“I find you…intriguing.”
I can’t stop a burst of laughter. “Intriguing?” I repeat. “Iintrigueyou?”
“Yes, and I want to know you better. I want to see all the bits and parts of you.”
“I’m not atoolthat you can inspect and use however you want.” I use Ventos’s word from earlier. That’s one thing I do know, I realize. Despite all my uncertainty surrounding my future, I know I never want to be seen as a tool or a trophy ever again. No matter what happens here, or back at Hunter’s Hamlet, I refuse to allow it to happen.
“I don’t see you as a tool.”
“Just an amusement, then.” I stick out my chin, glaring up at him and fighting to ignore the stirring within me as he comes to a halt, toe-to-toe. I grip the stone table for support.
“‘Intriguing,’ I said,” he forces out of a tense jaw.
“Hardly a compliment.”
“The best compliment I could pay,” he counters. That silences me long enough for him to continue. “My world has been monotony. It has been torture, day after day. My family, gone. Everyone I ever knew, dead or lost.” He laughs with such bitterness that I can almost taste it on my tongue, drying out my mouth. “Even something as simple as eating…what I wouldn’t give for decent food. Not rations.Food. To sit and savor. The smallest things are torture. A torture I hoped I would never wake to see, and yet knew I would. Torture I hoped—still hope—to end. Your presence here has been the first thing to break the endlessness of this unyielding pain that I have known for my entire life. To bring a glimmer of warmth, of optimism. I’ve already accomplished the impossible with you at my side. Maybe I wouldn’t release this bloodsworn oath because I want to see what else we can do together. I’d want you to want that, too.”
As he speaks, small tingles rush across my body, like I’m sinking into a too-hot bath. It envelops me, rushing to my head. He doesn’t remove his eyes from mine and the world narrows on us together. There’s more to what he’s saying than the bloodsworn. I know it. This—all he is saying, this pain, it’s all real.
I open my mouth, but words don’t come. It sounds like he resents me and yet also pays me a compliment in the same breath. It sounds as if I am the last thing he really needs, but he desires me anyway. And I know he is all the same for me. He is nothing I needed, or expected, or even asked for. And yet…
He’s all I could’ve ever wanted. As loyal as I am to his cause. A fierce protector. A deeply flawed, skilled, beautiful creature.
“Please, tell me you’re lying.” It’s the only thing I can think of to say. The only thing that I want to beg to be true.
“I can’t lie to you; and I never would.”
“I wish you were,” I whisper.
A stress fracture rips through the tension between us at my words. His arms are freed. His hands slam against the table next to mine. I’m pinned between them, leaned back over the stone.
“I assure you the feeling is mutual,” he nearly snarls. He is burning, not with rage, but with desire.
“I should hate you.” Panic is rising in me alongside a growing need that mirrors his. I can’t need him. I can’t want him.I won’t. And I remind myself of all the reasons why. “You killed the master hunter. You killed—might have killed—would have killed—my brother!”
There’s fire in his eyes as he glares at me. I jut my chin out and glare right back. Our noses almost touch. I think of him the first night we met, calling me a monster, ripping me from my home. I think of him last night, his mouth on my body, filling me with a pleasure that shouldn’t be possible. How has this become so complicated?
“Just as I know I should hate you,” he growls, fangs shining. The sight of them should fill me with fear but instead…it’s excitement that surges through me. I’ve given him so much blood and yet my body is ready to give him more.Give him everything. “You were born to kill me. You have forged countless weapons that slay my kin.”
“They were Succumbed; you kill them too.”
He briefly considers this, but his verdict is to be only more frustrated. “You would use those weapons against me. You tried to. Even when you swore yourself to me you thought about placing a silver dagger between my ribs.”
“You wanted to use me to get what you wanted. You saw me as nothing more than a tool,” I counter.
“I wanted to be good to you but you made it very hard in those initial hours.” The very corners of his lips have a slight curl to them. There’s a thrill in this anger. A relief that’s just as good as his fangs in me.
Why do we thrive on hating each other?
No…this isn’t hate. This is denial. Awantto hate. And that’s our permission and our forgiveness. There’s a part of us that thinks, if we can still hate each other, then it excuses the rest. It excuses last night. It excuses the growing desires that are going to tear us in two and stitch us back together as one.
All can be forgiven—this need and how we are about to act upon it—so long as we continue to fulfill our roles as enemies. Even if we’re not. Even if we’ve long stopped fitting neatly into them.
“I never wanted you to be good to me,” I hiss through clenched teeth. “I wanted you to hate me. I still want you to hate me.”
“But I don’t.” His nose brushes against mine. Our lips are almost touching. I’m burning at his touch. “And that makes me want to—want you—even more.”
“Then let’s hate each other until we can’t stand it.” I meet his eyes. This is the moment before we break. The last breath we take on our own. “Let’s hate each other so we can forgive ourselves for wanting each other.”
