“I do not eat,” Shade stated, surprising me.
“Ever?”
He shook his head, face shadowed in the fading light of night. I scowled into my stew, frustrated beyond reason at how hard it was to drag information from him. He answered my questions about the lamp and the magic, but anything personal was met with silence or nonanswers. I longed to learn more. To understand.
I had been thrown into this situation with little knowledge as to why, and the magic … Our histories explained little, other than confirming it had in fact existed but left our lands centuries ago.
“How do the wishes work? Can I ask for anything?” I asked before I gulped more of the stew a hundred times better than Ivan’s. If Fallon made it, I would have to compliment him.
“Your wish must be tangible. Something I can manipulate in my surroundings.” His voice rumbled through the tent, moving the frustrated heat on my cheeks to somewhere lower, making me gulp loudly.
With the wishes restricted and being under guard, it would be difficult to escape. I would have to find another way out for us.
I ate the rest of my meal in silence, peeking at Shade between mouthfuls. His intense unwavering stare never left me, and his harsh and dangerous features tugged at thoughts and feelings that were so deep they had never seen the light before.
Not with Ergo. Not with anyone.
How could my feelings about someone I just met be so intense? So instant? My body was reacting like kindle to a flame, burning fast and hot. He was a distraction from my responsibilities. A dangerous one at that. His presence would be constant until I made the last wish. How could I possibly deny this draw for that long?
I downed both bowls of stew and half the bread, eating far more than usual. Once finished, I piled the bowls onto the tray and placed it outside the tent, ready for collection. I hated leaving it there, but Wista’s constant reprimands at my trying to help told me she wouldn’t approve of me doing more.
I slowly turned to face Shade, squeezing my hands tightly at the knot of my robe. I didn’t know how to act, what to say without food to keep me occupied, embarrassed by the knowledge of my immediate attraction to the man before me.
Gods, I hoped he couldn’t tell.
I cleared my throat, blurting the first thing that came to mind. “How old are you?”
Cursing my own bluntness, I turned away, fussing with the already tidy books covering the table by the bed. He hadn’t answered any of my other personal questions, why would he answer this one?
I paused when his deep voice filled the tent. “I lived thirty-three years before entering the lamp.” I turned to face him and jolted; he was closer than before. So close I would only have to lift my hand to rest it against his chest. The hard, muscled chest directly in front of my face.
I trailed my gaze upward, soaking in his wonderfully intoxicating floral and woodsy scent. Those strange markings covering his arms and hands also wound along his neck, stopping under his jaw. An intricate pattern of strange curling shapes. Not unlike the ones covering the lamp. They were inky black, as if someone had taken a quill to his neck and drawn them into his skin.
I moved without conscious thought, my fingertips skimming his neck, dusting over those markings. The inked areas of his warm skin were rougher than the rest. Raised. The same texture as the scar on my knee from when I fell into a rocky riverbank as a child.
Scars. They were dark scars. How he received those marks must have been excruciating.
“Does it hurt?” My question was a breathy whisper between us. Shade’s hand covered mine, and static danced along my skin. When my gaze met his, my breath caught in my throat. Molten silver stared back at me, a swirling so intense the coiling heat I had been steadily ignoring flamed brightly. It pushed to the forefront of my mind, and I was powerless to escape it. How could he elicit such strong emotions, such desire when I had known him less than a day and hardly spoken to him at all?
Was it just our connection? A compulsion created by the magic binding us?
“Adelia?”
I jumped back at Wista’s voice, heat burning my cheeks, and my palm tingled when I pulled it from Shade’s neck. He didn’t move an inch, except to slowly lower the hand that had covered mine. Her eyes darted between us in clear assessment.
“Y-yes?” The hoarseness in my voice spoke to the intensity of the moment she just interrupted, and I cleared my throat before repeating the word more firmly. “Yes?”
“I’m turning in for the night. Do you need anything else?” She looked pointedly at Shade, her meaning clear. Did I need her to interfere, to remove him from the tent and my presence?
I took another step back, increasing the distance between us, and shook my head. Even if I wanted it, there was nothing Wista could do to change my current circumstances. Shade couldn’t leave my side, and I didn’t want him to. If anything, I wanted him closer. I scolded myself for the thought. “I’m fine, thank you, Wista.”
She searched my face, and after finding the truth of my words reflected there, she nodded and left again.
The distance from Shade cleared my mind. Everything about him—his nearness, his intoxicating scent— scrambled my brain.Logic fled and left a wanting so deep and intense I could barely resist it.
I had to though. The strange pull and longing for closeness I’d never felt before, not with any other man. To feel it with him and now, had the potential to destroy everything I had been working toward since my mother’s death. With my newfound understanding of the king’s goals, I couldn’t afford to be distracted. Too much was at stake
Then there was the magic. The two wishes I would still need to make. The fact he emerged from a lamp. Actually … “Do you want to return to the lamp?”
