He tears his gaze away, almost unwillingly. And when he sets it on me, it’s devoid of the vulnerability he’d contained last night. Devoid of anything soft. His mouth twists wryly, and that unrestrained intensity flares in the endless black pits, the one that speaks of cruelty and pain. Of obsession and wild abandon.
The air pulls tight between us. His eyes narrow as he watches my throat bob in a slow swallow with predatory focus.
But he doesn’t make a move toward me. Only remarks in a flat tone, “You didn’t slit my throat in my sleep.”
I immediately bristle, and a vague part of me wonders at how adept he is at sifting through any goodness I possess to pull out the blackest parts. Not that they’re hard to find, but Niko doesn’t seem to have any interest in the fact that I saved his ass, or that I’ve spent half the night worrying over whatever magical disease ails him.
I didn’t expect him to fall on his knees in gratitude, but an acknowledgement would be nice.
“I don’t have the proper weapons for demon slaying,” I reply lightly. “And with my luck, you’d probably sprout another two heads if I tried to remove yours.”
A hint of a smile tugs at Niko’s mouth as he regards me, but when his eyes drift back to the ship, all traces of humor disappear. Abruptly, he thrusts his feet beneath him, standing so fast that his legs, weakened by his episodes, nearly buckle. His body wobbles precariously close to the edge of the sloped wall, and instinctively, I leap to my own feet and duck beneath his arm.
My body presses into the side of his far larger one, and my hand goes to the small of his back, steadying him before we both topple into the cave basin.
It’s the wrong thing to do.
Niko’s nostrils flare white in fury, and he jerks away from me with an angry hiss on his lips. “Don’t touch me,” he spits, his words landing like a blow to the chest. A blow that immediately ignites everything I’ve shoved down over the past hours. The fear, the worry. All of it explodes, his cruelty a spark to the tinder of my heart.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” I shout back indignantly, chucking the canteen square at his chest. He snatches it deftly out of the air asI go on, “Next time, I’ll just leave you to rot on the beach instead of killing myself dragging your gigantic ass all the way here.”
Niko pales, but his anger doesn’t abate as he watches me. It only seems to fester, feeding into the crimson heat of my own.
“I apologize Oh Holiness of Rot,Your Putrid Majesty! How dare a peasant think to lay her unworthy hands on you to save your life—"
“There would have been nothing to save if you hadn’t endangered all of us by leaving the palace,” he grits out.
I level him with a dead stare, at once trapping all my anger, my fear, my worry beneath a steel wall, the way I always do. Down, down, down where it can’t be touched. Where it can’t touch me. Familiar icy numbness washes over my skin.
“You’re the King of Death. Whowouldn’ttry to escape from you?”
His flinch is miniscule. A long blink, a flicker of his jaw that’s hardly noticeable. But I’m practiced enough at hurting others, at pushing them away, that I see it—see how deeply I’ve wounded him. And though a part of me is ashamed, another part croons in victory.
Because even the mighty Carrion King can be hurt. And there’s power in being the one to have done it.
Niko swallows, digging his teeth into his lower lip as he watches me furiously. But to my surprise, he doesn’t strike back. He’s seen enough of me that he could strike and strike true. He’s been too observant since the moment we met, and I realize suddenly,thisis why I fear him. Not his cruel mouth or his hot temper or his ribbons of decay. It’s that it only took a few moments of knowing me for him to peel away all my carefully constructed layers, down to the most vulnerable parts of myself.
The parts I don’t want to acknowledge.
It makes him far more of a threat than his unnatural magic does.
“Were you hurt?”
I blink. The question is ragged, like it’s been pulled from his throat unwillingly, but his eyes blaze as they continue to run over me, cataloguing the details of my skin, the subtle movements of my limbs.
He’s taking inventory,I realize. I don’t shrink back from his gaze though all my instincts urge me to. To melt away into nothing; to disappear before he discovers anything more.
Niko takes my silence as confusion, and clarifies, “Before I arrived. Did they hurt you?”
“I—”
“Did that piece of shit Dawson lay a finger on you?” Each word is the lethal lash of a whip in the cool air. The violence of it should chill me to the bone, but instead, something in me warms.
“No…No, I’m just…” I search for the right word.Terrified. Furious. Confused.“Shaken up.”
It’s a lousy way to describe everything that’s happened, and judging by his sharp gaze, Niko knows it.
“I didn’t—” He cuts himself off, releasing a heavy breath and pushing his fingers through his already wild hair. “I thought I was too late, Willa. That I’d arrive only to find you carved apart.”
