She knew her parents loved her, just like she knew they were afraid of the magic running through her veins. Ravenna had a fear she had never dared to speak out loud, but now it surfaced, nearly suffocating her.
What if her parents were glad to finally be rid of her?
Their daughter, who worked so hard for them, earning a place in the inn and in their hearts, but could hurt them without thought if she lost control of her emotions.
Her throat felt tight and narrow; it hurt to swallow.
“They seemed eager for you to be gone. Relieved, somehow.”
Ravenna let out a ragged breath. “Now you’re being cruel.”
He lifted an indolent shoulder. “I’m proving my own point.”
“Which is?”
“Humans and their love of money. It’s all they seem to care about.”
“It’s a bit rich to disparage the human race when it is you and your immortal family who justify kidnapping to suit their interests.”
“Butwehave never pretended to be anything other than what we are,” he countered.
“Despicable?” Ravenna said coolly.
“I’ll allow morally bankrupt.” The corner of his lips turned downward. “Like self-righteous humans who say they care for a family member, only to be distracted by coin.”
Ravenna inwardly cringed. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe her worst fear had come to pass, but she wouldn’t know until she saw her family again. What mattered now was acquiring more information. Just what manner of man was she dealing with? A creature with both a human side and an inhuman one? “What are you?”
“What areyou?” he countered. “You say you’re human but I’ve felt and seen your magic at work.”
Shame burned in her cheeks. “I’m not a witch, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“Aren’t you?”
Her voice shook in an effort to control the emotion powering through her. “There are only two magical talents I inherited from a witch ancestor. By any measure and definition, I am not a full-blooded witch.”
“I didn’t take you for a liar, Samaritan.” His dark eyes narrowed. “You’re hiding something, I canfeelit. How powerful are you?”
Ravenna was the eldest of five children. She could see his attemptto rile her from miles away. She returned his narrow-eyed look. “Are you always this suspicious?”
“Live as long as I have, and you’ll have good cause to be.”
“I am a human who is ashamed of the little magic I possess. That’s the truth.” She drew a breath. “Have you always been immortal?”
“What a question, Ravenna.”
“Well, you don’t follow the rules of polite conversation so here we are. We don’t know each other, so we may as well—”
“But I do know you,” he said softly.
“Really.”
“Whatever else you are, you are also human,” he said. “Every one of you is the same.”
She jerked her own chin up. She thought of the many people she’d crossed paths with, their differences, not just in appearance but in their hopes and wishes and desires. No two people were alike. Anyone could see that. “You’ve drawn the wrong conclusion.”
“Have I?” He waited a beat. “We’ll see.”
She stared hard at him as her intuition spiked. Emotion bled out of him, hard to define, but it reminded her of a time when her brother had wished, above anything else, to see a group of traveling troubadours performing in the piazza one summer. He had begged their parents until they finally relented. But the experience hadn’t lived up to his expectations.
