He moves in a flash, ignoring the blow and instead catching my left hand by the wrist and keeping it from touching him.
The force of my attack drives him back against the wall, but instead of trying to push me away, he pulls me closer with his free arm, wrapping it around my back, immobilizing my right arm by wedging it against my chest even as he keeps my dangerous hand captured and outstretched.
Our bodies collide in an explosion of heat that’s nearly my undoing.
There’s barely anything between us but a few bits of material and his will.
His nearness siphons all of my anger and leaves only a terrible burn, an awful need, because there’s still too much distance between us.
I tip my head back, only to meet his eyes and all the terrible pain in them.
“Whywouldyou care?” he snarls at me, the fury I was expecting from him finally surfacing, except that it seems to have nothing to do with where we are or how we got here, but about my feelings for him. “I controlled your life. I had power over you. What sort of sick delusion would I be living under if I thought I had a right to your love?”
“Not a delusion,” I say, sliding my hand up his chest, my fingertips brushing the underside of his jaw. “A determination that one day youwouldn’tcontrol my life. And then we could find out…”
“Find out what, Asha?”
“If we really are enemies.”
His gaze lowers to my lips. “You speak of dreams.”
“I speak of hope.”
He shakes his head at me. His hold on my powered hand is easing and the hard lines in his expression are smoothing out. His free arm shifts across my back, his fingers flexing against my spine.
“Hope will only betray you,” he murmurs.
My left hand is pressed to the wall now. “Hope is all I have.”
He searches my eyes, his hand stilling on my back and his voice harsh. “What did you have to do to save my life?”
The medallion burns at the memories of fire and blood.
Ice flows through me again.
Despite myself, I grin at him, a suddenly dark smile. “I did everything I had to do.”
His hand tightens on my back. “Tell me.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Is that a command?”
His focus flashes to my left hand, as if he can sense the flood of dark magic rushing from it.
He moves without warning, so fast that my heart has barely skipped a beat before I find our positions reversed. My back is pressed to the wall, his left hand pinning my shoulder, his other hand still wrapped around my left wrist, pressing the back of it against the wall, although now he’s leaning toward me.
“Where is your grandmother’s pin?” he suddenly asks me.
My forehead creases. I don’t know why he’s asking, but I have no reason to hide it from him. “It’s on the table.”
He cranes his neck, seems to see it, and then just as suddenly releases me. Hurrying across to the pin, he studies it briefly without touching it. He makes an unhappy humming sound in the back of his throat, possibly because it’s now mangled beyond recognition.
Rapidly turning away from the twisted ornament, he casts his gaze around the room, evidently searching for something else.
His eyes alight on the stretcher and he heads straight for it, crouching and quickly wrapping his hands around one of the onyx poles.
I lean against the wall, puzzled by his actions, the ice in my veins momentarily halted by my curiosity. “What are you doing?”
And why is he doing it?
