“I’ll take some fruit first.” I’d hardly been able to eat this morning after sleeping in the same room as him again, though thankfully we’d been in two separate beds.
With a sigh, he settled with his back on his pack, shoulder resting against the opposite side of the cart. He bit into an apple as he stared at the way we’d come.
Birds sang around us, filling the otherwise still forest with layered melody. A breeze rustled through the leaves, lifting a few hairs that had fallen out of the messy knot atop my head.
Strange how mirrored the Issaraeth and I were in our appearances when everything else about us was carved in opposition. I studied him out of the corner of my eye, trying not to be overt in my attention. But of course he felt the weight of it.
All air fled my lungs as he tilted his head to look at me. “Care to share your thoughts, little fugitive?”
I scoffed. That nickname, sometimes dripping condescension,other times veiled amusement, always served to infuriate me. A constant reminder that I had run from him and he’d caught me anyway.
“You could simply read my mind,” I pointed out, digging my nails into the flesh of the orange and peeling.
“Ah, but that barrier is firmly in place, as always.” His lips closed around the apple, and he ripped a chunk away from its core.
I offered him a shy smile. After all, I was supposed to be encouraging him to lower his guard, wasn’t I? “I was observing how similar our hair is.”
His scarred brow rose. “Is that so?”
I motioned to the leather strip tying up the twist of my waist-length locks. “Mine sits atop my head, though.”
He nodded, finishing the last of his fruit and flinging it away. “Because of dance.”
“Exactly. It is standard with Vaelaï,” I explained. “Why don’t you tie yours higher?”
The Issaraeth shrugged, reaching for the bag that held bread and dried meat. “This is how I’ve always styled it.”
From the times I’d seen him take it down and fix it, I knew that his hair only reached his shoulders. Too high, and he wouldn’t be able to secure it all out of the way.
He handed me a strip of jerky, and I set it in my lap while I ate the last slices of my orange.
“Your hair color is also unusual,” I told him.
He finally looked at me again. Something brewed in his eyes, in the way he rolled his lips before speaking again. “Perhaps because I’m a monster? A beast closer to a Demon than an Angel?”
I smothered the instinct to argue. Not because he wasn’t a monster, but because my beliefs had no place in the game I was beginning to play. Namely, that the Demons weren’t sodifferent from us, save for their dark hair, red irises, and sharpened teeth. But that argument—long put forth by Elessarum—would only garner scorn from him. And I needed more than his disdain.
So instead, I reached for him, letting my hand rest on his arm. Energy sparked beneath my fingers. Warm muscles flexed as he shifted ever so slightly. He felt…real. Like he was more than a villain of legend.
I snuffed the thought out before it could flicker down our bond. The damn thing purred at our contact.
“I don’t think you are like a Demon.” It wasn’t entirely a lie, given that I didn’t hold the same hateful beliefs as many other Angels.
He held my gaze for a long moment. “Yours is darker too. Perhaps we were meant to mirror one another.”
His suggestion landed like a lightning bolt, igniting something I wasn’t ready to name. The way he spoke made me think he believed the Goddess chained us together for a reason—not as punishment, but as something more.
Sitting with the thought was wildly uncomfortable.
Yet it was something I could exploit. What terrified me was how deeply I already felt the pull towards a male I hated.
“Perhaps,” I said, not removing my hand. “Ice-blue irises. Your hair is dark gray, mine silver. Your body is built for battle, mine is designed for dance. Both are movements with rhythm, after all.”
“Aye, that they are,” he replied, a hunger rising in his gaze. But it wasn’t only desire for me in it. No, there was something sinister lurking beneath, like he was reaching for control.
He shifted his arm, and my hand slid off of its own accord. His fingers came to rest on the wagon beside my hip, brushing ever so lightly against my flesh. The motion made me acutely aware of hispresence.
When he drifted closer, powerful shoulder nearly touching mine, my breath hitched. “But our values couldn’t be more different. You want peace. I want war.”
