“I was taught with pain,” he told me, making me freeze. “But that’s because I responded to it most. That won’t apply to you. But maybe another’s…”
Crouching, he unsheathed a dagger that I realized he had strapped to the side of his calf. When I realized what he would do, I gasped. “Don’t!”
The tip of the blade was poised over his hand.
Even still, I felt my magic rise, and I gripped onto it with desperation. “Don’t do that because it’ll drain me to heal you.”
“Then don’t heal me,” Alaryk growled. “Can you feel it?”
“Yes…but it’s slipping. Because I’m annoyed with you,” I snapped.
The wrong thing to say because he brought the blade swiftly across the palm of his hand.
I gasped, dismayed, as black blood bloomed. “You’re insane!” came my shrill cry. “Why would you do that?”
The magic rose, beating against my chest. But no, I wouldn’t reward this. I didn’t like this. And so I snuffed out whatever tendrils I felt winding their way around me, like little ribbons encasing me.
“I’m not doing this,” I said, beginning to turn on my heel, feeling suddenly cold. “I don’t care ifyouused pain to help train yourself. But I won’t participate in this. It’s twisted and?—”
His uninjured hand gripped my arm and turned me back toward him. He’d moved so fast, one moment crouched, the next looming over me.
“I think you’re afraid,” he murmured, his voice silken, like hot blood wasn’t dripping from his palm, tinging the air with a metallic scent. “You’re afraid to embrace it because you’ve had to keep it secret your entire life. Because you thought it was your own curse, one that could get you and your family punished. And so you’ve shoved it down so deep it won’t respond unless threatened.”
“What are you doing?” I asked, struggling against him.
“Threatening you,” he growled.
I looked up at him in surprise. This close, I realized how much larger he was. How much stronger. All of these things I’d known, of course. But knowing and being fully pressed against that realization were twoverydifferent things.
“You won’t hurt me,” I murmured, keeping his eyes as his heat sank through my clothing, until I could feel it warm my skin. “I know you won’t.”
“No, but I’ll hurt myself to get you to respond,” he told me. His vision went cloudy. “Maybe a part of me will even like it.”
Shock funneled through me. At the rumble of a confession in his voice, like it was one I hadn’t been meant to hear.
“I don’t want that,” I said, my words brittle. “I don’t want you hurt.”
There was a wildness in his gaze that hadn’t been there before. Had it been brought on by the pain? Something sharp but something unpredictable…it was tangible. There was a buzzing energy rising between us. I realized I didn’t know him at all. Especially as aKarath, I thought that he might toe the edges of boundaries more than most. Because he needed to.
“There are those who would take advantage of you, Amaia,” he rasped. “There are those who would hurt you for what you possess. And throughout history, pain has been more enticing and more easily controlled than anything else. Love. Kindness.Lust.It would serve you to identify what you need to control your own magic…before someone else does.”
What Tarkosh had said had been right, hadn’t it? Was I in danger in Karak?
I could see the pain in his eyes. Perhaps it was foolish of me, but it made me soften. If only slightly. I reached down to brush my fingertips across the back of his sliced palm, feeling my magic bloom. Not hurried or rushed though.Steady.
“Don’t do this again,” I whispered, feeling my magic ball up inside me like yarn waiting to unravel. “I use my magic when it’s needed because Idon’twant pain when I can give relief instead.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
“Ah, I see,” he whispered. He tilted his head down. “No pain for you,mariss. You only need softness. Pleasure. How opposite we are.”
The cavern seemed to sway when he reached up to trace my face with his fingertips. Confusion swam in me as I stared at him in surprise. At the warm glide of his touch and the way it made a shiver race down my spine.
“Let me teach you this, then,” he murmured. “Seduction hasits own place within magic. But seduction is just another method of control. It’s more pleasant than pain, perhaps, but also more cutting when wielded recklessly.”
I blinked, my thoughts thick and syrupy. “I…I don’t understand.”
“Using one’s magic is like seducing a lover,” he told me, making me suck in a low breath, my heart beating in my throat. “There is a push and a pull. There is power in holding it back and knowing when to release it.”
