A laugh escaped my lips. “I don’t know why you kissed me, but I know why I kissed you.” I met his bewildered gaze. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”
A wrinkle formed between his eyes. “Kissing will keep me safe?”
I tilted my head back and forth. “In a way, yes.” I glanced around the cell, looking for any surveillance. I saw none, but I lowered my voice, anyway. “When the enemy took me, they told me I needed to seduce you.”
The crease between his eyes deepened. “Why? Do they want to watch?”
I smacked him lightly. “Ewww, no. At least, I hope not. They want you to fall for me so they can keep you in line.” When his expression didn’t change, I went on. “They want you to be scared that they’ll hurt me so you won’t try to escape.”
Understanding flickered across his face. “They want to manipulate my emotions and my actions by using you.”
“Exactly.”
“And you agreed.”
I shook my head firmly. “No, I mean, yes. I agreed to them, but I don’t plan to actually do it.”
He frowned. “But you kissed me.”
“Only to make them think I’m doing what they told me to do. If I don’t, they threatened to torture me.”
Kolt stiffened.
“That’s why I’m telling you all this,” I said, “so you’ll know why I’m kissing you or pretending to be in love with you.”
He cocked his head at me. “But you’re not? We’re not?”
“Definitely not.” I smiled at him. “Like I said before, I think you actually find me annoying.”
He shook his head. “I cannot imagine that being true.”
I laughed. “Trust me on this. From what I could tell, you don’t like human women very much.”
He turned and walked to the bench to sit beside the bowls of soup. “I remember none of this, although I feel some suspiciontoward humans, though I do not know why. I only know that Idolike you.”
Oof, this was a mess. If Kolt hadn’t gotten hit on the head and lost his memories, convincing him to play along with me would be a breeze. He might have gritted his teeth through it, but I would have been certain neither of our hearts were involved. But now?
This new version of the Vandar was infinitely more sensitive and more vulnerable. Not to mention, he seemed to believe he liked me. He certainly kissed as if he liked me.
I sat on the other side of the soup bowls, my fingers brushing the etched symbol that was still unknown to me. I’d lost my chance to ask Kolt if he knew the symbol, since he remembered nothing. “You want to escape and get your memory back, right?”
He met my eyes and gave a single, curt nod.
“I want those things too, but we’re going to have to work together and not get emotionally involved.”
He sat up straighter. “Emotions have no place in war.”
That sounded one hundred percent Vandar. So, he did remember some things from his past, although I didn’t doubt that his memories were random and unpredictable.
“So, what do we do?” He picked up his bowl. “We pretend to have an emotional connection, even though you claim we do not?”
I picked up my bowl and swirled my spoon in the murky amber liquid, wondering what in the hell the bobbing glutinous balls were. “We pretend while we continue to work on an escapeplan.” I used my spoon to point to the high window. “That’s a possibility, although I don’t know how I’m going to enlarge the hole enough for you to fit through.”
Kolt stirred his own soup, then he held up his spoon. “You could use this.”
I eyed the metal spoon. It would take a lifetime to scrape away the crumbling stone with such a dull tool. Not to mention that I’d have to do it while balancing on Kolt’s shoulders. “Why don’t we call this Plan B?”
Kolt flipped the spoon over in his palm, gripping the bowl part so that only the long metal handle protruded from his fist. “This could be Plan A.”
