“How to talk without sneering?”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He lifted a hand—a silent request. Wait.
“And I have spent so long hiding my true thoughts from people like Harper that I barely know what they are anymore. Let alone how to give voice to them.” He swallowed hard.
“It’s easier to behave as though we’re holding a knife to each other’s throats,” she suggested.
He half-smiled. “Recently, it has felt as though I’m the one holding the knife to my own throat.”
To her horror, her eyes felt hot, as though she was about to cry. “Give me some credit. I’m the one who practically handed you over to the woman who wanted to destroy your soul. Who’s to say I won’t fuck up and do the same again?”
“You stood in front of death for me.” His eyes were the green of perfect, faultless ice, but warmer than a blazing fire. “And you allow me to care for you at last.”
“If I’d known all you wanted was to serve me—” Her lip was already curling. She covered her mouth, her hand shaking. “I mean—I mean—”
What did she mean?
“Harper used you as a servant,” she whispered. “I don’t want that.”
“That was different.” His eyes shadowed. “He forced me to obey him. I don’t want to obey you. I want to care for you. To look after you.”
“I don’t need looking after.”
“You do. Even when you haven’t got yourself shot on my behalf.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You could have been killed.”
“How could I have done anything else?” He was so close, her breasts almost brushed against his chest beneath the water.
She stared into his eyes, and a dragon stared back.
She couldn’t do this.
She didn’t know how.
Yes, you do,her lioness told her, and gave her the push she needed.
28
Julian
Francine’s lips pressed against his. Her hands were in his hair—not demanding, not desperate, but a slow, intoxicating caress. As though they had all the time in the world. She ran her fingers down his neck, over muscles that had been tense so long they might have been carved from solid stone, and his resolve crumbled.
He’d watched her sleep. Listened as her breaths evened out, as the stink of poison left her veins. The healing herbs were already doing their work, strengthening her body’s innate, powerful healing abilities.
And now she was here in his arms.
“Are you certain—” he began, the words falling from his lips like stones.
Francine pulled back. She searched his eyes, and whatever she found there made the ferocity in her gaze melt into something he’d never seen before.
“I pushed you away for the mission. I pulled you close to pretend to Eloise that we were something other than what weare—” She broke off with a hiccup of bitter laughter. “To pretend that we werewhat wereally are. That this is meant to be.”
She twisted her fingers through his, holding him tight. “We are, aren’t we? This isn’t another thing I’ve gotten wrong?”
How could she think that? “Surely you felt it the first moment we laid eyes on each other?”
“I feel a lot of things.” She gritted the words out between her teeth, and he remembered what Eloise had revealed about her past.
His house cat had been betrayed by her own feelings before. Betrayed into something that tore her image of herself to pieces.
