I gulped, wanting so badly to hate him as much as he hated me. And maybe part of me did. He’d thundered in and upended my life. But it didn’t matter. I knew the source of his loathing, the very core where bitterness festered, because I had sparked it. And yet… still the attraction remained.
“Tell me something awful,” I pleaded.
Lids narrowed, he growled, “When I snuck into your realm, I…watched you,” he admitted.
I blinked, my heart thudding in my chest. “You mean youspiedon me?”
“For hours. I took what I told myself were surveillance photos.”
And I hadn’t known. Stomach flip-flopping, I licked my lips. “Did you stare at the photos when you got home? Nein, don’t answer that.” I was already nuzzlingcloser to him. If he confirmed my suspicions, I might start purring.
“Your turn, majesty. Share something awful.”
I fisted his shirt, wrinkling the material. Thinking, thinking. I should send him fleeing in terror or disgust. “I…well, I went through a decades-long phase where I collected the eyeballs of my shifter kills in jars.”
Rapid blinking. Any second, he would pull back. Wash his hands of me.
“Seriously?” he asked, almost… amused.
I hiked my shoulders, a little dazed by his subdued reaction. “Even though the shifters were dead, I wanted them to see how many of their kind I slaughtered.”
His fingers flexed on me before he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why do I suddenly find that charming?”
The words themselves were a shock, but not the reason behind them. “You know why,” I whispered hoarsely. Our bond had deepened.
I fought to retreat from this new, worse awareness, reminding myself of his most recent rejection.
We need to discuss what happened in the cave.
Nothing happened. We were basically drugged.
But that made no difference. So I reminded myself of the truth. If I continued down this road, I would eventually convince myself he was the phoenix, and that he would rise from ashes.
But he wouldn’t.
And I would lose him.
“I want to kiss you again,” he snapped out of the blue.
Breath caught in my throat. I thought of a hundred reasons to say ja, but only one to refuse. “This time, we can’t blame the bond,” I said. “And that’s why it can’t happen.” In the dawn of this new day, I knew better. Thecave might have drugged us, but honestly, it had only amplified a desire we’d already felt.
“Right here, right now, I can’t bring myself to care that you’re the Locke Killer,” he admitted, a harsh statement with frayed edges.
“Nein,” I blurted out, shaking my head, not knowing what else to say. Hemustresist. I couldn’t do this on my own. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t look at me like that.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Like you’re looking at me? As if you can already feel my mouth on yours?”
Desperate to swoop down and taste him, I wrenched to my feet. “There are two ingredients remaining. The Bloodpetal Blossom grows a half day’s flight from here. We should go.” Ja, ja. Let us go.
“Right.” His expression blanked, and he rose with surprising grace. The poison left no lasting mark.
As we cleaned up with toiletries he’d packed, I worked on my breathing, finally calming. Then we set off for the mountains at the edge of Emberwood, not saying another word as wind whipped between us.
We landed at the peak of the tallest mountain for a short break. After all, I didn’t want my—thehuman freezing mid-air. While there, I sent a proof of life selfie to Adelaide. Taron watched but tried to pretend he wasn’t, and I caught myself putting a little extra umph into the pic.
Off we set, sailing through the atmosphere once again, silent. As the peaks fell away, the jagged snow-capped rocks tapered to rolling lowlands. The crisp mountain air faded into warmer breezes, steeped with wildflowers and shaded groves.
Finally, we landed at a line of huge flowering trees.
