While transforming the would be tears behind my eyes into burning, furious rage, I snagged a dagger from a weapons rack, hiding it under my cloak before anyone saw. Incredibly, without giving much focus to the world around me, losing it to the haze of anger and deceit that blurred everything, I found my way back to Dae’s tent.
The man who I had just witnessed being cruel to a prisoner had returned before I did. An irrational calm swept over me, all my senses honed like the fine blade concealed from his sight.
“Where were you?!” he hissed, a look of concern on his face that I would have believed before now adding fuel to my fire.
Silently, I removed the cloak, tossing it over the chair in the corner. Braxius ducked into the draping heap, following my mental instruction. Dae looked me over from head to toe, but I had plans for him.
I lifted my palm, placing it upon the center of his chest. My burning gaze lifted to his. I took a step forward, not pushing too hard against him, but enough that he knew I wanted him tomove. The only way this would work was if he got into position willingly.
He stepped back, and I didn’t rush. Didn’t reach for that press of steel tucked into the waistband at my back, even when my fingers tingled with longing for it. Gracefully, I took another step, and he obliged again. I didn’t stop to think about why this could be so easy, why he was so willing to obey from only my touch. I wouldn’t be distracted.
The back of his shins hit the frame of his cot, and I pressed my hand against his warm, firm chest a little harder. He sank, and I made the move there would be no coming back from. Lifting one knee, I placed it beside him. Then the other, until I hovered above him in a straddling position. The masculine lump in his throat bobbed, and the proximity begged for me to give into his heat.
But I wouldn’t relent.
A little more pressure, and he leaned back under my guiding command. I bent over him, and he simply watched. Let me move however I wished. It placed him in a vulnerable position beneath me. At my mercy.
And at this moment, I possessed very little.
An hour ago, any thoughts about being in this position had been vastly different. If it had been, I might have stopped to drink in the sparkle in his deep, dark eyes. Or toyed with the scruff along his jaw and neck. When his hands lightly skimmed my thighs, slowly wandering toward my hips, I felt more powerful than I ever had. This deceptively handsome man with a commanding body relished me taking control.
He didn’t even look like he regretted it when I whipped the dagger out and pressed it against his neck, my other hand driving into his hair and securing it in an unforgiving grip. My eyes revealed what they’d been hiding, pure seething anger.“Why did you help me?” I ground out between clenched teeth, my grip so tight on the hilt I nearly began to shake.
“I told you,” he said without a flicker of fear or defensiveness.
“Bullshit,” I hissed, angling the blade so it sank deeper into his scruffy neck. I was tired of his lies, his deception. The way he’d so effectively beguiled me.
He lifted his chin to avoid getting sliced, but also gave me better access in the process. “What’s wrong?” He searched my eyes, like he knew how to read my innermost thoughts.
“Like you care!” I spat, but did my best to conceal it in a whisper so anyone passing outside wouldn’t be alerted.
“I do care, Ro. I shouldn’t, and I don’t know how it happened, but I do.” Gods, even now he was so convincing. His words were sweet like honey and became something sticky and hard to remove from replaying in my mind.
I wanted to scream, to clutch my head and shake away the last week from my memory. I’d seen and done so much it felt like my world had tilted on its axis, like the ground was no longer a steady thing beneath me. Even now, with the candlelight dancing across his earthy irises, I swore I read truth. His hands slowly drifted down, caressing the splayed side of my thighs over him.
I cursed my body for betraying me, for turning molten under his touch, for the desire growing between my legs. It was a mistake, but I had to close my eyes. I had to shut out the world from my senses to get my bearings. “I saw you. You’re one of them.”
There was silence for a beat. I may have been scrappy, but I held no doubts that if he chose, he could easily turn the tables. And with my eyes closed, I only offered him every advantage to do so.
But maybe I wasn’t willing to take another life. Maybe, if he flipped the dagger on me and ended it, things would be easier.Or maybe, I closed my eyes because a part of me knew if he’d wanted to hurt me he would have done it by now.
“Ever consider you’re not the only one playing a role here?”
My eyes flew open. Understanding was an elusive oasis, and I’d been wandering the desert. I was desperate for clarity that would shine a light on this corrosive darkness. “You hurt her,” I seethed, readying my muscles to fight.
“I’m assuming you’re speaking of Delia, the woman bound in chains. Delia is part of a group in Windguard, where my brothers are.”
I blinked, trying to process.
“You are here to keep your people safe. So am I. Delia got caught, but together she and I have been thwarting The Order’s attempts to capture The Kraanti. I can’t get access to her without suspicion unless I perform jobs that allow me to. She plays up our interactions to appear to anyone looking that we hold a relationship similar to anyone else in this camp. Her son is in The Kraanti.”
My mind reeled. I’d heard of The Kraanti, a group notorious for evading Taja’s soldiers, who sabotaged trade between the kingdoms. Part of me had wondered how much of it was rumor and speculation, but he’d just confirmed their existence. That his family were members. That he was here for a reason not unlike mine.
“I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark. I haven’t spoken that aloud for years. It’s been my only purpose, to remain here and do all I can to keep them safe. I’ve been here so long I’d forgotten how to do anything else, to be anything else. Then I found you,” he admitted, his thumbs gently caressing my thighs. “You’ve reminded me what it’s like to care.”
His words were pretty, a dream response that would have been a perfect fabrication, but they weren’t what urged me to believehim. It was his eyes. They shone with honesty, with openness and unbarred truth.
My heart jumped, lodging in my throat. I couldn’t speak, could barely think. All I knew was that to feel this man beneath me, his heat, his touch, felt like the first gasp of air after coming up from water. I hadn’t released the weapon in my hand, but my grip loosened.
