“Why not?”
“Not yet,” he amended. “It’s not the right time. Trust me, I have been seeking you my whole life.”
“No pressure.”
Silas nudged my chin up with his thumb. I looked into his eyes. “You defied all my expectations. You are more wonderful than what was promised, more beautiful than I could’ve imagined.”
“This.” My breath felt caught in my throat. “Don’t do this.”
“What?” Silas blinked and backed away, like I’d told him to get his hands off me. “What did I do?”
“You go back and forth between being distant and growly and protective, and then you do this.” I waved my hands like a maniac. “You say such lovely things. It plays with my emotions, and then I don’t know what to make of you. If I’m just a pawn in your plans, then leave the personal aspect out of things.”
I yearned for him to swat away my worries like a pesky fly. It would be so easy for him, so within his reach to extend a hand and cup my jawline, pressing his lips to mine. He could convince me in seconds that he was swept up in this whirlwind too.
It’d assuage all my fears; I’d know that I meant more to him than a strategic piece on a chessboard. But he didn’t.
Silas merely brushed his hands together, like he’d mixed up a birthday cake and was dusting errant flecks of flour onto his pants. Like he was physically brushing away any sign that I meant more to him than a chess piece.
It was all the confirmation I needed. Silas was just protecting his queen. I was the queen in this game, the powerful chess piece who could do things others couldn’t. I was pretty sure he was dead wrong.
“You’re right.” Silas took a step back.
I blinked. It hadn’t been the strategic move I’d been expecting. I’d expected him to grab me, pull me flush to his body, convince me with a kiss that stole my breath that there was more to this. That on some celestial level, we were meant for one another. That he felt the same things I was feeling.
Silas sounded tortured as he said, “I’m taking you home tomorrow.”
I blinked again. My whole body froze. Ice slithered through my veins.
“Home?” I managed. “What do you mean?”
Silas licked his lips, a glimmer of approval in his eyes at my reply, before that, too, was extinguished by a harder darkness.
“I’m taking you back to New York,” Silas said. “I’ll return you to your previous life.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My chest was constricting. I gasped, “Why?”
“I promised you one thing.” Silas’s voice was hard and unforgiving. “I’d never keep you unwillingly, never lock you in a cage—even one as beautiful as this island—without your full consent. There are rumors I kidnapped you to be here.”
“I didn’t—”
“You’ve said it yourself,” Silas said. “Even if I didn’t kidnap you technically, I would have. I would’ve taken you selfishly, because you are the piece of this universal puzzle that can save us all.”
“That’s what you want to believe.”
“I don’t want you here because of guilt or fear or manipulation. There’s a real possibility you could die here. I can’t ask you to die for a cause that you don’t believe in.”
My breath was coming out in gulps.
“I will return you to your previous life for twelve hours.” There was no emotion in Silas’s eyes, and that hurt worse than his words. “You’ll be able to interact with the people you love freely.”
But I don’t love them!my mind screeched. I was mildly fond of my parents, in the sort of obligatory way it felt like a good daughter should be. Simon—well, I’d always been ready to take or leave Simon, but I was more than ready to leave him at this point.
“Silas.” My hands reached for him. I grasped frantically at his tree-trunk arms, my fingernails digging into his skin. He didn’t flinch. “I don’t want to go back. Please. Don’t send me back.”
“I need you to go back.” Silas’s words sounded choked, but he cleared his throat, and his voice returned to granite. “I need you to make this choice before we can move forward with anything.”
“You mean the curse?”
