Landin remained rooted in place, his knuckles whitening around the hilt of his blade. A charged moment stretched between us, brittle and trembling on the verge of snapping.
Finally, I tore my eyes off the threat before me to look upon the threat next to me. “We had an agreement coming here. It has not been broken, and you certainly will not be the one to break it. Is that understood?”
Landin glanced back at me defiantly, jaw clenched.
“Better do as she asks.” It was the first time Clause had genuinely spoken to anyone other than me. “Patience is not a strong suit of mine, and I will not be threatened in my homeagain. This is the only warning you will have, boy.” His voice was calm, though the weight of that warning was immense.
“You are threatening her,” Landin snarled, a storm of anger and a need to protect fueling him.
“While it is true that my touch can be seen as a threat,” Clause agreed, his thumb moving over my nearly ungloved hand, “I swear to the Spirits that I wish Ariana no harm. I only hope to understand her more.”
“Landin,” I said his name through clenched teeth, pulling his attention. Finally, something clicked in that stubborn skull of his. He sheathed his blade, and his butt found his seat once more.
The glove was removed a mere second later, and my hand rested in Clause’s. He shifted his hold so that his fingers brushed against my wrist and his lip curved up.
“Your pulse is racing,” he commented.
48
ARIANA
Iwas suspended in a strange state of alarm, waiting to feel something foreign, but it did not come. Instead, Clause tortured me with the unknown while he lazily examined my hand.
His touch was deliberate, flipping my palm up, as if memorizing every curve and line. His thumb traced my wrist once more. While I wore gloves, his touch seemed cold, though now, it was as if it burned, heat seeping into me.
Edda breathed out heavily beside me. She stared at Clause with dark, dangerous eyes. She looked at him as if that moment was personal to her, like she knew the Sidhe King before me. Had she wanted me to be in such a predicament? Had she foreseen everything and guided me down that path in an attempt to eliminate me for the treacherous act against the Leader Superior I had committed?
Landin shifted his weight in his seat, and it creaked with the movement. He had drawn his sword moments ago and nearly ended the agreement which kept us safe while we were in the Sidhe lands. Was he in on it with Edda? The both of them did notsee me as being fit for leading the Bavadrin people for what I had done to my father.
Father. I never called Fraser by that name. Not in a long time.
I looked back at my hand and the Sidhe holding it. He wanted to kill me. I knew it in my blood to have been true.
No.
The thoughts and feelings racing around my mind were not my own, at least not exactly. Clause was drawing them out, maturing small insecurities into something significant.
A smile grew on his handsome face while a frown solidified on mine.
“Please stop. I can make my own decisions without your input.” My words were spoken through clenched teeth.
Clause withdrew his hand and with it the amplified thoughts. I failed to suppress the shudder moving through me. Nausea brought the taste of acid to my mouth. It was extraordinary, the impact of his touch. Had he been able to read my thoughts? Forcing a steady breath, I tried to keep the panic from taking over.
“Very interesting,” he commented while I shook with the feeling left behind. His power had slithered around me. It glided over my skin, tightening and releasing. The sensation was revolting.
“What is?” Edda asked, sounding curious. This was the first time she spoke to the Sidhe King.
Though Clause replied to her, he kept his eyes fixed on me. “Everyone always accepts my influence as their own, for it stems from your own insecurities. No one has ever recognized it as foreign the way you just did.”
I had no response, for I still did not quite understand what had occurred. It was seamless, his influence. There was no odd feeling, nothing that let me know he was doing anything until he finally withdrew.
“She knows who she is,” Edda stated.
“Indeed, she does,” he agreed.
“Whatexactlydid you do?” I asked when the repulsion within finally subsided enough that I did not fear hurling when my mouth opened.
Clause reached for the wine before him without looking at it. “What do you know of what I can do?” The wine swirled in the glass before he took a sip.
