“I’m sad, Dingle,” I whisper, scratching the goat’s head andneck as I glance about the sumptuous rooms. “We’re going to work with the bad guys. In fact, we might even be bad guys. I don’t know that I like that.” I rub his ear. “We should be doing good with what power we have, shouldn’t we? Isn’t that the point of the gods being exiled? So they can do better?”
This doesn’t feel like better. Not for Kalos.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe someone in charge wants him to be abetterbad guy.
Ugh.
I hug Dingle and try not to feel defeated.
Dingle tries to eat my sleeve.
I’m alonein the room for a while. There’s no sign of Kalos, even though he’d insisted on getting peace and quiet. There’s no one else, either. I wander amongst the mess, tempted to straighten up… and tempted to throw things and make it worse. Is this what I traded my world, my life, for? So Kalos and Seth can team up like some fantasy version of Team Rocket? No thanks.
I eye the lone window in the room. It’s little more than a small rectangle at the top of the wall and even holding up a candle to it doesn’t show me what it looks like outside. I have no idea where I’m being kept or what is outside of this building. I don’t know why I’m even thinking about escape. It’s not like I can leave Kalos’s side. Not without intense pain.
I’m aching all over even now, as if my body is one big bruise.
I search the room for weapons instead. Moving to a nearby table, I heft a heavy marble figurine of what looks like a stylized tree. Some sort of religious symbol, perhaps? I can use thisas a club if nothing else. The door opens just as I pick it up, and I turn, alert, as Kalos enters the room.
He shuts the door behind him quickly. Dingle gives a happy bleat, and Kalos’s gaze finally,finallylands on me.
A snarl of anger escapes me, and I rush toward him, statue-club raised over my head.
Kalos grabs my wrist, stopping me, and stares down at me with those intense green eyes. Before I can say anything else, his mouth is on mine, and he’s kissing me ferociously.
I drop the statue.
It falls to the floor with a bang, but Kalos doesn’t lift his head. Instead, he releases my wrist and cups my face in his hands, continuing to kiss me. It gentles from the first stunning crash of his mouth against mine to soft, gentle kisses that nibble at my lips and make me weak in the knees.
“I had to wait,” he murmurs between kisses. “I didn’t want them to suspect anything. Didn’t want them to realize about you.”
“Oh,” I breathe, and Kalos nips my lower lip, gently sucking on it. My entire body prickles with arousal and I cling to his shirt, following his mouth as he tilts his head, kissing me again.
“Are you well? Did they harm you?” he asks, voice low. He pulls back and scans my face, his expression hardening. “How do you feel?”
“Confused,” I say, even as I want more kisses. But I guess the time for kissing has passed, because his expression is changing, morphing into the anger he was bottling up. “You…so…I don’t understand. What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is that they drugged you and stole you,” Kalos says in a low voice. “I didn’t want them to harm you. I pretended to be unmoved. They brought us to Seth’s strongholdand have been trying to convince me that we should work together. I’ve been pretending until I saw you.”
His thumbs stroke my face, and I lean into his caress. His lips part, and I wait for the sweet love words that are surely coming.
“Now I need you to vomit.”
That breaks the spell. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You ate their food. I can’t be certain they didn’t poison you again, so you need to vomit and we’re going to leave.”
I sputter even as he leaves my side, heading across the room. “Leave? You think they’re going to just let us walk out of here?”
“I don’t think that at all, actually. They’re going to be furious. But I’m not interested in what they want. I’m interested in what you want, and I can tell you hate them both.”
“But if it was up to you?”
He picks up a delicate bowl and tosses the scented dried flowers and potpourri it cradles onto the floor. “If it was just me, I wouldn’t care. I still don’t care about them. But I do care about you. Now, vomit.”
I take the bowl, staring down at it with dismay.
“Wait,” he says, and he’s kissing me all over again. I moan against his firm mouth, because this is better than the time I kissed him at Gental’s celebration. He’d been surprised and unresponsive then—he’s not now. His tongue flicks against mine, and it sends desire skating up my spine.
