”
Blessed was not the term Anna would have used, but words utterly failed her, so she nodded. As a reigning Sovereign, this woman was even more intimidating than her son. She had an air of authority that glimmered in the Luster entwining about her skin. Anna’s stomach coiled tight.
Don’t throw up!
“Were your parents also blessed?” Elenya asked.
“I only know my father, and I don’t think he had anything like this. He still lives in Viterra.”
Elenya dipped her chin. “Autumn said as much. I find myself curious how a pixie obtained such magic. It is exceedingly rare.”
“I wish I knew.”
“Do you remember anything about your mother?”
Anna shook her head.
The older woman crossed her legs, an elegant, almost regal gesture. “I’ll admit I looked into things when I learned of your predicament. The children of Morgan are scarce in most races, but we do pop up now again in old bloodlines. Your mother’s identity could tell us a lot.”
“Oh,” Anna said faintly. “I have no idea who she is.”
“Then we will start looking, love,” Elenya murmured. “We may never find your mother, but I would like to help you search.”
Anna tried to quell her smile, but it grew and brightened until her cheeks ached. “Thank you.”
Elenya’s green gaze dipped down Anna’s body, cataloguing, scrutinizing. “How did you travel here?”
Anna thought back on that day five years ago.
“I don’t know. I was in the moors, but I don’t remember how I got there, and there was a pain in my chest pulling me forward.
It wanted me to find the mist. I—I can’t explain it, and things happened so fast once I arrived that I just… didn’t really think about it.”
David’s attention sliced into her, and heat crept up her neck.
Elenya studied him. “Lady Autumn says something similar happened to you?”
Wait, it had?
David didn’t reply, but his gaze on Anna remained sharp, a subtle confusion marring his brow.
“You never told me that,” Anna said to him.
“I wasn’t keen to relive it.”