But was there more to it?
“Pharis…” I began.
“No,” was all he said.
I hadn’t even asked the question yet. The wary look on his face actually gave me the courage to ask it.
“Pharis… do you… care for me?”
“No,” he repeated. “The drawing means nothing.”
Want to repeat that mind-to-mind… big liar?I asked.
Abruptly moving away from me, Pharis went to the door of his suite and opened it.
“Get out,” he ordered. “And take the drawing with you. It’s poisoned with fireweed residue now. I never look at it anyway.”
I had rarely, if ever, seen him so rattled.
And he’d refused to back up his denial non-verbally in the Elven way.
Why do you keep pushing me away?I asked, but again, he refused to respond to my mental question.
“Fine,” I said.
Strolling to the door, I stopped in front of him.
“Why don’t you just use your Sway on me and make me forget what I saw?” I asked softly. “I’m only half-Elven. It might work.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he growled.
“Seriously, Pharis. I want to know why.”
Storm clouds formed in his ocean eyes. He reached for me as if to shake me but stopped, his hands hovering in the air in front of me.
“Do youwantme to control you? Is that it? I made you a promise once never to use my Sway on you, and I keep my promises.”
I pursed my lips. “How noble of you. I’m looking forward to you keeping your promise of releasing me once I’ve learned to use mind-to-mind communication well enough. Will I be seeing you for training today?”
“You’ve trained enough,” he said gruffly. “We won’t be doing that anymore.”
“So you’ll be releasing me now then?” I asked in a dare-you tone. “You said you’d let me leave when I was fully healed and trained. Youpromised.”
Pharis met my eyes reluctantly. “I trained you so I could make use of your glamour gift. I haven’t done that yet.”
“I see. And exactly how do you plan to ‘make use’ of me?”
His jaw hardened, and his eyes darted away, resting on a point over my head somewhere. His nostrils flared with a few shallow breaths.
“I’ll be receiving a series of visitors soon,” he said. “You’ll use your glamour to expose their greatest fears. I’ll send for you when I need you. Until then, don’t expect to see much of me. I’ll be quite busy.”
A grin tugged at the corners of my mouth. So he planned to avoid me—and whatever it was that crackled between us whenever we were together.
“Okay then,” I said as I brushed past him into the hallway.
Then silently, I added,See you around, busy boy.
Chapter 12
