She felt Will’s muscles go taut, each line of him coiling tight as he continued to press that blade to her throat. Silence stretched between them, growing tenser with every moment he stared at her. An emotion flashed across his face, there and gone before she could place it. His breath brushed her lips as he tightened his grip on the blade.
‘It’s not like you to be so off base, Aya. Are you losing your touch?’
Aya bucked her hips, but Will didn’t give an inch. His body was a warm, immovable force. ‘You insisted I stay behind with you,’ she said. ‘You knew they were coming for her.’
‘Liam discovered that dagger while we were at the docks,’ Will snarled. ‘He went straight to Gianna. That’s why she sent in the Royal Guard.’
‘On your orders.’
‘You think I planted those papers on her? If I had, I wouldn’thave wasted so much time.’
Aya laughed, the sound cold and wrong. ‘And yet you’ve suspected my affinity was different for years, and you’ve never said a damn thing.’
Silence fell between them, so tense that the air seemed to visibly tighten. Will’s eyes darted between her face and the blade at her neck.
‘Once again, you’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion,’ he ground out.
The sharp sting of the knife disappeared as Will rolled off her and stalked to the far wall. He hissed as he took in the gash on his arm, the blood running down his skin in red rivulets. ‘What was your plan – to get my confession of treason as I bled out?’
Yes.
She couldn’t break through her anger enough to care that she had been about to go against years of training. She knew better than to eliminate a source of information. Yet her rage had overtaken her entirely.
‘I know it’s you,’ Aya growled. ‘I just don’t know why I didn’t put the pieces together sooner. Or why you’ve waited this long to act.’
Will’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘Exactly. If I were workingwith Kakos, I would have taken you away from Tala the minute you shoved me off the godsdamn Wall.’
‘You wanted me out of the Dyminara, and yet you didn’t use the one thing that could have guaranteed it.’
‘I wasn’t about to riskmyplace to do it. We were weeks away from taking our oaths and competing for a place by Gianna’s side. I didn’t know for sure why you’d been able to make me jump. If it had been an issue with my shield, I wasn’t about to reveal a weakness like that.’
His words washed over her, her mind fighting against the logic in them. Her marks lied all the time. ‘And what of the wolves? Why didn’t you raise the alarm when you met with Gianna?’
He stiffened, but his tone was dangerously composed as he chided her. ‘So many questions, Aya love.’
‘Answer me.’
Will prowled back to the bed, his jaw tight as he braced an arm on either side of her. ‘Because as I already told you in the bar, if anyone should have been suspected of dark-affinity work, it wasyou,’ he seethed. ‘And what better way for me to confirm my suspicions than to not let you out of my sight. Obviously I was wrong,’ he said with a hint of disgust as he waved a hand toward her, his eyes scanning her once, as if he could see every place a scar from the last three years had disappeared.
Aya blinked up at him, her body going utterly still as her mind raced to find some gap in his reasoning.
Had he been silent not because he wanted to wield her like some dark weapon … but because he thought she might be a threat?
Because he’d never thought, even for a moment, that the prophecy could have spoken of someone like her?
‘Then why try to get me out of the market today?’
He scanned her face, and she felt his hands flex where they gripped the mattress. ‘Because once I saw that damn book and the horror on your face, I knew it wasn’t you. I wasn’t going to let you die.’
‘But you can’t say the same for Tova, can you?’
Will straightened, his face tight as he took a step back. ‘No. I can’t.’ The words were cold. Detached. Heartless. ‘I had an oath to abide by, and for all I knew in that market, Tova was a threat to our kingdom.’
Aya’s hands curled at her sides, her knuckles pressing into the mattress, as if she could keep herself anchored as her rage built.
I can make him hurt. Release me, it begged.
Will barked a frustrated laugh, his fingers snagging on his onyx strands as he dragged a hand through his hair. ‘Think about it, Aya. I have direct access to the queen. If I were working on behalf of Kakos, I would have killed herandyou. It would be far easier for them to win the war with you dead, and it would’ve saved me years of the godsdamn agony of dealing with you.’
