“Yes,” I said, studying his opaque gaze. “It would seem we are.”
He nodded. “It would seem so.”
He reached forward then—so slowly, so nonthreateningly, that I let him. He dropped his hand into my coat pocket and pulled the brooch free.
“I need this,” he said, and finally, he gave me the smile he’d always worn. The up-to-no-good, “you’re going to like this, let’s have fun” smile.
I let out a breath. It fluttered like an injured bird between us.
I wanted to step back. I wanted to run. My heart flopped once: a hard, uncertain thud.
“You’re going to let me pierce you.” He flicked the pin free, holding the sharp end so it caught the muted light.
“I am?”
He stared at me, and then, ever so slowly, he winked. “You are.”
“I don’t think so.”
Faster than I’d ever seen him move, he had me pinned against the wall. I struggled. I kicked. I shoved. I did everything I could to twist free. But then Luvic made a rattling noise in his throat.
I stopped. My skin, my blood, ran cold.
Ever since I’d become a mine, I’d been hot. Burning, stuck-in-a-furnace hot. But at that deep rattle, my insides turned to ice. It swept through me and froze me in place.
Nausea twisted through my stomach, and a cold sweat broke out on my head. I could remember their claws ripping at my intestines; I could feel their hot breath on my neck; I could hear the rattling in their throats.
“You’re . . . you’re . . . Why are you a . . .?”
Luvic bared his teeth. A predator. I’d been wrong. He didn’t move like a cat. His eyes didn’t glint like a cat’s. There was nothing catlike about him.
He was a . . . “Jackaltooth?”
He struck me with the pin. I kicked, bucked, and fought, but he held me with more strength than he’d ever had when he was only a man.
“I’ll kill you,” I hissed. “I will kill you.”
He squeezed my finger, forcing the blood to well. Then he smirked and jabbed his own finger with the sharp pin. “You need to work on your threats. Especially since you’re evil now. A mine.”
“Better than a jackaltooth.”
I hissed as he pressed his bloody finger against mine. A hot sizzle pulsed between us. Tiny prickers stung the sensitive skin of my finger. It felt like a ball of thorns scouring and biting. I tried to pull away.
Luvic growled—that cold-blooded throat rattle—and kept my hand beneath his. “Leave it.”
“Killing you wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.”
“Mm-hmm. You won’t kill me, Mari. You’re stuck with me. Whether you want it or not.”
A fuzzy-headed dizziness filtered through me. It was a honey-sweet, sticky sensation. Cloying and thick.
Luvic’s face softened and became less predatory. His eyes unfocused, and the luminescent glitter faded. He took in a deep breath as if he were smelling fresh air after being locked in a basement for years.
“Hell,” he said, and his voice was filled with relief.
He smiled down at me, his mischievous Bard smile. I blinked. The dizzied honey sensation was already clearing. He almost looked like his old self.
“What did you do to me?” Jagger’s blood hadn’t even noticed the pinprick. I didn’t feel any different. I felt nothing.
