“I will.”
For a moment, he only stares at me. Then something wild, flickers across his face, and an unhinged smile slowly spreads.
“I knew you would fall for me sooner or later,” he says coolly. “Look at you already defending my honour.”
The blade slips away from Talia’s throat.
He steps back and looks at her.
“Run. Change academies,” he says coldly. “Change countries. Pray I never see you again. Because if I do, I will kill you.” His eyes snap to me. “I am not as forgiving as my girl here.”
For a second she only stares at him, frozen in place.
Then instinct finally wins, and she turns and runs.
He calls after her, his voice carrying through the trees. “And I will take great pleasure in knowing you lie awake every night, wondering if today is the day my girl finds you and delivers your punishment.”
She disappears into the dark, and silence crashes down around us.
Markev turns towards me.
In one step he closes the distance between us. His fingers slide beneath my chin, tilting my face up. His eyes are alive, cold and burning at the same time.
“It really hurts,” he says low, “that you think I could ever do something like that.”
The words land heavy.
“I am a killer,” he continues, his jaw tightening, “but I would never hurt the innocent, or—”
He stops himself.
His icy blue eyes darken until they are almost black, as though whatever soul he has left slips somewhere cold and unreachable.
He finally wrenches it free. “Rape.”
I nod, unable to speak. And yet he looks at me as though begging me to see the truth.
“That goes against everything I fucking stand for.”
I don’t know why, but I believe him. Something in his face, so raw and wounded, makes it impossible not to. And it is strange, almost unsettling, to see him like this.
His touch softens. He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear, and leans in until his nose brushes my cheek.
I am trembling.
Damn it, why am I trembling?
He is not a monster.
Well, not that kind.
He didn’t rape that girl, that much I know now, so he is not one of them.
But he is still a Markev.
I should step back.
I should not let him touch me.
