Her eyes blaze. “A few minutes is not enough. I’m tired, I’m dirty, and I can’t walk anymore.”
Nothing remains of her pliant Similian ruse. Now, there is only tempered steel. I can’t decide whether to be thrilled or terrified at the abrupt change in her demeanor.
As if sensing my unease, her fingers travel slowly along her throat. I swallow roughly, telling myself to look away, but my eyes remain glued. Her skin is mottled and angry where Eulogius wrapped his hideous hands around it and hot rage surges within me. I should have peeled his skin from his body. Slowly.
“I need to rest,” she insists. Her fingers linger on the point where I pressed my dagger, invisible from this distance. Her throat bobs as she swallows under my stare, but her eyes don’t leave mine. A challenge.Look what you’ve done. Soulless monster.
A boiling wave of shame and rage wash through me. I choose the more manageable of the two emotions, the one that’s granted my survival all these years. “Yes, I imagine being nearly murdered multiple times in two days must be exhausting.”
She doesn’t take the bait. Only blinks balefully at me, her eyes as green as grass and as wide as a fawn’s.
I curse loudly and throw my pack to the ground. “We’ll camp here for the night. You can bathe and rest,” I glare at her hotly, “And in the morning, we’ll travel without stopping until we find Max and Cal.”
The last sentiment sounds more like an animalistic snarl than words, but she merely nods obediently.
I don’t believe for a second that she’ll do anything obediently, but I see no other way to persuade her west aside from physically dragging her.
I dig around in my bag and toss her a bar of soap. Homemade and unscented, but its new. “You can wash there,” I grunt, motioning to the shallow edge of the stream.
“And where will you be?”
I cock an eyebrow. “Here.”
Her eyes widen minutely. A wicked grin spreads across my face. “You didn’t really think I’d trust you alone for a second after that stunt you pulled yesterday, did you?”
Irritation flashes across her face, telling me that she’d quite clearly thought that. I would tie her to a tree if it kept her from running back to the Praeceptor’s army. Of all the things I’ve done to her, I can’t bring myself to regret that one.
“But you can’t…I mean,Ican’t…” she stutters helplessly. A delicious shade of rose flushes her pale cheeks that sends a thrill straight through the center of me.
I wipe the grin from my face. “Relax, Lemming. I’ll turn around.”
She clutches the soap to her chest and eyes me suspiciously. “You can’t peek,” she tells me haughtily.
“I won’t.”
“You have to promise.”
“And what would my promises mean to you?”After everything.The remaining words don’t need to be spoken because they hang in the air as if permanently nailed there.
She glances longingly at the stream, and I know before she says it that her desperation to be clean is victorious against her Similian sense of propriety. “Fine. Turn around.” She glares at me expectantly.
Unable to help the sly grin that pulls at the corner of my lips, I do as I’m told. I lean against a tree, crossing my arms and closing my eyes. I try to focus on the sound of the leaves rustling, of the water pouring over stones, of pretty much anything other than the sound of that ridiculous jumpsuit scraping against her skin as she undresses.
I refuse to picture that skin. Refuse to spend one more moment pondering the probability of it feeling like fine silk if I pulled it against mine.
When I hear the sound of the water lapping gently against her toes as she wades into the stream, I feel as though I’ll burst out of my own body. A hiss of pain escapes her and its only through sheer force of will that I don’t leap to her side.
“Is everything okay?” My voice sounds strangled, even to me.
“I’m fine. I just cut my foot on a stone.”
I don’t like the idea of her blood running freely into the stream, but the sound of water lapping against her resumes, so I force myself to relax. To think of something else.
“Are you ever going to tell me why you barreled out of Similis as if you were on fire?”
“Are you ever going to tell me why you kidnap women and what you plan to do to them?”
“Woman, singular,” I correct primly, “And I’ll tell you when its necessary for you to know.”
