"I am not a witch," I whisper. The lie tastes like ash on my tongue.
"No," he agrees, taking a sip of thePaquir. "You are something else."
He sets the goblet down, but his hand lingers near the base. He beckons me closer with a single crook of his finger.
"Pour more. My mind is… thirsty."
It is a command, but there is a vibration in it that makes my skin prickle. He is testing me. He is always testing.
I reach for the decanter again. I have to lean over the desk to refill his glass. The proximity is suffocating. I can smell him—the sharp, clean scent of ink, the fruity tang of the wine, and beneath it all, the smell of rain and nature that clings to his skin. It is a scent that shouldn't be appealing. It should smell like death. But my treacherous body reacts, a flush of heat rising up my neck.
He is too close.
My hand shakes. The heavy crystal lip of the decanter clinks against the rim of his goblet. A single drop of red wine splashes over the edge.
I gasp, reaching out instinctively to catch the droplet with my thumb before it can stain his scrolls.
My hand brushes his forearm.
The contact is instantaneous and violent.
It isn't like touching skin. It feels like touching a live wire buried in snow. A jolt of freezing cold shoots up my arm, seizing the muscles in my shoulder. My breath locks in my throat.
But it isn't just cold. It isneed.
A torrent of his emotions crashes into me, bypassing my walls entirely. I feel his possessiveness, dark and heavy as oil.I feel his fascination, sharp as a scalpel. And buried under layers of arrogance and calculation, I feel a pull—a magnetic, undeniable attraction that terrifies him as much as it compels him.
He wants to break me, but he also wants to keep me whole. He wants to devour me, but he is terrified he will starve without me.
The sensory overload is blinding.
My vision tunnels. The room dissolves into gray static. The only thing real is the burning cold of his skin against mine.
I gasp, trying to pull away, but my body won't obey. The connection flows both ways. I know he can feel me—my exhaustion, my fear, and the treacherous, sparking heat that answers his own.
My eyes burn. The pressure behind them spikes, agonizing and sharp.
I know what is happening. Rina warned me about the signs of magic flaring in humans, the myths of the Purna. The eyes.
Don't look,I scream internally.Don't look at me.
But Imas is looking.
He freezes. His arm goes rigid under my hand. He stares up at me, his face inches from mine.
I can see my reflection in his violet irises.
My pupils are blowing wide. The sapphire blue, the only thing about me that is mine, is being swallowed by an encroaching tide of absolute black. It spreads like ink in water, devouring the iris, turning my eyes into twin voids of endless, starry night.
It is the mark of the Purna. The mark of the witch.
"Leora," he breathes.
I yank my hand back, the decanter nearly slipping from my grasp. I stumble away, hitting the edge of the bookshelf.
Imas rises. He moves with a predator's grace, rounding the desk before I can even draw a breath.
He grabs my wrist.
