A squeal tore free of my lungs as the Glaith stole it. Stole everything I’d never known I needed, slapping me with a wash of freezing numb I hadn’t the skills to bypass. Hissing, I broke away, trying to fling the offensive shard of blistering cold into the street.
“Stop,” he choked, pulling me with him as he sank to the ground. Back thumping against brick, hands wrapped about mine. Keeping the Glaith secure between us as my pendant dangled from his wrist. Pooling in his lap. “We have to stop before—”
“No!” I snarled, trying to jerk free, to reclaim that inferno and inject it beneath my skin once more. “Who areyouto denyme?”
Hot and hard, his hand found purchase on my nape, pressing his forehead to mine. Dark gaze forcing compliance. “Yourequal.Now stop—Stop!” he snarled, teeth bared, sweat peppering his skin. “You need to learn control before you lose it and get yourself killed. Or worse. You have no idea the kind of danger you’re in, girl.”
I shook my head, fingers of my free hand burrowing beneath his collar, thin skin of my knees imprinting on the cobbles between his spread thighs.
But he pressed on before I could utter a word of denial. “I’ll teach you that control.” His fingers flexed, knotting the fine hairs at the back of my skull, his voice a breathy whisper loud enough for only my ears. “No one knows better than me what you’re hiding. What you are.”
One hand braced above his heart, the other forced to clutch a ring of Glaith with a foreign family crest, it was my turn to be silent as I tried to think through the haze clouding my brain.
Releasing my neck, he gentled, setting a thumb to my bottom lip. “What’s your name?”
“Mm, yes.” A dainty cough made us flinch as one, for there, standing at the mouth of the alley were two Tritan ladies, their long, silver-blonde hair tied in elegant knots. Both wearing the silver mantle of a Priestess. “That’s whatI’drather like to know.”
Chapter 3
“Priestesses,” I breathed, blinking into the shaded half-light. Clutching at the collar of Asher’s crisp uniform with one hand, thick Elite fingers with the other.
Cursing, Asher shifted, dark eyes fixed to the women standing sentinel at the mouth of the alley. In one fluid movement, he stuffed my pendant into his pocket and drew me to stand. Lacing his fingers with mine, our palms surrounding his ring, we shielded our secrets from their senses. Only then did we face them, presenting a united front to the powerful women bearing down upon us.
Cheeks blazing, I glanced at the sharp Caledonian profile of an impossible Elite who’d promised to teach me control.
Mine.
He squeezed my fingers. “Good morning, ladies.”
The younger woman cleared her throat. “You have the divine pleasure of speaking to the High Priestess of the Tritan faith, sir.”
My knees wobbled, any flush of color in my cheeks fled, leaving me dizzy and quite sober.TheHigh Priestess? Goddess above, my father wasn’t going to kill me for being so stupid and selfish—he was going to flay me alive and scatter the remains of my hide over the entire city. For if the High Priestess had sensed me, if she knew my secret, it was all over. Everything we’d worked to conceal so I could remain free of the temple?
Gone.
All of it, gone.
I clutched the ring of Glaith so hard, it threatened to crack beneath my sweaty fingers. Tried to cloak myself in confidence and power once more, forsurelyI was caught. Why else would one of such power and honor comehere?Now? And if, by some miracle, this was a coincidence…
One touch. That’s all it would take. A single moment of contact with my skin, and she’d know.
Elegance in the flesh, the High Priestess stepped into the darkness, watching me down the length of her pin-straight nose. But it wasn’t until her eyes skimmed over our joined hands that something akin to fury cracked through that beautiful mask. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Pressing against a wall of Elite strength, I watched her every movement with the eyes of a cornered animal. Reaching for confidence that was not mine by rights. “I’m sorry, Mistress, I—”
“Not you, girl.” She turned her gaze upon Asher. “Him. What are you doing here, so far from the Senate and that ridiculous royal entourage choking up the courtyard? Haven’t you a duty to attend, soldier?”
Asher inclined his head, slipping his free hand into his pocket. Twice shielded as he toyed with my pendant out of sight. “Just enjoying the day, Your Grace. I had to see for myself if the tales of Tritan’s markets were true.”
“And?”
“They’ve far exceeded my expectations.”
The High Priestess hummed, taking a single step, piercing blue eyes returning to my face. “That doesn’t explain what you are doing with a young Tritan lady, in a dark alley no less.”
Asher shrugged—the high flush and swollen lips answer enough. “I can assure you she’s quite safe with me.”
With a sniff, the High Priestess said, “My, what a comfortthatis,” and came to a halt a scant few paces away. Wary, yet confident, if the stiff set to her shoulders was any indication.
