“Youwhat?” The blunt blade digs in again. “Why didn’t you say so before?”
“I’malreadyquestioning my decision to mention it now.” My voice drops low, almost to El’s register: “I swear, I never meant for you to feel crazy, but when you came here, you asked me…toldme to keep you safe”—her mouth drops open—“which I amtrying my damndest to do. But you don’t make it fucking easy, do you?” I grasp her suspended wrist and risk trying to nudge the desktop tool from my neck.
She over-breathes in sharp bursts. Resists my attempt to free myself from assault by paper knife so that we’re locked in a stalemate.
Unless I overpower her. Which I don’t want to have to do.
Goddess. I don’t even recognize her right now. I might not be able to this time, even with her right arm mangled to fuck.
“Keeping you safe requires I be judicious about what information I divulge. With how you’ve been acting, it also requires I keep my hands and mouthoffof you.” Which I shouldn’t have to keep reiterating.
But here we fucking are.
“Did you know me before? You know,beforebefore?” Her wrist shakes in my grip. “And don’t you dare lie to me again.”
So be it.Without missing a beat, I push through the fear crowding my brain. The hatred crawling all over me. “You said I did when you arrived.”
The blade comes away. For half a second my strained muscles loosen.
That’s when pain explodes in my right shoulder with a burst of heat that sends the air from my lungs. “Fuck!” I look down to see the knife’s wooden handle sticking out of me.
“Damn it,Elodie.” A veil of shimmering crimson washes her body. “You’ve done nothing but spew lies and deceive me from the get. I ought to have stuck that in your throat!”
Fuck’s sake.The room tries to swoop out from under me. “You’ve lost your damned mind,” I garble, blood dribbling down the front of my shirt. I slide edgewise down the wall on unsteady legs.
Who is this creature so full of rage and hatred?
“How the hellelseam I supposed to be at this point?”
The further away I get from her, the more seriously my knees contemplate collapsing.
“You’re not entitled to information that could endanger my standing at the temple, Tiss. Possibly my well-being,” I croak, clutching my impaled shoulder as if I can cram the agony back inside my skin. “Although you don’t seem too bothered about that at the moment.”
Stumbling, I skirt around the arched doorway and toward my escape, goddess willing. “You’re clearly not ready to have the rest of this conversation.”
A noise—a heinous sound between a roar and a shriek—breaks out of her. Raises every hair on my body.
“Ihateyou, Elodie. I should’ve shoved that in your eye!” She follows me, fists clenched, aura pulsing. Expanding. Clashing with mine until the intimate contact is unbearable.
“Hate me. Hurt me. This is the way things have to be.” I’m rambling like a moron. Saying anything I can think of now to keep her occupied while I inch backward to the door.
I’m definitely not about to turn my back on her. Not before I’m on the walkway. But she stays where she’s at, anger roiling around her, fists clenched at her sides.
I finally breathe again when her bedroom door doesn’t immediately spring open after I shut it. Unconfined by physical boundaries, her aura invades mine while I clutch the wrought iron barrier to regain my breath.
Hobbling away as fast as I can, I’m halfway to Maida’s rooms before I realize I’m in the clear. Allow myself to feel the fury spreading through my chest like a disease.
Taking the first turn, I practically jog past the atrium and whirl down the shadowed hallway leading to my friend’s quarters. My vision washes white at the edges.
The adrenaline finally wears off, pain churning my stomach to slop. Lightheadedness forces me to stop.
Maida’s door is just there.
“Fuck.” Concealed from the nuns’ prying eyes, I lean against the wall in the dim hallway and gulp air. Make myself clear my mind and wait for my blood pressure to normalize.
Agony radiates from my shoulder. Blood plasters my shirt to my skin, seeping outward from the wound. There’ll be more when Maida removes the damn paper knife.
Hatred electrifies me from head to toe, and I grind my teeth. Fight the urge to go back and snap Tiss’s neck.
