I try to bring my knee up to his groin once more, but he holds me so tightly, the movement only serves to move our bodies closer together. Every part of me is pressed against every part of him and acute awareness threads through me. I shift, trying to quell the restless agitation that suddenly plagues me, reminiscent of heat lighting on a Similian summer night.
Where did the knife go when Shaw forced it from my hand? It must still be close. If I can distract him long enough, I can—
“If you’re thinking of stabbing me again, might I suggest aiming for the neck?” Shaw suggests lazily. “Or the heart. Or really any major organ. You didn’t even manage to hit a kidney.” He releases the hand pinned by his injured arm. As if daring me to do something with it, he traces a finger across my jaw in a sizzling line of electricity.
I snap my teeth at him and he laughs loudly.
“What is wrong with you?” I huff, thrusting my hands against his chest. He moves off me easily, as if letting me know it is only by his grace he’s moving at all. “Are you honestly telling me how to stab you better?”
Shaw shrugs, leaning back so he’s perched on his ankles. He twists and yanks up what’s left of his undershirt, examining the wound I gave him. After a moment, he says, “You should learn to protect yourself. Especially if you’re planning on continuing your suicide mission after we part ways.”
I glare at him. “You say it as though it’s going to be something amicable. As if I’m still going to be in any condition to leave once you’re through with me.”
The amusement fades from Shaw’s face and something flashes across his features too quickly to place. Embarrassment? Anger? “I told you before, I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“Your word is worth nothing. You’ve already hurt me, Shaw. Youshotme! The only reason I’m still alive is because you missed!” The violence that was running rampant through me moments before returns with fervor. I hoist myself up and shove him bodily. He stumbles back and I know it’s only because he allows it. He’s already proven that I won’t be able to move him if he doesn’t wish to be moved.
His eyes are wide, and he holds up his hands like he comes in peace. As if a man like him can ever come peacefully. “I told you, Mirren, I don’t miss.”
The sound of my name on his lips is a song, but I force myself to focus beyond it. I narrow my eyes. “What are you saying?”
“I am saying that Ido not miss,”Shaw draws out his words as if I’m being intentionally slow and I have the distinct urge to stab him again.
My fingers wander unbidden to the slice across my cheek. “Are you saying that you…that you grazed my cheek on purpose? That’s…” I pause, bewildered. “That’s impossible.”
He shrugs. “Think what you want, Lemming,” he replies, bending to retrieve the dagger from the ground. He swipes it against his pants, clearing the blade of his blood, until it gleams once more. By the Covinus, I actuallystabbedhim.
He pinches the blade between his fingers and holds it out to me, handle first. I watch it warily, as if it’s a poisonous snake poised to strike. Shaw laughs dryly. “It’s not going to bite. Take it.”
I do no such thing. He never does anything without an ulterior motive, even if at the moment, I can’t see what it could possibly be. “Why would you give me a knife?” I ask dubiously.
“Well, Lemming, let’s see. You’ve been kidnapped, nearly sold into slavery, and then kidnapped again. Then you were nearly tortured and raped and then, once again, kidnapped. So, it would seem, you are in need of a weapon. And the knowledge of how to use it.”
“Half of those things were done to me by you,” I point out irritably.
Shaw only shrugs in agreement. He peels my fingers back gently from where they’ve been clutched in a fist at my side. I ignore the scorching heat that blazes inside me as he places the dagger in my palm. I know nothing of weaponry, but even I can see its beauty. The hilt is curved and though it feels strong, it looks delicate; crafted from ivory and carved with an ornate, trailing design. I allow him to curl his own fingers around mine until the knife is tightly in my grip.
“Why did you come back?”
The question startles me. When I glance up at Shaw, he is watching me intently, the corner of his mouth turned down. “Why didn’t you run? I told you to run.”
His natural assuredness has given way to abashed quiet. As if the question was pulled from his throat against his will when he isn’t even sure he can bear the answer. I wonder again what kind of world has shaped him into what he is, what kind of history makes the worth of his own life something to be questioned.
The answer pours from me, unbidden. “I wouldn’t leave you to die.”
Shaw considers me for a moment longer, then drops his head and nods. He sucks in a ragged breath, stepping away from me. I feel the lack of him as intensely as his presence.
“I owe you a life debt.”
I’m unable to keep the startled gape from my face. “You owe me nothing.” Which isn’t exactly true, but how does one even begin to tally what the things Shaw has done are worth? Not his life, surely. I already decided no one’s life is worth their sins back in the Praeceptor’s camp, even if I didn’t intend to.
“I have need of you and then I will let you go. And,” he hesitates, as if the words pain him. “And once I do, I cannot add another death to my conscience.”
Another? How many deaths does he already carry?
“I’ll help you do whatever it is you came here to do. To find who you came to find,” his eyes plead, for forgiveness or penance, I’m not sure, but I find I can’t look away. Because he’s offered me the one thing I can’t refuse in spite of everything that’s happened between us—a way to help Easton.
It’s too good to be true, especially coming from Shaw’s mouth that is more adept at spewing wry barbs than speaking with any sort of sincerity.
