“You are a wizard, aren’t you?” she whispered in shock.
Or maybe she did. The princess was far too astute to not figure this out about him.
Still, she looked like she had seen a ghost.
Veer sighed, not looking forward to explaining himself. “Yes. I’m a wizard. My eyes take on the color of whatever animal I’m controlling.” He offered her a conciliatory hand to help her up from the ground.
She stood on her own, knocking away his helping hand. Too late, he noticed the look in her eyes and the short dagger that appeared in her hand as she swung it in an arc.
His arm instinctively blocked the knife attack by bare inches.
She was fast and he didn’t see the knife in herotherhand until he felt the blade against his neck.
“Your magical control, does it extend to people too?” she demanded. Her voice wavered, but the knife at his neck was deadly certain.
People reacted in weird ways when they realized who or what exactly he was. But this was a first for him.
“What do you think you’re doing, Princess?” he asked casually, more to buy time as he assessed her response. “Are you going to kill me after all the trouble you went through, getting me to agree to your conditions?”
“Answer me!” she said.
“Don’t you think this proves that I don’t have that ability?” he pointed out reasonably. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be the one with a knife pointed at me.”
The blade wavered with her doubts. Before she could move away, however, Veer caught her wrists and wrenched her arms back, frog-marched her toward a tree and then slammed her against it. With a twist of his arm, he locked her in a hold and started applying pressure.
Chandra gasped in pain as he crushed her wrists, forcing her to drop the twin knives.
“Time to answer a few of my questions, Princess,” he said pleasantly, although anger swirled inside him. Why was he surprised by this attack? This was the princess of Amaravathi, his wife, the one who’d decided she would rather be a widow than stay married to him.
“Was this your plan all along? To lure me here with a ruse and have me mauled by your tiger? You’d call it an accident, and I doubt anyone would question it.”
A frown marred her smooth forehead, dotted with sweat. “What nonsense are you talking about? I’d no idea you were coming here today,” she said, panting with exertion, still trying to free herself from his punishing grip.
“Why should I believe that?” he asked, but as he peered into her eyes, he saw no guile.
“Because if I really wished to kill you,” she said with clenched teeth, “I would’ve planned it better than a chance encounter with a wild animal. I didn’t even know you were coming to meet me!”
She struggled against him and Veer unwillingly noticed that though she was taller than average, she still reached only his chin. She may be well versed in martial arts, going by thetone of her muscles, but she was still every inch a woman, with a woman’s bewitching curves and soft skin.
“Lack of an opportunity didn’t stop you before, Princess,” he accused. Although Veer said that, he was finding it hard to believe this was premeditated. It smacked of desperation. And it was fear he saw in her eyes, not hate.
Fear of the kind of magic that controlled minds and will.
Dusk fell with the suddenness of a veil covering a woman’s face. The moon rose above the horizon, peeking from behind the clouds. Residual moisture in the air coalesced on the petals and leaves of the plants, giving them a diamond brilliance against the velvety shadows.
They were still locked in a struggle.
A drop of perspiration slid from her temple to the hollow of her neck where a pulse beat madly against her skin. The fragrance of jasmine rose from the bruised petals in her hair, mixing with the smell of freshly tilled earth, and underneath that, her woman’s scent, heady and voluptuous.
Veer gritted his teeth. Would she ever stop having an effect on him? Seven years seemed to have changed nothing.
“Have you met someone who controlled others before? That was an oddly specific question you had,” he asked, intrigued to know more despite the tense situation.
“Yes! Now you know why I went for my knives. If you’re someone like that, then you know I have to act fast or I may never get the opportunity,” she said, panting from the effort to free herself.
He mulled over her answer. “If I had that ability, Princess, I wouldn’t need to ‘ask’ for help again. I’d make you do whatever I wanted.” He paused a beat, and then spoke, testing her. “Make you feel what I wish.”
Chandra stilled, momentarily halting her struggle. “No,” she said, a hard certainty in her tone. “That’s not how it works.You can control only my physical actions. But my thoughts would be my own.”
