Figured out what exactly?
Landon and James… or Dray’s ability to sense?
I wait, tongue bitten, for him to elaborate.
He doesn’t.
I take the bait. “Your sense?”
He brings the cigarette to his lips and draws in a long, final inhale.
“That,” he starts, smoke billowing out of his mouth as he flicks the cigarette out the window, “and the other thing.”
I turn my cheek to him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
In a blink, he’s pushing off the windowsill and advancing on me.
Instinct steels me as he comes up to my side, his chest a whisper against my arm.
He reaches around me for the bottle.
I watch as he pours two more serves.
I don’t stop him.
I don’t know why I don’t stop him—I just don’t.
“Landon’s intentions in latching onto you are to keep himself afloat among the aristos.” Dray swaps out the bottle for my filled glass, and he hands it to me. “The sister of Oliver Craven is suddenly a very attractive friend to keep after graduation. Particularly when one might slip into gentry.”
“He’s your friend.” I take the glass, harsh. The liquid sloshes, but I snub the slight spill and frown up at him. “You could help him. You have that power. But you mock him.”
The second glass is ignored on the table.
Dray reaches for my jaw, turning my face to align with his, that soft smile still settled on his pink lips.
“If I were to give you a gift,” he says, his tone a gentle sort of mockery, “a favour, what would it be? To help Landon? Is that what you would choose?”
My mouth turns down at the corners.
His gaze drops to my lips, and I suffer the faint echo of a memory…
‘Your mouth is a bit crooked… right here.’
His eyes run over the shape of my mouth, a caress of ice and distance, of a cold abyss that yearns to swallow me whole.
‘When you talk, it lifts highest here, like you are always on the verge of a snarl…’
“Everyone in this society is out for themselves,” he murmurs the truth to me. “You have witnessed your friends, your own brother,me, throw you to the wolves—and no one stood up to defend you.”
His gaze lifts to mine, blue flames burning in the shadows.
“Maybe you should start doing the same.” Fingers still pinched firm on my chin, he inches closer, bringing his lips to mine. “Maybe it is time you thought about serving yourself,Little Life.”
Those final two words are a sword through a reinforced bubble.
I flinch at the reminder of that day, of what I had and what was taken, a reminder stronger than any words he can spin around me now.
I yank back with a firm step.
