“Then you pity me,” I snap.
Her denial is a shout, clear and certain. “No!”
That’s when she looks up.
For the first time since I found her in the snow, she looks at me.
Finally, she sees me and her gaze nearly drives me to my knees.
Her eyes are the palest green, but the life within them, the hope and desperation, steals the breath from my chest. I know without a doubt that if my deep light was not burned out, it would be spilling around me now.
I wait for a hint of recognition on her face, searching her eyes, unable to deny my hope that maybe she remembers me. Maybe she woke up, even for a small time in the mountains and she knows I kept her warm.
My hope fades when she looks at me without recognition.
She doesn’t know me.
She doesn’t know the price I paid for her life.
I expect her to quickly look away, to focus past my face like everyone else does, but…
She doesn’t.
Her gaze passes briefly across the splattered blood and gore on my bare chest before returning to my face, where she peers intently at me.
Her eyes widen as if something has surprised her.
Am I not what she expected?
Am I not furious enough? Vicious enough? Hateful enough?
I give her a dangerous grin, baring my sharp, canine tooth.
“I have no pity for you,” she says, her gaze impossibly unwavering.
“Then give me your hand,” I challenge her, certain that this will ensure she hates me because by now, she must have heard how I went about killing her people today.
“No.”
She defies us.
Skirra’s response is delighted.
But maybe I can use her defiance. Maybe I can find the words to tell her to come with me…
At that moment, the sound of the mob of humans converging on the castle reaches me.
I’m running out of time. I snarl at her instead of reasoning with her. “Give me. Your fucking. Hand.”
She won’t give it to me. I know it.
I will have to take it.
I’m reaching for her as she says, “Only if you let them live?—”
My hand is already closing around her right wrist, wrenching her upward, harder than I intended—damn this new strength—but there is nothing gentle about me now.
She tries to hold on to her siblings, but they tumble from her arms and land on the floor. They’re reaching for her, crying for her, but it only takes me seconds to pull her away from them.
